Casting an aluminum bell - full version 

Thank you sensei ;-)

Hopefully... hopefully... right after Christmas. Thanks

Gee.. generally the bell-shaped nature of my upper torso doesn't inspire such things but... ;-) Thanks Kevin

You know me, can't keep my mouth shut :-D Tin bronze is the plan, 80Cu/20Sn.

@@swdweeb is the tin bronze more resonant? I wonder why Aluminium-bronze isn't used, perhaps it is not suitably resonating.

@@franglish9265 That I don't know. If my flask holds together after I re-pour the tin-bronze, I'll pour an aluminum bronze bell and we can ring all three.

Thank you James

You’re right ;-)

Yeah they did a great job on the remake of True Grit. Open Range is with Duvall and Costner right? I think that is the only one of Costner's movies that I liked. I love the opening to the final shoot out in that one ;-)

swdweeb also I started to prep the coins you made me... I promise to cast them in either brass or bronze before 2019 is over😂😂

Tell you what, I'll race you to see who casts your coins first ;-)

swdweeb Lol you’re on!

Ha! Does it look like I've ever missed a dinner? ;-) Thank you!

Do it man... all it takes is time and money... and money ;-) Thanks for the comment. I really appreciate it. Let us know when you do that firwst casting. It can't be any worse than my first one ;-)

@@swdweeb I have only cast ingots so far. I will be posting a video of my furnace on Friday AM.

Super, I'll watch for it

Thanks Mark :-)

Thanks. Revolting casting character??

@@swdweeb all cast from above bells you cast from below!

Ah... revolting as in going against the next norm. I read it as revolting like something that is disgusting :-D. English is so wonderful ;-)

Yeah I’m with you on that, me too;-)

What?? That's all I hear guys talking about in the gym locker room. ;-) I don't think they're the easiest thing to pour but quite honestly this really wasn't all that hard to do. Lifting all of that sand was the hardest part.

Thanks Gary

I hope so, if not, I'm blaming it on the bronze recipe that you gave me ;-) Thanks bud. Truth be told I like the talky version much better myself. I don't think we're alone as it has more than twice the views of the quickie.

Merry Christmas to you as well Craig. Thanks

Sure John, easy for you to say :-D Thanks

Wait, your welding table is covered in junk too?? :-D Yeah, I've seen that technique of pressing the letters in after its rammed in a couple of videos for real bells.

Hey Ron. When you say 12 inch and 16 inch, how is that measured, The diameter of the rim or the height of the bell?

Thanks!

Thanks Han! I've seen that technique in other videos of real bell makers making real bells. ;-) Merry Christmas to you and Leia as well :-D

Thanks Tony. Yeah, I'm interested to hear it as well

Now you're just being polite ;-) According to my guitar tuner it is an out of tune "b"

swdweeb who am I to argue with a tuner, I'm so poorly trained in music that I can't tell. but it's nothing a little metal reduction wouldn't fix. From what I've seen Bell casters usually machine the inside on a lathe to tune the bells.

@@askquestionstrythings Yeah, I've seen that too. If only I had a low-speed lather and the the instrumentation know what my metal removal was doing :-)

@@swdweeb I guess it depends on how far out of tune it is. I don't think you could go wrong if you chucked it up from the top nub in your drill press, run it at the lowest speed and use a coarse sanding sponge (maybe 60 or 80 grit) to take some off the inside. Take it out, check it with the guitar tuner, and see where it lands. Chuck it up again and make another adjustment, repeat until your happy with the sound. Just a guess from videos I've seen and the U.S. bell my father has (similar size to the one you made) that you want to focus removing metal about 1/3 down from the top and at the bottom lip.

WE'll find that out when I cast the bronze version. I really don;t plan to do it any differently

@@swdweeb great, I'll be looking for it.

BigD is a great guy. Thanks for coming by.

Thanks!

I agree! ;-D

Why, thank you.

Even using the printer, it was a bit of a challenge to do. I ended up projecting a flat 2-D image onto the bell's outer surface then cut away much lf the bell after I did that.

yeah yeah... ;-) I get so focused on screwing up what I'm working on that I forget to check on the camera that I'm screwing up. Merry Christmas to you and yours as well :-D

That is definitely the case if I move my hand down the bell towards the rim. Personally, and realize that I know nothing, I think the sustain is due to three factors, the shape, the thickness and I expect the real culprit, the material. We'll find out if I'm able to cast the same bell using tin bronze soon.

@@swdweeb try drilling a hole through the top part and hanging it on a rope, should be much better, keep up the great videos!

queue the "Jaws" music... it's coming ;-) Hopefully next week.

@@swdweeb awesome subbed and bells rung looking forward to it

Just checked out some of your videos. Man you're making me hungry and I just finished breakfast :-D Thanks brother.

@@swdweeb i dont really do cooking videos much but there fun and more work then you think no room for mistakes lol . thanks for checking my channel out very cool of you .

I cant even imagine the effort involved to cast a bell of that size. Just melting that much bronze boggles my mind.

Te agradece!

Only two problems with that; I still don't have a lathe 😒 and that bell is long gone. I poured it 5 years ago to work on technique. I never intended to actually use it as a bell.

@@swdweeb ok, you`re the boss... I remember that many years ago one of our cooking pots had an aluminum lid, about 12 in in diam. and It had an amazingly long tone. That is why I made a search for aluminum bells. The rim of that lid was very thin, maybe that`s what gave it a pleasant sound. Good work, anyway.

@@viewer7200 I don't know about being the boss, I've got A LOT to learn. I've seen people pouring aluminum bells but I've never really paid too much attention to the thickness of the walls. You're probably absolutely correct that thin walls will ring better. I've poured other flat thin parts in aluminum that actually ring pretty nice... nicer than this bell anyway 😀

If you're referring to pouring from the bottom up, it is entirely about reducing turbulence in the metal while it fills the bell. Turbulence results in porosity. I've got other videos on that phenomenon like these ru-vid.com/group/PLU1QP34Dv8Y6-qXska4MOagRMSVWan40k but there are "professionals" that see the benefit as well. This is a great video from a bell foundry in Austria ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-11R7aVNWbwQ.html. They fill from the bottom.

I modeled the bell and then printed it on a 3-D printer

Thanks. I'm looking forward to the bronze casting

Thanks Ron

Depends on the bell. Some do, some have canons, some simply have a hole in them

I suppose, but how do hand-held bells ring? I might mount this one just to see. You're not the first to suggest that I suspend it.

It probably was. I used to use that but I don't now. I use silicon-free diamond part parting compound now.

@@swdweeb Ok thanks for answer :)

Just looked at your channel and am interested in some of your videos. I'll have to watch after I get off work today.

The name comes from the fact that for the first 30+ years of my career I either wrote software or managed software development. I still write it for fun... now if that doesn't make be a dweeb I don't know what does. Maybe I'm a renaissance dweeb :-D

Sure, blocks of wood could be screwed into the corners or something. I think I've already done that in this flask, I can't remember.

@@swdweeb I think you said you had those ridges. You have quite the back of got videos to work through.

@@junkyardzombie13 I'd ignore some of the early casting stuff, like anything before Sept 14 2018. Nothing but bad technique in there. That should help reduce the load :-D

@@swdweeb sometimes watching mistakes helps understand more when you see it perfected.

@@junkyardzombie13 True enough, but the mistakes like big open sprues, "choking", bad runner and gate design,... aren't pointed out as mistakes and people could get the idea of "this is the way I should do it" when in fact they shouldn't. As I write this, the thought crossed my mind that I should simply mark a lot of those as private so they can't be viewed. I'll have to think about that.

Indeed. Thanks. There are other practical points, it was heavy as it was, making a tall drag...aye yi yi. Then of course, I pretty much ran out of sand with what I had ;-)