Three casting mistakes you can avoid 

These videos are very important to understand for people like me trying to get into this hobby/ field. Success is not ALWAYS the way to learn.

Mistakes are the best lessons. Keep the videos coming. I'm learning a lot.

Sometimes failures make the best videos, I should know :) This is great, I wouldn't have thought so many things could go wrong. Really shows how much you have to know and account for to make a good casting.

We all make mistakes. It happens 🤷🏻‍♂️ wait till you see my stupid mistake I did today. 🤦‍♀️ let’s just say there was a fireworks display. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻

oooh this is my kind of video! very interesting to see the mistakes and then the results, i learned loads. i'm making a little tips/reminder list and you've really helped me out again! cheers perry great video really enjoyed it!

Thank you for being so transparent and teaching us.

I like that you show and explain the mistakes and how to fix them on actual pour samples, most other people only show the successes. Keep up the good work it’s helping me a lot 👍

Love the videos I cast outside and use cope box with L braces with hole for a metal dowels to go through. I make a sand bed thick and then make core on it....then i set cope over false bell. Then ram and lift cope up from the dowels driven tight into the ground. Then peck false bell over its core away(remove false bell) and return the box down the dowels to the sand bed. then pack wet sand around the outside of box. I pour from the top hole i make as a sprue. They usually come out good I have made a 15 inch aluminum-zinc bell and it rang with much more sustain than if i just poured an aluminum one. I hope to experiment in bronze this spring. If you could get corrigated metal pipes to make the copes out of, it would work good.

Yep, better boxes with better pins, a couple of different sized artists soft brushes, and a simple on centre pouring shank - all - the way to go. Interesting how much you can learn from one job when you think the failures through if you keep learning at that rate you will soon become a master. Thank you for an interesting video...Martin PS. Pity that you do not know someone who is trying to come out with a decent box design 😊😏 Private joke indeed 😀

I love your honest videos. I just learnt so much so thanks heaps. Cheers Stuart 🇦🇺

Your videos are the best out there!

Thank you for showing us what went wrong. Some channels edit out all their mistakes for what they thing is a better video. (I disagree) I always learn more from my mistakes than my successes . Unfortunately I spend alot of time learning. lol Thank you for the video. :-)

Thanks! Sometimes seeing and analyzing mistakes is more helpful then just the success. Very helpful.

High value video! We can all learn much from the experiments of others. Thanks - and great respect.

Learning is part of what makes it enjoyable. You have come so far . Thanks

We learn best from our mistakes, or yours... so thank you for helping us out.

You always give the information we need most, nobody learn anything from those perfect edited videos of the know it all. Just started building my furnace and hope to be on here soon. Your the best teacher on here don't change your teaching techniques they work great thank you for everything.

I love your videos, dude. It feels like a real person behind them, which of course it is. But the point is, I get frustrated with my mistakes and if a person has nothing but successes on camera then you beat your head against a wall as a beginner say "what am I doing wrong?" So thank for your vids, and thanks for your mistakes.

Excellent video Dude. Success is not about the things that went well but about the things that fuXked up and what we learnt from that. I have learned so much from your films. Thankyou.

Thanks for sharing your learning process. 👍 ☺

Great video, thank you for sharing. For sure, I believe it is always worth the time and effort to make things tight, with good smooth fit, and to copy the methods commonly used. I don't mean to say there is not room for innovation, but the "old standard" methods have evolved the way they have because they work. I see the results of rushing and "innovating" by folks that are just beginning to learn constantly when teaching blacksmithing. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the video. Helpful for us newbies!

good vid. we learn more from mistakes than when it goes perfectly.

Great video sir, good tips.

Great video Perry. I think I see a video in the near future of forging a shank. These are not mistakes, they are learning experiences. Old tradie's saying "man who never made a mistake, never made anything". see my previous post

I am nowhere near this lvl of casting yet, but when I get there stuff like this is very usefull, thanks for this video 👍

Every time I don't get it right I learn something. I'll keep going, though. Very very good video!

Great video, very informative on what not to do lol. Thanks for sharing.

Very educational thank you

Educational and thank you Perry. For myself, I learn more from failure than success, I should be a genius any day now lol. Was going through dads foundry the other day and took some pictures of the various equipment/tools and flasks he made over the years. Most of the newer ones are cast aluminum and use steel alignment pins (modified bolts), some of different lengths ( I suspect to accommodate different pattern heights). Others are wood with angle iron to hold the pins. Looks like some of them have pins of different diameters..perhaps for registration. Keep up the good work, Al

Thanks for sharing the video with all the mistakes included as ArtByAdrock said in his comment we all make mistakes but as I got taught the key thing is if you end up learning by those mistakes is it a mistake? You show everyone that by learning by these mistakes your learning and you continue to improve with every project that you continue to do afterwards keep up with the great videos and never worry about making the mistakes

Great video! from my experiences, you should always maximize the gravity, E.g. Reversing the Sprue so that the top of the bell is the lowest part of the pour. Also make sure the sand is only just wet enough. If the sand is too wet, you will get steam which will need to escape which in turn creates bubbles, incomplete castings & fire.

Thanks for the tips

Sometimes we can learn more from our mistakes than our successes, thanks for showing us.

I like your work bud

Hello, personas como tu de optimistas hacen que el mundo funcione, muy buenos vídeos, muy interesantes para los que nos gusta la fundición, muchas gracias por estos vídeos, graaaacias.

good video, By seeing what you did you may help others do a little better. keep them up.

I use angle iron with a threaded bolt/nut to hold the flasks together and have never had a problem with leakage since going that route. Another thing I would suggest is increasing your sprue size to compensate for the viscosity of the brass.

Great vid making a bell is on my list thanks for the advice

Good Lessons-learned video. :)

very good ... i don't know either , lol great lesson . i'm practicing with the best !!

I have had those half bells before but most lately they turn out good. Steam will push up the cope if not weighted. I always pack wet sand around the sides of the cope box and put bricks on top....

I think you do good! I have been making some aluminium and bronze the last years. "3 times" is nothing! I've done some cast much more than than that! Well, I try to make a Ferrari 308 engine in a quarter scale (I got the full size to look at and make and exact copy), and the main block I've tried more than 10 times! But everytime I learn something new! Learning is good by mistake! Keep on trying!!

I've also heard people say hydrostatic pressure, I was thinking it's hydraulic pressure but nope, the correct term is hydrostatic pressure. "Hydrostatic pressure is the pressure that is exerted by a fluid at equilibrium at a given point within the fluid, due to the force of gravity. Hydrostatic pressure increases in proportion to depth". Sometimes our vocabulary fails us. I thought the issue with your sprue clogs was related to improper blowing out the sprue. If I remember the steps olfoundryman uses right; once he removes the sprue, he then dumps a small spoonful of parting compound down the sprue hole, then he blows out the hole before cutting the basin, then blows out the sprue hole again when he takes the flask apart to cut the gates and runners. By using the parting compound in the sprue before cutting the basin it helps keep any sand that falls in from sticking to the sprue. (Note olfoundryman uses a calcium carbonate parting dust, so no concerns with blowing lots of the dust into the air) Your improved flask is nice.

Mistakes are the way we learn. Each time you got something out of it and you share nicely. Care to share how you deal with dry sand? I got some petrobond that is to dry to cast with.

Everyone makes mistakes. They're learning experiences. You're looking on the bright side of this.

Subbed! I see some of my friends are already here. You may want to shorten your cope alignment wedges at least so you can get a finger under there. It'll allow you to start the lift easier and avoid a blackened finger nail when when you set it back on. It was hard to tell from the video but it almost looked like you had a constriction where the pouring basin met the sprue on your last pour. Just an observation.

Hi Perry, Happy New Year to you and your family. Interesting video filled with lots of details. Pour 1, did you notice that the heat from the crucible set fire to your mold box as it was about to rest on the edge and before all the drama with the box separating? Nice flame job from the vent and pouring basin. On the subject of pouring basins and interrupted pours, I think that having a flat top to the mold box is a mistake unless a berm ring is placed around Martin's tapered sprue and pouring cup and any vents or riser openings. This will help to deal with any backup during a pour without things getting messy and dangerous. I think adopting Martin's technique of parting powder and a soft brush to the pouring cup and tapered sprue before softly blowing out with compressed air will help to eliminate blockages. I am wondering if it is worthwhile to form a second basin at the bottom of the tapered sprue where the runners start to catch any inclusions, again slow down the metal flow and allow for any alignment issues between the sprue and the runner. Stronger mold boxes with good alignment details will also help here. Just some thoughts, Mark

Already feeling better about my pours. I would say I pour 2-3 times every time to get what I want.

Thx for this informative video. I like very much how you analyze the situation and try to improve. From now on I will keep the pressure of the metal more in mind. You think some handles left and right of the box would make it easier to lift off? Again thx for this video and thank you for showing the faulty ones too. In my opinion one can learn more from an unsuccessful attempt. :)

Yes, hydrostatic pressure is the correct term.

Also meant to ask is there a reason you're casting some items up hill or the gates lower than the casting? Cleaner finish?

I had some scrap from today and magnesium was in the auto parts and it made a mess. It glowed like a star and never made a good casting. I wonder if a person could add some kind of chemical powder to the melt to stop the magnesium from burning up the good metall thats alloyed?

Mistakes are money in the bank of wisdom.

bonjour merci pour tous C'est conseil ça va mettre utile cool bravo

😁👌

I had that to happen several times. Now i put bricks on the cope on the sides

Great video and explanations. I bet my first casting goes perfectly with zero errors. (If you believe that I have some 'dry' land I will sell you.)

I can honestly say I have never made these mistakes!

Failure analysis, its a thing..... When you can snatch the pebble from Martins hand, you will rarely need this heh heh heh. Stuffing up, its all part of the journey, realising why you stuffed up, allows you to minimise smacking your head into a wall repeatedly and stop spending a fortune on gas........ Nice job Perry whats next?

Why not just save all the trouble by making a master model out of wax, pour plaster of Paris, or plaster of Paris+sand mix over it, melt the wax out, then you got a solid mold that isn't gonna allow movement? If detail doesn't need to be extrme, you can make a really thin cut across the middle of the plaster moldto make two halves, and just use something to keep them together when u wanna cast. That way you can pull the two halves apart cleanly after casting so it can be reused again without having to make a mold every single time.

English is full of inconsistencies. Common to read/hear forecasted. broadcasted, both I think technically incorrect. Pronunciation like bough and cough, lead (dog lead) and lead (plumbing).

I don’t own a milling machine or really more than basic power tools. I have been using investment casting so I can have minimal clean up work. I really only have hand tools for woodworking. Don’t you live abusing a surface plate using it to lap on?