Just some scrap extruded aluminum. I don't know the exact alloy but from what I've seen that sort of stuff always shrinks a lot more than a proper casting alloy.

In case you missed the explanation in the description, the reason for using the extruded aluminum scrap instead of the nice A356 he has was that he plans to anodize and dye the bark castings. This does not work well with cast aluminum. As I understand it, silicon particles on the cast aluminum surface won't accept the dye. The extrusion alloy should anodize well.

Hi, we aren't using greensand here, this is Petrobond brand oil bonded sand. It is tempered with oil rather than water and uses a different binder, some type of organoclay. The homemade equivalent is called K-bond. You can look up the recipe for that but it is very difficult to source the right binder (and IMO even the right sand to get equivalent results). But I've used professional grade greensand in the past as well as homemade greensand. The professional sand contained somewhere between 4-7% bentonite(s). But if you're making your own using some sort of locally available sand and do not have a muller to mechanically coat each grain of sand in a thin layer of clay, you will probably need a bit of extra bentonite and elbow grease to make up for those shortcomings. The good news is, it doesn't have to be perfect and if mulling is incomplete ramming up molds will even gradually improve it. I would start with 10% bentonite by weight of dry ingredients and adjust from there after spending ridiculous amounts of time and effort mullling it manually. If possible, use a 50/50 mix of southern and western bentonites, aka calcium bentonite and sodium bentonite. But if you can only find one kind of bentonite or don't know which kind you have, that's ok too. Hope that helps

Can confirm - I've had better. For instance: room temperature aluminum. But, you don't get to have this much fun without getting a few little burns and scrapes once in a while, am I right?

Thanks! This project has been a great experience. I had to reclick the bell on your channel a while back too, you'd think all you had to do was hit sub to keep getting notified, why is the bell even a thing?! Anyhow, hope you enjoy the rest of the show when you get a chance.

Yup, mold weights and vise grips, who needs'em!

The black sand is just well-used petrobond. I haven't welded anything other than mild steel using a fluxcore welder, personally. But you can see here that David is able to TIG weld the cast aluminum somewhat, without even really cleaning it very carefully. He says it is indeed difficult, but so far so good. He'd gotten one full block successfully welded together so far, last I saw.

Thanks, the plan is to rebuild the missing corner with TIG weld if possible, but I'm glad I'm not the one who has to do the chasing to make the weld look like rock... If necessary that whole piece could be recast, or maybe just a piece of the missing corner could be cast and welded on. We're using certified A356 ingots for all these castings.

Thanks! Yeah we are using some really big flasks for this job. We had to get a bunch more sand shipped up here.

Thanks! It's an A25 😁 I remember your furnace build on the alloyavenue forums, hope to see some action soon! Did you ever make it over to thehomefoundry.org forums after AA went dark?

@@tobhomott 25!?!?!? Geeze! I saved a PDF of my build from AA. Ya,I've been passively lurking on thehomefoundry, maybe I should post the old thread for nostalgia sake 😁

A small timer like me might be your only option, the big boys either have insane wait times or intentionally price small jobs like they don't want them because they don't, from what I've been told by a couple of recent clients. But whether you're just interested in finding a small foundry like mine or getting set up to actually make your own castings, I suggest you register at thehomefoundry.org forums. Hands down the best online resource with many many examples of what has and hasn't worked for others. All the free advice you could ever want too. As a member (it's free to register, but we're voluntarily member-underfunded by small annual donations) you could send me a private message about getting my help with your castings, or perhaps find another small foundry that's closer to your location or that you perhaps feel is better equipped to get your job done. What part of Ontario are you in? Maybe I can put you in touch with someone local who can help with either castings or a casting shed tour and some advice

@@tobhomott I'll have a look at the forum. I'm in east GTA

​@@johnfurr8779If the forum isn't your kind of deal, you can always contact me by email at [email protected] to discuss your casting projects or talk about building furnaces, finding a small foundry in your area, etc. Good luck

Entirely possible, glad he and I were able to get past that barrier

Aw shucks, David's the one with a Master's degree not me. Thanks though! There's a story behind those bricks...

Thanks! I really like mine, nice and thick but I'm not tripping over them.

Thanks, more to come

Tell me you dont hate them too...

@@tobhomott I figured out it all comes down to the MUSIC you choose to put on your video. It doesn't matter if it's a short video about grass growing. KZfaq just sucks! Look at the couple of shorts I posted and the hits they received. People are stupid.

Yeah, this is the 3rd month in a row this has happened I think. 1st time was a banking issue, Dave's bank thought they were saving him from scammers by not paying out the site hosting fee... Maybe the same issue repeating? Knowing banks I would not doubt it. I'm sure Dave's working on a fix. I'd be on the forum right now posting a link to Clay's brand new video about this letter press restoration if I could! 😊 Weirdly I didn't get any notification about your comment, I just happened to be checking.

@@tobhomott Ya see there is proof youtube shadow bans people that lean conservative!

Thanks! I hope it is enough to forgive my use of aluminum bronze. It's real C954 at least, no dirty pop cans and wire homebrew.

Great to hear & glad I could help. Looking forward to seeing some prints! Edit - if anyone actually reads these, Clay's letter press video is now up on KZfaq at kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g6xpgNynmdDMeX0.htmlsi=e-Uhe3yIZz1cv5Af Go check it out!

Why thank you good sir. 2nd time's the charm as they say

Thanks! Working on something big along those lines with a local artist right now too. Should have something up here covering that eventually.

Thanks for the info. The customer wanted a chase with a little extra "bling" factor, I think. Can tell you for sure I can't cast steel though. I believe the aluminum bronze ought to hold up fairly well in place of steel. A fellow in Ohio who's restored and sold all sizes of Kelsey presses told me they're usually cast iron, but I'd also heard "steel or possibly cast iron" from another trusted source. 👍

First flask I ever built, so I hesitate to alter it for purely nostalgic reasons. If this hadn't been a flat back, or if this oddball size flask actually came in handy more than a couple times a decade... I'd probably feel different. 😁

@@tobhomott I understand the hesitation, but you will eventually thank yourself for applying your new knowledge and improving your tools and processes.

@@askquestionstrythings it's definitely somewhere on my long list of planned improvements. 😉

Thanks! It works in a pinch and saves wear and tear on your muffin pans compared to pouring directly into them, but I've learned that if you rely on it to much can be really hard on petrobond sand. If you want to try this I would suggest experimenting with greensand. Or the cement bonded sand recipe that can be found on @sandrammer 's channel. In theory that could be used to make a semi-permanent ingot mold that you wouldn't have to keep ramming up every time. I' be been meaning to try that myself.

I don't think it matters too much, there's only one direction for it to go. Maybe you're right

Glad you found it helpful!

@@tobhomott have you tried making any other aluminum bronze tools?

@@pregno1421 I've got a couple of different axe patterns, there's video about my pipe tomahawk on here if you want to check it out. Pretty sure I have a playlist to make them easier to find. I also made the little peening anvil that I use in the work hardening process with the same alloy, and recently I cast an aluminum bronze pattern rapper tool. It's significantly heavier than the aluminum one I use for most jobs, for heavier/deeper patterns that need a bit more force to loosen. I think those are the only tools per se, but I've also use Al-bronze to make a few spear points, a part for an antique letter press, and one or two couple other pieces, decorative stuff.

Will do, thanks!

Thanks! If you want I'll add you to my list. If I get takers for a dozen or more (up to 3 or 4 pieces so far), I'll set up production patterns to lower the price per piece and do a small run of these. DM @tobho_mott if you're on IG so I can keep you in the loop if/when that happens. If you're not on there I can post an email address. Thanks again!

He's a good kid, far as I can tell

Thanks Pete!

Glad it's not just me!

There actually was a little dip on the bottom (cope) side. Shhhh!😂 That feeder is sufficient for an aluminum phone stand but could have been a little bigger here. No matter, I may use a little filler to flatten it out and put some felt over it to protect the furniture anyhow. Shhh again

Thank you sir. I'm sure It won't be long until someone makes one with spikes on it and takes the top spot. But I'm going to enjoy it while I can 😂

Thanks! I'll take that as a compliment, but if you really actually want one you can dm me on ig. Those classes were fun, wish it could have kept going. Trying to remember what you made...

Thanks! Things have been slow lately but hoping to pick up the pace a bit this year. Got a collab with another local creator coming up that should be pretty interesting.

Thanks. Actually it might break... a floor tile! 😀

Thanks man

Thanks! Yes, the ancients used a similar method to harden the edge of bronze age blades; the hammer marks can still be seen on artifacts. Aluminum bronze can get very hard this way, harder than almost any other copper alloy. But the hardening does not go super deep into the metal. I have another video that shows what happens if you try to chop wood after grinding off the work hardened surface: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m9KRfZp0p56RiYk.htmlsi=HBBCSQtlrS8-nTWA Ignore what I say there about having annealed the edge of the blade - that may or may not be true but I definitely removed all the work hardening through aggressive re-grinding. The same thing could have happened without any overheating involved if I had just skipped the original work hardening. It's worth noting that some aluminum bronze alloys can also be hardened with a heat and quench treatment, similar to hardening steel though not quite that hard. Very unusual for a copper alloy. I have not experimented with that myself. Yet. I've made a couple of bronze axes for folks who really just wanted a shiny wall hanger, but I always harden the edges anyway. But that's more for me than for them, I just like knowing they are all functional tools as well as art. 😁

So far I haven't had to reline any of my furnaces. As long as you have a good 3000F+ refractory lining and keep the burner tuned reasonably near neutral, you should be fine for a long time.

I'll do my best to answer. Most people I've seen using sodium silicate to harden cores use CO2 to harden them. But you can also use heat to cure sodium silicate as I did here. Or you could even just leave them to sit there for a while and let the CO2 in the air get to them over time. Before I baked them, these cores weren't hardened at all, just sticky because of the gasket sealer's viscosity. I'm sure mine would have bent if I hadn't been pretty careful demolding them. I also baked them almost immediately after demolding. Once they have. Hardened they should not be able too bend any more, but it's still a good idea to bake them again before using them, to make sure the cores are absolutely dry. Is it possible that your cores flexed either during demolding, or perhaps you set them down somewhere not quite flat before hardening them? As for your core breaking after you cast it, as long as the socket in your spear tip came out right, that's probably a good thing. If the core didn't have enough collapsibility to compress a little as the casting freezes and shrinks, the metal surrounding it might tear instead of the core breaking up. It isn't uncommon for foundries to add a portion of sugar and/or different types of grain and wood flours to core sand in order to improve the collapsibility of cores.

Thanks!

Thanks, this method has worked well for me for several years now

I would trust 1/4" thick steel molds with a good coating of black oxide not to get copper alloy ingots brazed into them, but this works for me. I can usually get several uses out of a mold like this if I'm careful not to damage the mold dumping out the ingots. However the mold cavities deteriorate with each use. But who cares if the ingots are lumpy? Their only use it to get melted again later anyway!

Preheated thick steel molds, I meant. Of course, another plus I forgot to mention about using molding sand is the ingots molds don't need to be preheated...

Aw shucks 😉

Go for it! Good luck

I'd say it's worth a try. Worst case scenario: it doesn't work, and you end up remelting it and trying again...

Thank you! That is the goal.

Thanks! 😃 Slow and steady wins the race. Rapping too much on patterns with text on them, especially rapping side to side, is how I always end up breaking off ie. the little sand triangles in the middle of the A's, so I try to go easy and sometimes end up having to gently wiggle it by hand using the draw screw for a few seconds til I feel it come loose. Seems to work for me

@@tobhomott oh yeah! I had that problem with the letters before. Lol. Hit it too hard and the dirt comes out with it.

Thanks Preso! I used plastic sign letters with the tabs nipped off the back. There is a selection of fonts and sizes available online. I didn't do this here, but if you cast a blank to use as a pattern, you can just soak the letters back off the casting after to recover the letters, I have cast a couple of sizes of blank plaques that I use this way so I can vary the text that's on them without having to make a whole new pattern. I've also used your 3D printer fonts before to good effect when using printed patterns 👍. I've also got an old trick for making much smaller pattern letters that I'd like to show, but first I need to find my dymo embossing tape gun amid all the clutter...

Thanks man, I'm happy with it. I think I saw earlier that you're working on an interesting pattern, looking forward to it

@@tobhomott yep! Hope it turns out well. It is for a friend. Trying really hard to do this one myself!

@@ironhead65 good luck!