close up of casting

[evildrome]

Originally Posted by LUCKY13 LOL, no takers on that question hu. Thats the best looking casting I have seen from a small shop & I wander what it takes to get this good of a result? Jess

20 years experience and some very nice equipment would be my guess.

If you wanted to work your way up to something like this you should start small, like with motorcycle heads or somesuch.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[LUCKY13]

Oh yea, I wouldnt expect to pulling this off from the get go. But I would like to achive casting my own Head. Starting with a small scale of the real part is something I though about. If I can get it right on a head that is 1/5 scale then it wouldnt be as bad to take it up to the real thing. Could probably get the srinkage figured out even at scale. But working with this level of pattarns & molds would be good before I even began to atempt something like this. Even at small scale it would probably take a wail to figure out the proccess to get just right.


A few things I have been noticing is the ones that use good ingots & sand & all the other goodies that go along with it seem to have a lot better results than you see most achive. Even on simple parts. This plus the little things that make a big differance in the proccess apears to be half the battle.

Ofcourse that is the way it is with all skills, the little things that is not noticed by the average eye is what makes the diff.


Jess

[evildrome]

Jess,

You should definitely start small & work your way up.

The good equipment is an emergent property of experience. The good guys have the good gear because they have experience to know what to buy (and how to use it).

Experience is the key, not equipment. You can cast pistons by digging the right shape of hole in the dirt of your own backyard.

If you're just starting buy 'The complete handbook of Sand Casting' by C.W. Ammen (ISBN 0-8306-1043-X ). It is the beginners casting bible. I've read it a dozen times. Read it first & then when you start to cast & mould you'll see the real wisdom in the book.

Here's how I started:

http://www.wilsonlogan.com/Sfurnace01.htm

Cheers,

Wilson.