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I used to do some lost foam castings. I would use joint compound thinned with water to about like milk. and spray on several coats letting them dry between coats. Then I would pour a base layer of sand into my bucket place my part in and pour plat sand around the part. After that I would tap the bucket with a mallet to pack the sand once it was packed down pour my metal. Worked great. I made tons of parts and no water glass.
I have tried a couple different types, but the powder that you mix with water that contains plaster of Paris is the best. A lot of the pre mixed varieties have polymers in the mix (usually some sort of vinyl) and they don't work as well. I'm not sure if it's the vinyl, or some other ingredient, but the pre mixed stuff had tiny pits and dimples in the surface finish.
I really appreciate you showing and telling what materials you use for people like me unwilling to bite the bullet on suspend a slurry... thank u, and awesome content
Absolutely amazing how much detail you captured. Even the 3D printed layer lines and the filament Wiggly's on the overhang under the chin. Excellent work. Thanks for sharing.
A few years ago, Grant Thompson from TKOR made a video where he did this, but with styrofoam models. I've always juggled around the idea of doing that, but with 3D prints, and it looks like your did it first and perfected the idea with the layer of plaster to get all the intricate details. Excellent work! It looks great!!!!
These have such a "How it's Made" vibe to them, it's great. My guess is you were a fan of that show growing up (as I was) and you took some mental notes and made use of them for your videos. Great videos. : )
Great work! I like this molding method, I will have to try it. One note: don't load your crucible cold like that. The aluminum expands as it heats and it's a great way to crack your crucible. Throw a little in the bottom and let the rest preheat on the furnace vent, add once you get a molten heel on the bottom.
Dry wall sealer I believe. Concrete sealer is an entirely different product, an epoxy or some other 2 part resin I believe, which if used here will produce very bad results and also probably some fumes you don't want to be breathing.
4:31 The difference between cans and wheels is that wheeled aluminum has a higher silicon content, which lowers the melting point of the alloy and improves the fluidity of the molten metal.
5:40 You lost a lot of metal off the side of the bucket, there. A small funnel of sand around the entry point would help direct the metal back into the mold.
@@pedroperenne The sand is regular sand. It's the sodium silicate that makes the sand harden up, with exposure to CO2. Google 'sodium silicate casting'. It's amazing stuff. SV Seeker has some cool videos using SS. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qPnSb3yzytE.html
You do some impressive work and your techniques are great. Just one thing your wearing lace up shoes without shields surprises me with all the safety you practice. Keep up the good work and making your videos.
If you do this same model again, I would suggest that you cast it upside down. The gate can be much smaller than the feeder/riser so you could have a much smaller defect on the top of the head.
I'm attempting this right now actually with a handful of parts. I traditionally use my own greensand/water glass hybrid mix to make some fairly large castings, but this time I want to see if I can get a head start on accuracy and surface finish. Believe it or not I'm able to make large 2 part aluminum casting molds with homemade greensand. Hoping this method will help with cleaner casting (which already looks like delft clay casting surface finish- but at a huge expense of time and effort)
Very impressive. Another version of this is being used with powdered steels. The print gets placed in a steel tube (cannister). The outside gets filled with 1085 and the inside with 15n20 or 1085 with 5% nickel. Its heated to forging temperature and compressed in a hydraulic press. The pla is organic and burns off as carbon. Some very detailed mosaic patterns for knife blades etc are being created. Its very new and likely the next big thing in mosaic pattern welded steel (damascus). Thought it might interest you.
In the foundry I worked at, we used pour basins over top of the sprue so that a constant flow of metal goes into the mold without any air. It also reduces spillage.
Using the angle iron to protect from vent splatter is genius. I have done something similar, but I'll be damned, the angle iron is easy and does a GREAT job. Thanks a bunch!
Mechanical engineer from forge foundry background yes you can reuse most metal sand etc in the industry we reuse it after filtering and grinding again to ensure no big parts and magnets to remove from ferrous metals etc good luck if it feels and looks good enough to use it probably is not hard 🤞✌️
It was very helpful! I don't know if the same materials are available in Japan, but I would like to try my hand at making complex products using this method.😀
i've been coating my foams in watered down drywall mud but that joint compund looks perfect. i'll be trying that for sure. cheers. If you put a tin can around your sprue, you save yourself from making a giant mess lol. but the video just wouldnt be as exciting haha
Super cool! I'd love to see you do this with a resin printer which would get you even better detail. There are a lot of resins out there specifically for doing lost wax style casting
I'm impressed that burning out the PLA core before pouring wasn't required. Do you think that any other "support" filaments like the water soluble PVA would burn out even cleaner? Or was PLA just perfectly suited to the application?
Awesome result, I'm impressed at how much detail there is! I think you're using a different grinding wheel there but please don't use regular (steel) grinding wheels on aluminium. Especially cutoff wheels. Aluminium has a very low melting point and melts into the disc. It can jam and the aluminium can damage/destroy the dics and they can fly apart.
This seems so much easier than other lost PLA methods with molds that need to be set in a kiln. What are the drawbacks? Why doesn't everyone use this all the time?
great video by the way. I have 2 questions 1: what happens to the used sand ? Can u reuse it ? 2: can you use PetR filament? or do you use a special type of PLA?
Awesome!!! But may I make a suggestion, turn supports on but click touching build plate only. It'll help with the lower messy overhangs like under the chin at 8:18. And that will allow you to get a smoother finish of joint compound which should in theory help with those little blobs Edit: on 2nd viewing I see you did that, try reducing the distance between the support material and the overhang. Or try rubbing it with soft wax that should fill in those gaps but still melt out easy
You can print most things with a couple extra walls and no infill don’t know how it would do with the metal but you said the least amt of infill so just trying to help or expand the ideas in your arsenal :) great video though gonna have to try it !!
Very nice. Thank you for this interesting video. There is something wrong with the sodium silicate sand because it should have been much harder to break than that
Very COOL man! I'm very impressed with this process. I'm a fellow caster myself and always thought I needed a kiln for casting PLA objects. I am definitely giving this a shot. I do have a question, is the sand reusable after you cast? Or is that sand mixture a one and done situation?
I just came across this video and was getting ready to ask the same question. As the sand could get expensive in these and the sand casting ones he does if you can't reuse any of the sand
How'd it work out for you not melting out the pla in a kiln? I'm looking to do the same but can't believe it could just vaporize out of the way like that. Also pretty sure the sand would have to be ground back down if it's even possible, interesting though.
Nice video. By the way - you can even make sodium silicate by yourself. Mix sodium hydroxide (drain opener) with silica gel (kitty litter) under heat. There are tutorials on youtube. As always: be careful with chemicals.
BRO! How do you not have more views and subscribers?!? Amazing content right here and PERFECT for YT Shorts and TikTok. If you haven't looked into that already, hop on the gravy train man, your content will explode!
... Can I ask... Is there a reason you seem to have abandoned this method to pursue standard lost PLA with a burn-out kiln? I am very curious to use this method because I don't have a burn out kiln, and for that reason have had many failures.
Yea I have been trying too and can't get good results. I have a feeling it's to do with venting. But I am also trying to cast much smaller things. Or it's my sand.
Very cool! Can you thin or do multiple coats of the joint compound to thicken the shell? Maybe joint compound, sprinkle with sand, dry, repeat 2-3x times and build up a really thick shell?
You’re welcome! I really doubt it would hold up to those temps, but it would be worth a shot. Should I send you one to try? Your channel is great by the way. I’ve learned a lot from you. Thanks!
@@robinson-foundry thanks and sounds like a good collaboration 👍. Yes I've never done this process and would like to see what the iron would do. We can learn from it anyway. Shoot me an email at clarke@windyhillfoundry.com sometime
For anyone who cares. "MOST" Cast aluminum is a high silicon based aluminum alloy, which lower the melting point and helps make it flow much easier. This is what makes it ideal for casting. You can buy silicon from eBay, crush it, and add to your molten aluminum to make your own allow that flows easy
@@Sludgepump No. SILICON, like I said... NOT SILICONE which is CAULK!!! Learn to spell! My windows seals are fine, because of the SILICONE I've used on them. ;} SILICON is the element Si with the atomic number of 14....
