Need Help!- Jolt squeeze molding machine

[mblount]

My Wife has been making small Figurines out of 4 or 5 aluminum 2 part mold's by hand for years. She started out as a hobby but people were always wanting to buy her items. Anyhow she wants to buy a Jolt squeeze molding machine. I am not sure were she came up with that name but basically it injects the metal into a mold and presses the two together. She cant pay too much but she wants to automate some of her work. Any suggestions on a CNC machine and is she calling it the right name?

[slowlearner]

A jolt squeeze machine will not do that. A squeezer is used for green sand molding. What you describe sounds like some form of semi solid die casting.

[dlaery]

what material are the figurines made out of?

[mblount]

Zinc

[dlaery]

I pour Zinc and make some key chain figurines. My process is spin casting. I make my own silicone rubber molds and then spin cast the figurines.
This process will copy just about anything and reproduce with very good detail. You might be able to find a used one. Depending on the size of the part you could easily produce 1500 parts an hour. You would need 3 or 4 molds. The molds don't last forever, but are easy to make more molds. Molds would cost about $100 each.

[mblount]

Originally Posted by dlaery I pour Zinc and make some key chain figurines. My process is spin casting. I make my own silicone rubber molds and then spin cast the figurines. This process will copy just about anything and reproduce with very good detail. You might be able to find a used one. Depending on the size of the part you could easily produce 1500 parts an hour. You would need 3 or 4 molds. The molds don't last forever, but are easy to make more molds. Molds would cost about $100 each.

Those look great and I also went to your website. Being in Fl. we all spend a lot of time fishing. I mainly fish offshore out of Daytona the only problem you have to go 50 miles to get to the Gulf Stream. I assume your molds are 2 piece? How do you inject them and is it a forced injection? I will google spin casting. I would love to see a picture of your molds and I assume you cast your jigs?

[dlaery]

I mainly use lead for fishing lures, but I do a batch of the zinc key chains when I run low.
My molds are round with a top a bottom. I put the mold in a spin caster and the spin caster spins the mold, I pour the molten metal in a hole in the center of the mold and centrifugal force fills the cavities of the mold.
If you want to speed up production, this is a good way to do that.
About my website, I just started that to have a web site. what is on there is about 1% of what we actually make. I mainly make fishing lures for other companies.
See if this links works. this shows a mold, there are 3 pics
https://picasaweb.google.com/1042672...Im9rYuoldTc3wE

[mblount]

Originally Posted by dlaery I mainly use lead for fishing lures, but I do a batch of the zinc key chains when I run low. My molds are round with a top a bottom. I put the mold in a spin caster and the spin caster spins the mold, I pour the molten metal in a hole in the center of the mold and centrifugal force fills the cavities of the mold. If you want to speed up production, this is a good way to do that. About my website, I just started that to have a web site. what is on there is about 1% of what we actually make. I mainly make fishing lures for other companies. See if this links works. this shows a mold, there are 3 pics https://picasaweb.google.com/1042672...Im9rYuoldTc3wE

Thanks pretty cool when you are a newbie. There's is a guy from Daytona that makes his own and sells throught all the bait stores in Daytona. I will see if I can google his name. What do you use for a spin caster?

I found it.

Keep in mind this lure is for Sailfish and Marlin. A local Captain makes it for offshore trolling. It's called Todds Lures and he has a lot of distributors but I think he has been making these for about ten years and they aint cheap.

[dlaery]

Here is where I got my spincaster | TEKCAST.com Spin-casting | Plastic and Metal Casting Equipment, Silicone Mold Rubber, RTV, Training - TEKCAST Industries, Inc.
they are a little pricey but I think it is a very good system. They also provided training. I have had this for 10 years.

[mblount]

Originally Posted by dlaery Here is where I got my spincaster | TEKCAST.com Spin-casting | Plastic and Metal Casting Equipment, Silicone Mold Rubber, RTV, Training - TEKCAST Industries, Inc. they are a little pricey but I think it is a very good system. They also provided training. I have had this for 10 years.

Does the spinning machine induce heat? If not why couldn't you use a vertical lathe machine to spin the molds?

[dlaery]

No heat in the spin cast machine. The spin cast machine clamps the top and bottom halves of the rubber mold at 25 to 30 psi, spins the mold at 500-900 rpms. centrifugal force is what fills the cavities. The spru hole or fill gate going into the cavity is very thin so spru removal is very easy, no need for spru cutters. Usually the parts just fall off of the spru. centrifugal force forces the zinc thru the small fill gate. gravity would not fill. A" 12 mold is usually spun at 400-500 rpms, the 9" mold can spin faster because there is not as much force or, the outside of a 12" mold is going faster than the outside of the 9"mold, faster is more pressure or force