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| How I vacuum cast Sterling Silver,
Gold, Bronze |
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Temperature controller made up of a
household
reostate and duplex receptacle. Night light is
to show it's on. |
Wax pen is a cheap soldering iron. Base
is a
flat can filled with type lead with spring
embedded as a holder. |
Project 1 - Settings in a 2" sprue
base. |
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Project 1 - Mounted on base. |
Paper cylinder liner is plasticized
paper from
local print shop offcuts. Holes are to fix the
investment to cylinder. |
Liner fixed in place with Scotch
transparent
tape along seam and over the top. |
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Masking tape 'sleeve' to allow
overfill. |
Ready for investing. |
Project 2 - Cylinder is stainless steel
tube
squished to fit longer narrow pieces. |
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Base is plywood with 3 layers of inner
tube
and springs set on eye screws. |
Top of cylinder with same liner
material as #1. |
Bottom of cylinder. Guess it's not a
cylinder
anymore. |
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Setup with waxes mounted. |
Setup ready to go. |
Setup with masking tape 'sleeve'. |
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Finished setup. |
Investment, scale, rubber mixing bowl,
powder bowl, water, cylinders. |
Vacuum setup. Pump with homemade table.
Table plumbing is household copper tubing
and fittings on aluminum plate. |
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Vacuuming. |
Vacuumed cylinders. |
Overfill is shaved off, a cavity is
carved in the
center, trough is cut around circumference
and channels cut to join center and outside. |
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Project 2 - Filled, vacuumed and set. |
Overfill shaved flat. Needs to be flat
for vacuum
to be effective. |
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Center cavity, edge trough and
connecting
troughs, |
Center cavity is placed over vacuum
table hole
so vacuum is formed at bottom and up the
sides where the paper liner has burned out. |
Where you pour molten metal once you
have
completed your burn out cycles and is at
casting temperature. |
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Programmable kiln. Use whatever cycles
work for you. |
Very fancy vacuum casting table. Copper
sheet with household copper tubing and
heavy rubber[?] hose to pump. |
Since casting temperature burns the
silicon
pads I've gone with wet but not dripping
newsprint as seal. |
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Vacuum pump, not high end. Only draws
about 23 - 25 inches of mercury but seems
to do the job. |
Casting setup. Welding torch with
'rosebud'
tip [oxy-propane], hard kiln brick surround,
vacuum table, kiln. |
Torch 'holder' is a modified microphone
stand. Leaves hand free to set up cylinder
while keeping metal molten. |
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Finished cast. |
Break-out area. |
Cleaned but not pickled. |
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Cleaned up and pickled finished casting. |
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