Metal Casting Class: October 5/6, 2013

·        Sat., October 5, 8-4:30 & Sun., October 6, 8-4:30, we will offer a Metal Casting Class. Peter Grant, the proprietor of Odd Duck Foundry, a small metal casting enterprise in Orrington, ME, will share his knowledge of furnace making, fuels, heating, metals, molds and casting in various metals. This class will involve creating sand cast molds, heating either brass, bronze or aluminum and casting an object(s). Some file work may be necessitated for a final product to take home. $225, tools and materials provided. 

Check out:
http://dtzone.com/resmat/m_ind_sand_casting_step_by_step.htm

      This should give you an idea of the process we will be going through to complete the projects in this class.


View the following:

This sand casting flask was created though the process of sand casting by Peter Grant. This receives the green sand that is essential to creating a pattern.

This is ramming paddle for packing green sand into a flask is also cast in aluminum. This might be a beginner's project.

This bracket was copied from a Champion 400 blacksmithing blower. By pressing objects in green sand you can essentially replicate them in various metals, including the original metal. The original bracket was cast steel but aluminum is very durable and has been used on a blacksmithing blower assembly for five years without any visible wear. This was completed by Willowbrook director Robert Schmick under Peter Grant's tutelage.

Peter Grant imparting his knowledge of metal casting in class that was organization by Robert Schmick at the the Curran Homestead Living History Farm and Museum in Orrington, ME in 2009.

Here we see Peter Grant handling a ceramic crucible after pouring brass into a sand casting flask. The flask has drippings of molten brass at the sprue. The homemade furnace that he uses is to his left with a visible flame appearing from its top.

Grant created these pair of crucible tongs that he regularly uses from a set of golf clubs; how's that for Yankee ingenuity. The philosophy inherent in this class is that you can do metal casting on a very modest budget as a furnace and tools can be made by the enthusiast. The metal caster of yore often made his own tools as well for the purpose of casting parts and making ingenious innovations to his tools and machinery.

This aluminum casting of a nameplate was first done in cast iron for the restoration of a Lombard Log Hauler. As there were no original name plates to be had, Peter found a photograph in a book that he was able to make a pattern in order to replicate this. The design is being reproduced for the purposes of souvenirs that double as a pot trivet. 

here we see the original alongside of an aluminum copy. This is a part to a riveter's forge. As you can see a bit of drilling and file work will be required to make the aluminum replication a serviceable copy.

Here you see a furnace in the process of melting brass. Notice the cast aluminum blower that serves in the delivery of fuel to furnace.

Here we see the process of "coping out" the green sand for the purpose of metal casting.

Pouring molten grass from a crucible.