Tobho Mott
Active Member
I drove out to Foundry Supply Source in Milton ON a couple weeks ago to pick up ingredients to make some iron rated greensand. John P. The sales and lab guy gave me a great tour and showed me just about everything they sell there, Wow! I had not been out to Milton since 2015 when it was still called Smelko Foundry Products and was located on the other side of the 401. Tim Smelko gave me an amazing tour back then too, but I never got to see their sand testing lab equipment until this trip. I mentioned Tim had shown me everything but that, and John kindly let me shoot some photos and video while he was showing me all the tools and lab instruments, stuff I'd only ever read about before, in books like C.W. Ammen's Complete Handbook of Sand Casting. All my foundry equipment and tools (that are set up to actually use right now) are homemade, aside from the refractory in my furnace linings and my crucibles. But I've never (yet) tried to set up a sand testing lab... John is a great guy, very helpful, and they are still very much hobbyist friendly at the new site.
After loading boxes of sand and bags of clay and coal dust and ferrosilicon into my van, I took the opportunity to visit a few other Ontario metal casters I know from the home foundry forums along the way home too, and see their shops.
First I stopped in Brampton for a visit with our very own Bldr J. He has some cool machines set up in what used to be an old sock factory. I could lose a few days poking around in there. Showed me some cool 3D printed patterns and castings in aluminum and bronze, lamp shades and door hardware, etc. And he has a super cool antique optical pyrometer, you look at something glowing hot with one eye while you turn a glowing filament up/down in front of your other eye with a dial on a box you wear on your chest until they match, and the reading on the dial is your temperature for the glowing hot whatever. I might honestly need something like this one day if this cast iron quest I'm on works out, as my K-type thermocouple based immersion pyrometer tips aren't rated for ferrous casting temps. Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone out there with weirder saved Kijiji searches than me. Thanks again for letting me document my visit!
Then on to Sydenham to see my friend Doug, who'd visited my backyard foundry a few months ago to chat after we'd traded some crucibles. He's building a 1/8 scale steam locomotive based on drawings from the National Museum of Science and Technology, pouring his own bronze and iron castings. He also has made his own oil bonded molding sand (called K-bond). If backyard iron casting wasn't impressive enough, he's the only guy I know in Canada who's ever been able to get his hands on a 50# bag on bentone-34, the elusive organoclay binder needed to make your own petrobond equivalent molding sand. I know one other guy (ok it was me) who managed to get a mere 2# sample of VG-plus from an outfit in Calgary that deals with big oil, but they stopped answering his emails when he mentioned he didn't need any entire pallets of the stuff, just a bag or 2.
Anyhow, Doug has some really interesting train part patterns. One of the complex wheel patterns was made of fiberglass, in a mold he milled out of homemade machinable wax. Very impressive. He's also built some interesting telescopes. Showed me a homemade wooden micrometer of some sort that was accurate enough to use in making the big curved mirror for one of them. I didn't get any pictures of that, unfortunately. Or his furnace or waste oil burner setup or homemade muller. But the train castings and patterns and his workshop were really cool to see. We chatted about some of the foundries in Ontario he's dealt with in the past that are sadly either gone now altogether or no longer taking on small jobs. I also heard about all the drama regarding him trying to get the cast iron liners for his locomotive's steam valves and pistons done.
I don't know if Doug is on here, but maybe somebody else knows him too?
Anyhow, if any of that sounds interesting, I clipped some more of the pictures and video together into sort of a road trip 'vlog', I think is what the kids would call it.
Jeff
After loading boxes of sand and bags of clay and coal dust and ferrosilicon into my van, I took the opportunity to visit a few other Ontario metal casters I know from the home foundry forums along the way home too, and see their shops.
First I stopped in Brampton for a visit with our very own Bldr J. He has some cool machines set up in what used to be an old sock factory. I could lose a few days poking around in there. Showed me some cool 3D printed patterns and castings in aluminum and bronze, lamp shades and door hardware, etc. And he has a super cool antique optical pyrometer, you look at something glowing hot with one eye while you turn a glowing filament up/down in front of your other eye with a dial on a box you wear on your chest until they match, and the reading on the dial is your temperature for the glowing hot whatever. I might honestly need something like this one day if this cast iron quest I'm on works out, as my K-type thermocouple based immersion pyrometer tips aren't rated for ferrous casting temps. Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone out there with weirder saved Kijiji searches than me. Thanks again for letting me document my visit!
Then on to Sydenham to see my friend Doug, who'd visited my backyard foundry a few months ago to chat after we'd traded some crucibles. He's building a 1/8 scale steam locomotive based on drawings from the National Museum of Science and Technology, pouring his own bronze and iron castings. He also has made his own oil bonded molding sand (called K-bond). If backyard iron casting wasn't impressive enough, he's the only guy I know in Canada who's ever been able to get his hands on a 50# bag on bentone-34, the elusive organoclay binder needed to make your own petrobond equivalent molding sand. I know one other guy (ok it was me) who managed to get a mere 2# sample of VG-plus from an outfit in Calgary that deals with big oil, but they stopped answering his emails when he mentioned he didn't need any entire pallets of the stuff, just a bag or 2.
Anyhow, Doug has some really interesting train part patterns. One of the complex wheel patterns was made of fiberglass, in a mold he milled out of homemade machinable wax. Very impressive. He's also built some interesting telescopes. Showed me a homemade wooden micrometer of some sort that was accurate enough to use in making the big curved mirror for one of them. I didn't get any pictures of that, unfortunately. Or his furnace or waste oil burner setup or homemade muller. But the train castings and patterns and his workshop were really cool to see. We chatted about some of the foundries in Ontario he's dealt with in the past that are sadly either gone now altogether or no longer taking on small jobs. I also heard about all the drama regarding him trying to get the cast iron liners for his locomotive's steam valves and pistons done.
I don't know if Doug is on here, but maybe somebody else knows him too?Anyhow, if any of that sounds interesting, I clipped some more of the pictures and video together into sort of a road trip 'vlog', I think is what the kids would call it.
Jeff
