New member - Ottawa area metal caster

[combustable herbage]

Welcome to the forum, just north of you in Greely. Very nice work, please continue to amaze me/us with your creativity. The Jack o lamp is a great idea made from something so simple very nice stuff.

 

[Martin w]

Welcome from Niagara.

 

[YYCHM]

Welcome from Calgary.

 

[Tobho Mott]

Interesting patterns jcdammeyer, looks good, whatcha making? Are those 3D printed? My 3D printer hates me for trying to make it poop out foundry patterns.

Speaking of patternmaking, I saw what has to be one of the most incredible collection of flawlessly beyond restored antique English patternmaking machine tools on the planet this past Saturday at the Great Canadian Rust Junkie Fest here in Ottawa at Jack Forsberg's workshop, aka the Wadkin Temple. Which actually belongs in an elvish village in Middle Earth or something. It's almost too much awesome to bear. Only my 2nd year attending, but I'll be there every year I can going forward.

Greely eh? Small world, wow, in the.few hours I've been here I've found multiple local contacts already. Combustible herbage here who's a 20 minutes drive from my place, plus slow-poke who's apparently about 3 blocks from my mother in law's house! Surprising.

Hello & thanks to all the rest who've popped in to say hi as well!

Jeff

 

[jcdammeyer]

Interesting patterns jcdammeyer, looks good, whatcha making? Are those 3D printed? My 3D printer hates me for trying to make it poop out foundry patterns.

Speaking of patternmaking, I saw what has to be one of the most incredible collection of flawlessly beyond restored antique English patternmaking machine tools on the planet this past Saturday at the Great Canadian Rust Junkie Fest here in Ottawa at Jack Forsberg's workshop, aka the Wadkin Temple. Which actually belongs in an elvish village in Middle Earth or something. It's almost too much awesome to bear. Only my 2nd year attending, but I'll be there every year I can going forward.

Greely eh? Small world, wow, in the.few hours I've been here I've found multiple local contacts already. Combustible herbage here who's a 20 minutes drive from my place, plus slow-poke who's apparently about 3 blocks from my mother in law's house! Surprising.

Hello & thanks to all the rest who've popped in to say hi as well!

Jeff

Those patterns are a combination of wood and 3D printed bits. They were for the Pneumatic Power Drawbar that just didn't work to my satisfaction. Life has gotten in the way for casting my 4th axis mount. It's 3D printed as several pieces, glued together and then fixed up with bondo, primer and paint.



Seems to pull quite well. I've now figured out an approach to gate this. My biggest project was the Gingery Lathe.

 

[wmetfab]

Pics of some stuff I brought to show off when I did a casting demo for the National Capital Network of Sculptors a couple months ago with a friend and former.student who's in tight with the network's current president.

Some examples of wooden and cast aluminum patterns, and some finished castings made from them...
View attachment 49816

Cast aluminum matchplate patterns with masters and castings, sand rammer patterns and completed "pound sand" rammer, belt buckles and a brass marking gauge with pattern...
View attachment 49817

Original vintage brass foundryman buckle on the left. Middle is an aluminum copy I cast from the original and modified to make a pattern. Right is a bronze one I made for me to wear.
The small bronze castings on top are 1918 Alan Herschel carousel horse stirrup strap holders. Leaning up against the world's least used permanent matchplate pattern for casting wooden horse stirrup strap holders.
View attachment 49819

I made another aluminum buckle pattern off the original that I then milled the foundryman detail off of to get a customizable buckle blank pattern. I was working at the blacksmithing school at the time and we were supposed to be able to sell some swag at the school's Comicon booth (which sadly happened a few weeks after they laid me off). Our leather teacher assured us we could get away with selling up to 5 of an item with unlicensed corporate branding on it (not a lawyer don't quote me on that), so I came up with this. Oh well, it went to my neighbour in the end, he is a great neighbour and puts punisher skull on all his cars and bikes, so he loves this thing.
View attachment 49815

Lost foam bunny rabbit castings. Just messing around really, but I do kind of like the bronze coat hook bunny head with the tusks and horns.
View attachment 49822

More lost foam casting experiments. The pear shaped man is actually a lost Cheetos casting.
View attachment 49823

Jack-o-lamp. Definitely not CSA approved. Pattern was glued up from the cut out face sections of 3 styrofoam jack o lanterns purchased at Michels on November 1.
View attachment 49824

I really don't mess with the lost foam casting on more than a for fun level, I'm really a sand caster. But it's absolutely possible to make very high quality castings (machine parts etc) using that method, as well as this kinda goofy stuff.

Cast aluminum very small production run matchplates for pattern rappers, sprue covers, and the wooden horse parts I still don't know why I put that much work into. The shoe is just a 3d printed pattern from a 2-off job that came through a couple years ago. Dude was building a custom fancy wooden display shoebox for his client and needed shiny metal shoe silhouettes to inset into the top and bottom of the lid. I never got to see a pic of the finished box.
View attachment 49821

I have recent pics from the sculpture project too, will come back with some of those in a while but I gotta pop away for a bit now.

Later,

Jeff

Welcome from the Okanagan.
You are one serious metalworker, very impressive.
Respct!

 

[daij72]

Hello all,

Just found this forum, not sure how I missed it before! Looking forward to checking out what's already been posted, sharing info, and making a few new friends maybe.

Ottawa area hobbyist metal caster since 2013. I specialize in nonferrous sand casting, but plan to add cast iron soon. And lost wax casting eventually. All my gear (that I actually.have room to use) is shop built, with the exception of my crucibles. I've built furnaces that run on charcoal, wood, propane, and waste oil. Plus all the flasks and molding tools and tongs and shanks, even a sand muller.
For the first several years I was at the mercy of the weather, having to lay down molds outside when the weather allowed and roll my furnaces out and back inside the shed with each use. But a few years back I added better ventilation and fireproofing, allowing for all year metal casting under a roof and out of the weather.

Still definitely 95% hobbyist, but I do take on a few small runs and one off commissions here and there, mainly to pay for melting stock and new crucibles. And to help save up for a bigger casting shed, hopefully by the time I can retire from my day job... I acquired all of Bill Jurgenson's equipment when he closed up his art foundry in Niagara Falls and retired several years ago, and my 12x16 shed is just too small to be slinging around #200 of bronze at a time in!

Mainly those one off jobs tend to be reproducing antique parts that are missing from someone's restoration hobby project. Probably my favourite type of casting work.

However most recently I've been working with a local artist on a large sculpture project. And what a blast that's been!

I also equipped and taught a casting class at the blacksmithing school here in Ottawa for several months, which was the entire duration of that class being offered. Technically the school is in Hawkesbury now, but I was at the west Ottawa location that has since closed.

Also currently a mod at thehomefoundry dot org forums.

Again, very much looking forward to poking around the site and participating here!

Jeff

Hey Jeff. I'm new to this forum, and also hoping to get started with some casting. I seem unable to locate on Ontario source for casting material (ingots), not scrap. I see aluminum and silicon bronze at Sculpture Supply in TO but not much else. Where do you source your metal?

 

[Chris Cramer]

Welcome aboard from Calgary Alberta. I did a lot of research on metal casting before I began welding blade smithing and a bit of machining. Casting seemed to give you the most freedom in terms of Creativity, giving you the ability to turn whatever you could carve into metal. I've done a bit of silver casting for jewelry, and casting copper with wax. I still feel it would be a great benefit, as I could use casting, to create more advanced bolsters and pommels for my knives and tools.

 

[Tobho Mott]

Hey Jeff. I'm new to this forum, and also hoping to get started with some casting. I seem unable to locate on Ontario source for casting material (ingots), not scrap. I see aluminum and silicon bronze at Sculpture Supply in TO but not much else. Where do you source your metal?

I've bought Everdur (silicon bronze) from Sculpture Supply in the past. I still have a little. I see it's a lot more expensive now. Tempting to try alloying some myself if I can find the silicon and manganese... Bill Jurgenson told me he used to buy everdur ingots from a company called Alloy Metals, also in/near Toronto.
As far as cast aluminum, I use almost exclusively "wheelium" aka scrap CAST aluminum wheels (or most other automotive castings with some exceptions). They're almost always good quality A356. They're a pain to process no matter how you do it and you have to watch out for truck wheels that are more often forged and machined extrusion alloy. I have been caught out by a set of truck wheels before. But I've also scored a free set of aluminum wheels before. It's worth pointing out that I do test for magnesium if I'm not absolutely sure it's really cast aluminum. The sculptor I'm working with bought several huge A356 ingots from Sculpture Supply. They have to be cut up to use. Maybe alloy metals sells it too, I haven't contacted them yet though. I have also bought aluminum bronze from metal supermarkets. It's a bit of a pain to cast, especially compared to everdur. But it has its applications. I've only used it to make a few axes and some comically oversized spear points. If you peen the edges to work harden them they hold up pretty well. But homemade al-bronze works about as well, and metal supermarkets isn't selling it in ingot from.

Jeff

 

[Larry_C9]

Welcome from the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island

 

[TorontoBuilder]

Hello all,

Just found this forum, not sure how I missed it before! Looking forward to checking out what's already been posted, sharing info, and making a few new friends maybe.

Ottawa area hobbyist metal caster since 2013. I specialize in nonferrous sand casting, but plan to add cast iron soon. And lost wax casting eventually. All my gear (that I actually.have room to use) is shop built, with the exception of my crucibles. I've built furnaces that run on charcoal, wood, propane, and waste oil. Plus all the flasks and molding tools and tongs and shanks, even a sand muller.
For the first several years I was at the mercy of the weather, having to lay down molds outside when the weather allowed and roll my furnaces out and back inside the shed with each use. But a few years back I added better ventilation and fireproofing, allowing for all year metal casting under a roof and out of the weather.

Still definitely 95% hobbyist, but I do take on a few small runs and one off commissions here and there, mainly to pay for melting stock and new crucibles. And to help save up for a bigger casting shed, hopefully by the time I can retire from my day job... I acquired all of Bill Jurgenson's equipment when he closed up his art foundry in Niagara Falls and retired several years ago, and my 12x16 shed is just too small to be slinging around #200 of bronze at a time in!

Mainly those one off jobs tend to be reproducing antique parts that are missing from someone's restoration hobby project. Probably my favourite type of casting work.

However most recently I've been working with a local artist on a large sculpture project. And what a blast that's been!

I also equipped and taught a casting class at the blacksmithing school here in Ottawa for several months, which was the entire duration of that class being offered. Technically the school is in Hawkesbury now, but I was at the west Ottawa location that has since closed.

Also currently a mod at thehomefoundry dot org forums.

Again, very much looking forward to poking around the site and participating here!

Jeff

welcome from Toronto.

I had already been following you and have commented on a couple of your youtube videos.