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Welcome to Westwood Metalworks, What is he building in there?

From the limited amount of lead casting I have done, the venting is crucial to smooth sided finished castings. In bullet casting the vents can be very small but if they get clogged with dross the effect is immediately noticeable.
 
Venting is very important with all castings, and you have to evacuate the air in order to replace the cavity with liquid. The trouble sometimes is trying to think like water and being able to visualize how a mold will fill, and how the air will get out. The "rules" for lost foam are a bit different that traditional casting as I'm learning (the hard way), but the physics are similar.

I posted about this over at the homefoundry forum, and was able to get some great info from Kelly Coffield and others, and have a better understanding of my failure points, and a few more helpful tips to make sure the third time is the last time.

I've never been one to get all that pissed off about failures, as long as I could understand why I failed, and make the proper corrections moving forward. I realize now, my initial molding orientation was probably the best way, and most likely would have succeeded if I had enough sand to cover the pattern by a couple more inches. The undercut area was due to insufficient vibration. That was the reason I rotated the orientation for the 2nd go round, but I didn't think about that orientation being worse for filling/venting. I had my blinders on just thinking about the undercut. So, for #3, I'm going back to #1 layed down, and will take my time vibrating it thoroughly this time to ensure that undercut gets filled. If not, I can always machine that out too.
 
Caught a light whiff of skunk out at the barn earlier today. It wasn't too strong, so I thought it was just the neighbors and their constant dope smoking and the wind caught it. It's a near constant smell up around the house..... but this was the first time I smelled it way back there.....went back after dinner, and it was much stronger now. Walked around the side of my mower about to put the battery in so I could bring it up to the house, and right next to the battery tray is a tunnel heading under the tack room.......Took a quick second to put 2&2 together.......ABORT mission.....

This week I was planning on getting started cleaning up my wood tools, and getting my wood shop all setup again, but not until I deal with the skunk living under the floorboards.....

I laughed as I gotta squeeze past the mower in a narrow path filled with a lot of junk right over top of the den to get to my live trap stored behind it lol. Wish me luck....

Anyone got a skunk removal advice? Dealt with lots of unwanted Raccoons, but this is the first skunk we've had since we moved here in 2010. Hoping she doesn't have a Kit in there with her, but it's probably pretty likely.
 
Offer to take the neighbours dog for a walk? lol

I think a skunk might be something I'd pay to have removed, especially if kits could be involved.

Good luck.
 
Dan Dubeau said:
Caught a light whiff of skunk out at the barn earlier today. It wasn't too strong, so I thought it was just the neighbors and their constant dope smoking and the wind caught it. It's a near constant smell up around the house..... but this was the first time I smelled it way back there.....went back after dinner, and it was much stronger now. Walked around the side of my mower about to put the battery in so I could bring it up to the house, and right next to the battery tray is a tunnel heading under the tack room.......Took a quick second to put 2&2 together.......ABORT mission.....

This week I was planning on getting started cleaning up my wood tools, and getting my wood shop all setup again, but not until I deal with the skunk living under the floorboards.....

I laughed as I gotta squeeze past the mower in a narrow path filled with a lot of junk right over top of the den to get to my live trap stored behind it lol. Wish me luck....

Anyone got a skunk removal advice? Dealt with lots of unwanted Raccoons, but this is the first skunk we've had since we moved here in 2010. Hoping she doesn't have a Kit in there with her, but it's probably pretty likely.
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Live trap that is just big enough for a cat. The skunk can get in to trigger the trap but if it can't lift its tail, it can't spray.
 
I had one in my backyard and went to the Bulk Barn and picked up a bag of ground pepper and one of cayenne pepper I mixed them 50/50 and sprinkled it around the gates as well as around the shed and inside of the fence because they like to hug the edges I haven’t seen them since that was about a month ago although it may depend on if you have pets though.
Last year I trapped one ( cover it with a thicker blanket ) and put it in the back of the truck and let it loose about 1/2 hour from my house.
If anyone needs one I have 2 live traps.
 
Susquatch said:
Just leave them alone. They eat grubs and don't really cause any harm.
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That dog don't hunt around my place...they get chased away ASAP.
I learned a LOOOOng time ago, don't shoot the thing, it will spray and stink up the place forever ( worst case scenario it is wounded and crawls under an out-building and dies there where you cant remove it ... stinks a long time)...now I shoot beside them on purpose and the gunfire seems to change their mind about where they want to live.
 
Tom O said:
I had one in my backyard and went to the Bulk Barn and picked up a bag of ground pepper and one of cayenne pepper I mixed them 50/50 and sprinkled it around the gates as well as around the shed and inside of the fence because they like to hug the edges I haven’t seen them since that was about a month ago although it may depend on if you have pets though.
Last year I trapped one ( cover it with a thicker blanket ) and put it in the back of the truck and let it loose about 1/2 hour from my house.
If anyone needs one I have 2 live traps.
Click to expand...
I like that pepper idea. Might be worth a try. I'll pick some up tomorrow but also set a smaller trap too.
 
Well, no whiff of skunk anymore when I went back to get the boat out tonight. Grabbed the memory stick from the trail cam and had a good chuckle.....

Anyone recognize this butt?
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Oh hi there!
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Certainly feel better knowing it's not a skunk, but He's still gotta go. Unless I could relocate it and have my very own weather prediction guy, Kendal Kenny.

For reference, you can see the door to the barn right above the hole, so you can understand my hesitance to go in and start cleaning around if there was a skunk living below......

I did spray some cayenne mixture all around the hole last weekend, so maybe the skunk moved out and this guy in. But nothing picked up on the trailcam, so I guess it was Kendal Kenny the whole time. The skunky smell could have been the neighbors dope the whole time....
 
One bloody Ground Hog will totally destroy an acre of Soybeans. They are on my not welcome here list.

They are not as bad as grackles though. Boat Tailed Grackles are black coloured birds half the size of a crow. They systematically excavate and eat germinated corn seeds until the corn gets too big for them. Each bird will eat an acre of corn. They are on my exterminate on sight list. Adding insult to injury, after they feed the seed to their young, they go out of their way to deliberately drop their baby droppings in my wife's pool.

Your ground hog is probably as innocent as they get. Just watch his face for bot flies.
 
I'm actually super relieved it's not a skunk. I was really hoping to chip away at cleaning up my woodworking tools in there and get them all setup as a working, functioning shop again, but with the skunk potential, I've not done anything yet. I don't have the time to sit on it, and the traps have caught nothing yet.

I filled the hole in (again) and sprayed some cayenne all around again, set the camera up, and come sunday if it's not dug out again, will call this good. Hopefully. I'm a live and let live guy with most animals, as long as they're not damaging property. If they move on, I'm good. Don't like killing stuff I'm not going to eat, or something that's not become a true nuisance animal. If Kendal Kenny moves on and finds a new home, it's best case Ontario. If I pick it up in the trap, I'll ship it down your way 😀
 
Dan Dubeau said:
I'm a live and let live guy with most animals, as long as they're not damaging property. If they move on, I'm good. Don't like killing stuff I'm not going to eat, or something that's not become a true nuisance animal. If Kendal Kenny moves on and finds a new home, it's best case Ontario. If I pick it up in the trap, I'll ship it down your way
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Me too. But I do have limits. If he likes the forest, he would be welcome here. If he likes my crops, not so welcome.

I hate those live traps. All they are is an excuse for the city folks to move their problems to the country for somebody else to feed them lead poison.

I don't tolerate that crap. Anything I trap here, gets a good education about being terrified of live traps, and then goes back to the city where they belong.
 
Susquatch said:
One bloody Ground Hog will totally destroy an acre of Soybeans.

Boat Tailed Grackles are black coloured birds half the size of a crow. They systematically excavate and eat germinated corn seeds until the corn gets too big for them.
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Never had a problem with a farmer letting me hunt either on their land!
 
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