Casting experiment #1 

Hi Rowan thanks for the great videos, I'd like to share a few tips with you that I have learned teaching myself casting hope it's of some help: 1) talc doesn't make good parting powder, try some parting powder or limestone flour- it won't absorb the moisture from the sand. 2) insert a spike or screw into your pattern and rap it side to side with a large spanner or similar using the jaws, you will get less deformation of the mouldy at the parting line. 3) melt your metal with indirect heat, not under the flame, moisture from combustion is getting into your melt. 4) use cast scrap for castings, wrought or extruded scrap will shrink far more. 5) gate into the thick section, and poke a wire through the highest part of the mould to vent. 6) I think your issues were shrinkage based and not moisture in the sand as the casting had quite a clean finish, steam usually makes the surface like that of the moon! Hope this helps, I'm not an expert by any means! Steve chastain in the US has written some good books on the subject Good luck!

Thank you for sharing your efforts! Pretty good for your first attempt! I'm a hobbiest blacksmith and a professional foundry mould maker. I really enjoy your videos and I found it very interesting to see you take on green sand casting. If I may give you a couple of pointers, you might find it easier to use a smaller moulding box, it doesn't have to be steel, there are plenty of people who use simple wooden boxes for sand moulding and using a box closer to the size of the object you're trying to cast takes out a lot of unnecessary ramming! Other than that, you could try sieving the first layer of sand that you put into the box, the layer that comes into contact with the pattern, this should help improve surface finish.

Mighty nice flask ya got there, beats the heck out of my homemade 2x4 wooden flasks. My first cast piece, was a windshield wiper arm for an Iveco truck, while working in Iraq. I could not get any "real" sand there, and ended up using glass bead (used in reflective paint), and the local clay silt. I even managed to get a tapered core to stay in place, to form the mounting hole. It turned out a little ruff looking, due to the very course class beads, but was a functional piece.

Shrinkage risers need to be attached directly to the thick area. Too small of a connection will chill off befor the riser can feed the shrink.

I know it made a mess, but when it came up out of the riser, the aluminum looked really awesome. Almost like mercury. Looking forward to future videos!

From my limited experience with bronze and aluminum casting: you want a cone-shaped Riser at the top of the thickest part of the casting, and/or two runners on both sides. The size of the riser/runner should be 10-15% of the maximum thickness at the point of contact. So if the piece is 2.5" thick, a cone with the base 3/8" thick expanding out to (50% thickness) 1 1/4" would work. With that same 2.5" thickness; Runners can be 0.25-.375" diameter from each side at the thickest point. Vent the peaks with pins (soldering rod) and the ends furthest away from your cone with tubular risers the same thickness as the end of the part, or the same diameter as the cone base: whichever is greater.

Very nice work, many people i have seen casting, sieve the sand onto the part first, when it's covered they then dog the sand on, may help with the detail issue, i don't know.

Welldone looks amazing and love the description

Would someone please buy this young man some finger nail clippers. Thank you.

Yay, a Rowan Taylor take on casting! From what I’ve been reading on the subject, you’re in for some fun, particularly as you move to casting iron. Didn’t you ever want to build your own foundry, and iron-pouring tools, and… I’m looking forward to more of this series, particularly as you describe (with working audio soon, I hope!) what works and what common knowledge is actually misinformation. Do you have local foundry people available to guide you, or are you learning from online sources-and if the latter, I hope you’ll share which sources you’ll have found most useful.

Try adding thin vent or riser to the highest point of the acorn. 3mm round is enough and easy to cut and file Off. Gas goes up and highest point is the thickest part where you got the shrink hole.

"Oi this lad wot discovered a new metal called it 'aluminum' that sounds not near poncey enough let's call it 'aluminium' instead that's right poncey innit?" -Thomas Young "Sounds good mate." -All English people

Very cool. Have you ever done any bronze casting in the past? The whole casting process is interesting and I'm excited to see more of it.

you are doing great bro

Well have seen plenty of acorns with holes in them :)

Nice you are into casting now! May I give a tip for the next time: try to work more accurate with cutting the gate and runner to prevent sand in your castpiece. Regards Tim

That sand looks red to me. I know its just the name, but redsand would sound cooler IMO.

Might be worth checking out Blists Hill - they do iron casting all the time (I'm sure they would assist you).

When I do aluminium castings I place the inlets in the cope while filling the cope rather than after am I doing it wrong? Looked harder to do afterwards? Sand did look rather wet tho, looking forward to seeing the second one!

Your problems with the talc may be the powder. Many of them contain corn starch (corn flour in the UK) moisture in greensand turns it into glue.

I have found that talc leads to problems with the surface finish, at least for brass and bronze casting. I'm curious to hear if you found and difference in surface finish between the talc side and the coke ash side?

Do you have any specific projects in mind which have led you to learning casting?

Greetings !!!!! Is (Forging a Brown Bess Bayonet) finished ????

What basic pieces could be made by casting? A hammer head? A blade blank?

Mr. Taylor.. are you alright? Haven't heard anything from you in a year.. hope all is well..

Can you tellme the purpose of the long nails????

Could you not pack the sand down with your power hammer?

The problem is opinions everyone has one .so treat them like it's your nose just pic at it till you get the nuggets you want. And wipe the rest on your friends shoulder or back .nothing like a pat on the back for a job done. Thats nasty lol

Awesome job on your first casting think it came out quite well .check out myfordboy he's has about the best casting videos on RU-vid and as always thanks for sharing your talents with us

You really need to watch YT channel "MyFordBoy" for excellent casting videos as well as creating models.

Looks like an acorn.