# Some machining, some casting...



## Dan Dubeau (Mar 25, 2022)

Had a good day tooling around in the shop.  Machined another brand on the CNC for the Wifes business logo (figured out a MUCH quicker and cheaper way to program and cut these), and designed, 3d printed a pattern, and cast a part to try out a new process.  The part is complete shit, but it was a good test.  The pattern was printed fast (0.3mm layers) and had ZERO prep work, just straight off the print bed and into the sand.  The results show.  I just wanted to test to see how much I could get away with.  I need to cast 11 more of these, so will try and improve the results a bit more.  



























I haven't cast anything in 2 years, so it was pretty fun to get back to it again.  I have a lot of projects in the works that will benefit from casting and 3d printed patterns, so I'm trying out some things and experimenting with some ways of doing it a bit faster, while giving up a bit of "perfection".   This is just a bracket for some TTS toolracks.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 26, 2022)

Good stuff Dan.  This whole area holds so many possibilities...working towards adding SLA capabilities to my set up


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

Thanks, Yes there is a lot of great possibilities with this tech.  I'm reprinting my pattern right now after a few changes this morning, and will put some more effort into sanding, filling and finishing it properly.  I wanted to see how little prep from printer to sand I could get away with and still get acceptable results for quick and dirty things like this.  This is still "useable" for what it needs to be, but I think a bit more effort will yield much better results.  A resin printed pattern would have been MUCH better than this fdm one.  I've had really good results with resin patterns in the past.  

What printer are you getting?  Resin will be awesome with your investment setup, you will love it.  Now that the warmer weather is coming (too cold in my basement to resin print in the winter) I want to do more of it, and play around with lost resin casting.  That process looks very promising, but first I need a burnout oven, and some other equipment.  All in time.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 26, 2022)

I bought an Anycubic mono 4k.  I was looking at Phrozen but the mention of subscription software makes me see red lol.

Interestingly, Phrozen has two 4k models and as far as I could tell, the only difference is the X/Y accuracy.  The regular one is around 400 or 500 and high end one is around 2000 but is more accurate - not resolution, but if a part's supposed to be 2", its not 1.995.   Its targeted toward dentists.  I really thought about getting it, but its too much money.  Figured I'd see how far I can with this one if need to upgrade in the future, what ever.  I may not need the accuracy but I like the idea of model engine assemblies, cast in threads etc.

NEWS FLASH.....the printer I got Tuesday was $399....I just looked* its $304 today, one day only.*  I called Amazon, they used have a 7 day price drop guarantee.  No more, so she said buy another one and return the first.  Seems incredibly wasteful vs crediting me the difference, but ok.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

Damn, that's a kick in the pants about the price.  I agree it's seems wasteful to buy another/send back etc, but$100 is $100....That's a big price drop.

I forget what I paid for my mars (around $450 I think back then), but it's just incredible the amount of detail and capability you get for the money with these things now.  It's tough to put into words just how much better the surfaces are for someone used to FDM.  Cleanup and post processing isn't as bad as some make it out to be either.  The juice is worth the squeeze IMO.  I'm really interested to see some model engine stuff you do with it, as I'm starting to get the engine bug too, and want to go down that road with designing and casting my own models eventually.  

If I start using mine more for casting like I want to, I'd like to step up to a bigger machine like the saturn or similar.  It's way down the list at the moment though.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 26, 2022)

Dan Dubeau said:


> Damn, that's a kick in the pants about the price.  I agree it's seems wasteful to buy another/send back etc, but$100 is $100....That's a big price drop.



yeah, I think its Amazon's way of making it the sellers problem.  Oh well, hot price if anyone is in the market.  I wouldn't have even noticed the drop except I went back to look at what I bought to answer your question (couldn't remember what one I bought, heck it was four days ago).....so lunch is on me lol



> If I start using mine more for casting like I want to, I'd like to step up to a bigger machine like the saturn or similar.  It's way down the list at the moment though.



This market and technology is changing so fast, I bet in a year there'll be 16k printers 4x the size and they'll have licked the LCD problem....so I figured I'd have regrets if I stretched now for the ultimate one.  Instead I'll get on the learning curve for reasonable dollars.  There also lots of bits and pieces to collect to get the set up right, so its building a bit of infrastructure as well.


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## kevin.decelles (Mar 26, 2022)

Talk to me about the furnace.  Is that induction or is there heat coils inside?  Brand?   I'd like to look further into it.


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## YotaBota (Mar 26, 2022)

@Mcgyver - have you tried talking to the vendor? IIRC the return shipping and disposal cost is on the vendor so they may reimburse you the difference.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 26, 2022)

YotaBota said:


> @Mcgyver - have you tried talking to the vendor? IIRC the return shipping and disposal cost is on the vendor so they may reimburse you the difference.



good point. 
.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

Mcgyver said:


> yeah, I think its Amazon's way of making it the sellers problem.  Oh well, hot price if anyone is in the market.  I wouldn't have even noticed the drop except I went back to look at what I bought to answer your question (couldn't remember what one I bought, heck it was four days ago).....so lunch is on me lol
> 
> 
> 
> This market and technology is changing so fast, I bet in a year there'll be 16k printers 4x the size and they'll have licked the LCD problem....so I figured I'd have regrets if I stretched now for the ultimate one.  Instead I'll get on the learning curve for reasonable dollars.  There also lots of bits and pieces to collect to get the set up right, so its building a bit of infrastructure as well.


Sorry I made you look it up lol.  Even if the seller could toss in a bottle of resin or something it would certainly help take the sting off it.  I'll never understand how the accounting of needlessly shipping stuff around is cheaper than simply giving a discount or rebate.   

Ya, it's a fast moving tech, at some point one has to just jump on the train and roll with it for a while or you'd forever be waiting for the next best one to come along.  I was amazed when I bought my anet printer years ago.  It blew me away at the time.  I haven't turned it on in years, as it's complete junk compared to my kingroon.  No comparison.  I was amazed with the Mars too when I got it, but I'm sure the new 4k ones are even better.  Build plates are huge now compared to the mars too.  

The good news is that it's relatively cheap to play around with this stuff for what you're getting IMO.  Taking something from a model to a printed pattern, to a cast aluminum part for less than $1000 in 3 hours with things delivered to your door simply by clicking a couple button online... Incredible.  

In other new tech news, I'm currently playing around with the pop2 scanner while printing patterns, and that's another simply amazing tech for the price.  Bit of a learning curve though....It's beating me right now, but I'm stubborn and will figure it out eventually. lol.  


kevin.decelles said:


> Talk to me about the furnace.  Is that induction or is there heat coils inside?  Brand?   I'd like to look further into it.


It's an import from amazon.  3kg model, I think was around $450 a few years ago.  It's a pretty simple design, just a PID and heat coils with a graphite crucible.  I toyed around with building one for a while, even bought most of the parts, but could just never find the time to do so, and just wanted to cast stuff. Then life got in the way for a while and I'm now just getting back to it, and the home shop in general.  I'd buy it again, as it's just great for quick casting sessions like this.  

I still want to build a larger propane fired foundry for scrap reclamation, and large pours.  Scraping stuff with this tiny crucible is a bit time consuming.  But the ease of use to flip a switch and pour 45 minutes later is pretty handy.  I've learned the quicker I can make something to more stuff I get done.  I don't usually have large chunks of time available, but little pockets of 30mintues-a few hourse here and there.  Finding ways to better use that time is something I've always struggled with.  If I have to make a day of something like dragging out a big foundry, and ramming up a bunch of molds just to make it worth while, it'll get put off indefinitely.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

Success.  Eventually.....lol

Started off printing new modified patterns of my tool rack brackets, Power went out about an hour in, and when It came back on It wouldn't restart properly.   Bummer.  Started again and had a bit of pullup on the buildplate in one of the corners.  Bummer two.  Rest looked fine so I just let it finish, and figured I try and fix it with some casting resin.  

You can see the pullup in the lower rh corner, as well as the failed prints in the background.





Some popsicle sticks, a glass platten, and some hotmelt had me a quick and dirty dam to pour some alumilite casting resin into to try and rebuild that corner.


















Did a bit of carving while it was still a bit green, and will sand and reshape it a bit better after dinner.  While this was going on I was printing another set of patterns, that just finished actually.  They came out good with no issues.






While the resin was hardening I had the foundry fired up, and was melting down some more small chunks of scrap.  Man I really need a bigger foundry....

I rammed up another pattern I printed last weekend, for a hub to make a rotating compost bin out of hdpe barrels.  Not a project that "needed" a casting, but I wanted to.  Took a few attempts with various different failures before I finally got one right.  The last attempt fell apart as I was putting the cope on for the last time....argh.   I need to make some better flasks.  The cope is too thin to properly hold the sand on these ones. 





With the crucible ready to go, I quickly rammed up another attempt, and honestly think it was my best mold yet.  










I was getting really nervous while pouring wondering if I had my math right.  I designed these parts this way to make sure I had enough volume in a crucible to pour.  When the aluminum start coming up the riser I breathed a sigh of relief lol.  Still had enough for a small ingot too.  





Success, a good casting.  Even the dimples for bolt holes came through.  A bit of shrinkage near the riser, as It's WAY too small for that big section (flasks too thin).  I might have to use a myfordboy type can in the future for stuff like this, but for this particular part it doesn't matter the center gets bored out anyway.  Good learning experience though.











Riding high, I decided to ram up another and charge another crucible.  This is the first back to back casting I've ever done, and was really surprised at how quickly another crucible melted.  About 45 minutes for the first pour, and about 10 for the second.  I need more flasks and more sand, and then I can get into some good back to back action.  







2nd mold wasn't as good as the first, but still produced some useable castings, albeit requiring a bit more cleanup.






Taking a break for dinner, then I will cleanup the bracket patterns, and maybe have a go at casting some of those tonight.  I really want to get those racks done this week sometime.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 26, 2022)

That is just awesome how fast you can go from idea to casting, love it!


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

It's honestly the only hope I have at getting things done lol.  Start to finish with as little road blocks as possible. . This was a really encouraging process though. A bit more refinement in some areas, and some better sand will net some big gains in quality I think. I need to make a few more flasks too. I want to cast some like old foundry mans design on you tube, but a bit different.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 26, 2022)

Pattern repair and came out pretty good.  I didn't know how it would turn out, but I'll put this method in the quiver for later.  Even though I'm going to reprint this part tomorrow anyway.





I did lose an alignment hole by making that repair though.  That will reveal itself later....





Nothing is safe from the crucible, not even BX armour lol.  I try to stick to cast alloys, but a little "other" wont hurt for a project like this.





A little concerned while pouring when the riser didn't fill and froze up on me.  I've never had that problem before, but after shake out the cavities filled ok










I think the gating on this pour was pretty poor, as well as the blowout I was having while pulling the patterns.  I did sand these quite smooth, but perhaps some primer and paint might make them a bit slicker to draw.  I'm going to reprint the repaired one tomorrow as the pattern shifted and the part on the right is complete scrap.  The left one is pretty poor, but still usable for what I need it for.

Here you see the pattern shift and all the blowout





But there were some positives.  This part, while not great, is pretty usable.  Honestly every pour is a learning experience at this stage, so that's why I poured it knowing that one cavity was pretty crap.  The good thing about casting it you can remelt your mistakes. 






While I had the crucible hot I did another melt for ingots.  Almost done my little bucket of "scrap" which consisted of a couple motor end bells, some lawnmower towers, and various other cast aluminum parts.


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## David_R8 (Mar 26, 2022)

Is this what you have @Dan Dubeau


			https://www.amazon.ca/TOAUTO-Automatic-Graphite-Crucible-Aluminum/dp/B0814HF9DV/ref=sr_1_5?crid=OTYPPTLS3KXC&keywords=TOAUTO+3KG+Gold+Melting+Furnace%2C&qid=1648353658&sprefix=toauto+3kg+gold+melting+furnace%2C%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-5


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

Yep, when I click the link it said "You last purchased this item on Apr 24 2020." so I guess thats the one lol.  On sale for $399, with another $22 off coupon too.  $377, That's a pretty good deal IMO.  It also now come with an ingot mold which I didn't get originaly.  I welded my own from bedframe angle.


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## Susquatch (Mar 27, 2022)

Mcgyver said:


> good point.
> .



I have done this with Accusize several times. They will give you the price break w zero hassle and no need to go through amazon. 

On two other occasions they messed up. I contacted them directly and they made good on their boo boo. In one case they sent me a better part than I ordered. In the other they let me keep the original.


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## Mcgyver (Mar 27, 2022)

I think I've got the same one.  Its been good except the thermocouple sticking through at the bottom fouls on the largest crucible.  It jams up agains the crucible making it somewhat challenging to extract....having to apply a bunch of upward  force with a few lbs of molten metal in hand is suboptimal.  Dumb.  Probably not a huge fix (haven't got to it) but didn't expect or appreciate it on the first use.  Kind of have to lump it though, there is nothing else other than DIY that'll get you a melter in this price range


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

That jogged my memory that I had to sand out the opening of mine to fit another crucible that I'd bought when planing to make one.  The one that came with it was tight, but the other 3kg one I had just wouldn't go, so some time with a die grinder and sanding drum/burr and it was good to go.  

There is lots of stuff to nitpick about these cheap things, (like the lid, is cheap and flimsy, but it works fine) and other cheap thing in this realm, but one has to consider the price point.  You can build stuff better and cheaper, but you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere to trade money for time.  Something I personally struggle with a LOT.  

Every time the wife wants to buy something that I can build for better and cheaper and I say "don't buy that I'll make one" she instantly replies with "this year?" lol.  Then she buys it, I grumble about how much money it cost, and how cheap its made.  Oh well, it buys me more shop time. .


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

Time was a bit harder to find today, as I had other stuff to do, but it's amazing how fast you can get stuff done when it's standing in the way of things you WANT to do 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	






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After a morning education session of rewatching a bunch of casting videos on sprue, runners, and gating design, I turned up a tapered sprue, a larger tapered riser, and made a pipe cutter to cut a pouring basin.





I also reprinted the damaged pattern half, and managed to pry Jr away form his tablet long enough to help me ram up another mold. My phone died when I went to take some pictures, turns out batteries run out if you don't plug them in once in a while. Figures, I manage to get him away from coding video games, and minecraft stuff long enough to do some hands on shop stuff (he actually loves it) and I can't even capture it lol. I had some corners fall off lifting the cope, but they are on machined surfaces and should dissapear. If my efforts in better sprue design, runners, gating and risers pay off, I should have 2 better castings in a little bit. My phone will be charged to and I might even take a picture of them 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	






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## Tom O (Mar 27, 2022)

I’ve been watching Dave the pattern guy for a month or so although he is more into placing his patterns onto a board for casting alignment.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

Ooo, that's a new guy I haven't found yet.  Looks very promising, thank you very much for sharing.  I'm looking forward to learn more from another source.  I've 3d printed matchplates before for silicone molds for fishing lures, but not for casting metal.  It's something that I want to pursue, but will have to wait until I build a few more better flasks.  I'll work up to it.  

Here's a few shots of that project from a couple years ago.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

So, after ramming up another mold with better gating, sprue and risers (I think anyway), I just finished pouring it, and the results were MUCH better.  I think my sand is starting to be a limiting factor, so that will be remedied moving forward, but I feel like I'm making progress.  I had some corner blowout on this one, but they are both on machined surfaces, so I wasn't too concerned.  Still have porosity on the outer corners.  Not sure if it's due to sand, or turbulence in the mold, and I need to rethink my gating situation.  I don't degass my pours, but there are a lot of you tube casters that don't degas either yet don't have those problems, so I'm thinking that's not the cause.  From my limited knowledge I think it's from having my sand too wet, but my sand it too poor it won't bind properly until it feels too wet. 




















I'd be embarrassed to sell these as a finished product, but for what I need them for they will clean up just fine.  I need 12 of them, so I hope to make some incremental improvements and try some new things over the course of the next 5 pours to see if I can better my results.  I'm finding it really hard to split the mold after ramming the cope too, which is where I think I'm dropping the corners off.  More draft perhaps on patterns moving forward wouldn't hurt either, as well as taking them to the paint and filler stage too, but my flask key design is pretty poor and tough to smoothly separate.  I'm going to be making some new ones shortly, so will rethink that area for sure.  I'm fighting problems from a few different issues it seems. 

I finished melting through my bucket of scrap and poured 2 more melts of ingots after that mold (and a butterfly for my daughter) before taking a break right now to make dinner.  Not sure I'll get back out there tonight for a few more pours or not.  Enough rambling Dan, more pictures...















If I don't get back to it tonight, it's been a really fun weekend.  I still need to better organize my casting stuff, so I can get to it, and get setup quicker, but will chip away at that the rest of the month.  Work has died off for a bit thankfully, and it's not baseball or golf season yet, so I will have lots of free time to spend out in the shop.


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## Dan Dubeau (Mar 27, 2022)

After dinner It was coin flip time.  Cast the rest of the pieces I need, or machine the 2 good casting I have.  I skipped to the good part and fired up the mill. 

I should have planned this better and left a bit more holding stock for this op.  Turned out ok, but I babied it.  Used the spindle housing face (_NOT_ bearing face) to align the lightly clamped part with a parallel, then snugged it down.





I chewed the bulk of it down with a 10mm 3lf, then I licked it clean with a fly cutter (Don't have a face mill for the tormach yet.  Maybe my next build????).  I picked up the center with an edge finder, and drilled my clearance holes for a #8 woodscrew.
















Then I did a repeat of the first op on the angled face. A bit more to hold in this op. 











Next was laying out the x location of the 1/4"-20 hole.  I snapped a quick pic from cad of the critical dimensions, and layed them out with a caliper and scriber.  Then picked up that line with a single lip scriber.  There are no really critical dimensions here, so no need to get fancier than this.  I retained the y from the previous setup as I was holding the part the same way.  Good quick and dirty time saver tip.  Save the time and fuss for operations that matter, and you can really speed up your throughput.





















All done in the mill, I then tapped the holes with the cordless drill, and countersunk the holes in the drillpress.  Clearance is clearance .






Both parts milled it was time to clean up some flash with a flap wheel for the big stuff, and a few different flavours of files.






Done, they looked ugly and rough in the beginning, but cleaned up pretty presentable after a bit of work .  I'm kinda curious how they'd come out of the tumbler if they'll fit.  I'll try the next set.







y






I brought my newly minted parts in the house to show the wife.  She said "cool".  Women are so hard to please.  Don't you know how many thousands of dollars these brackets cost, woman? 

Back out to my shop It didn't take me long to get them put together and mounted on the wall. These should help clean up the mill control area.  As you can see I've been temporarily using them for a bit already 






























I still have 5 more sets to cast and machine (3 racks for each side of the monitor), but I'm pretty happy with the results of a weekends worth of work.  I'll chip away at them through the week.  A bit more effort and learning on the casting side of things, and I'm really looking forward to what is possible in my little shop now.  I could have machined them all from barstock by now, or designed them different, but that wasn't the point of this exercise.

Thanks for following along this for this rambling work in progress.  Cheers.


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## Tom O (Mar 27, 2022)

Don’t be afraid of using Parting dust and painting the parts fills the filament lines that will grab sand during ramming.


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## Dan Dubeau (Apr 3, 2022)

So, I just finished up the rest of this project.  I'll let the pics do the talking.














































That's a wrap.  Pretty fun project even though it dragged on a bit longer that I initially hoped.  It was good getting back into casting and exploring the limits of how quick and dirty can I make a 3d printed pattern to cast usable parts.  A lot of useful lessons were learned on this project though.  Looking forward to the next one.


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