Casting Metals

[Maniaman]

Hows the aluminum hold up to wear?
Im thinking there isnt alot of full aluminum shop equipment.

You've inspired me to cast a couple things my self! stuff like Gear cover, Compression head and a nice intake.
Also if you have any bike parts uve fabricated id like to see them!
Thanks Norm!

 

[Norman]

Most machine tools are cast iron it takes a lot more heat to melt iron and special equipment to handle liquid iron. Aluminum melts at lower temps. so easier to melt and handle for a diys person. The aluminum seems to hold up to wear fairly well, it's not a stiff as cast iron
I haven't done a casting for the bicycle, just for some parts for the Harley, I replaced a plastic cup holder by casting one out of aluminum.
I plan on someday casting a few cylinder heads and side covers for a bike engine, I' just not motivated to do this. If I do I'll probably make a wood pattern for the cast parts.
Now if someone wanted a cast cylinder head with no combustion chamber where they could machine their own chamber I might be persuaded to cast a few. The head would have stock cooling fins , the finish would be rougher due to sand casting which will help get rid of heat due to more surface area, how much? may not enough to make much difference. I'd like to make a wood pattern of the head with longer/larger cooling fins. I could put the spark plug hole in straight or at an angle.
Casting the parts you can change then to suit your needs.

 

[Norman]

If you have a lathe and a quick change tool post, then you know it can be a pain keeping track of the tool holders. So I decided to do something about it. I make a cast tool post holders for mounting the tool post on the wall for easy finding the proper tool post. Beats keeping them in the chip tray or in a Cabinet.
Here is some photos of it.
this is the tool holders mounted on the wall.

this is what the tool holder looks like

this is the pattern on the left on the right is a core box to make 2 cores for each cast part. the cores are made from sodium silicate and sand then gassed with Co2 sets the sand up instantly.

this is an end view of one of the cores notice the angle on the one side

 

[Norman]

the core is just a hair shorter than the mold where it fits in.

here is one core in the mold another one is placed on the other side then the mold is closed and poured.

the cast part is taken out of the mold you can see the cores are still in place they are pretty tough so I soak the casting in water and dig out the cores which get destroyed doing so.

here is 2 casting ready to be finished and cut to length this will make 10 tool holders.

 

[Norman]

here is a qctp tool on the holder end view

side view now the long bar gets cut into 5 holders and a mounting hole drilled.

all done ready to be mounted on the wall to hold the tools.

end view of one of the holders.

These holders fit a axa size qctp tool holder. if your interested a set send me a PM.

 

[Thud]

Looking Good as allways Norm.

I managed to cast an adaptor for a restored Isetta this past weekend. We got rid of the stock Bing & went with a Mikuni.

It was a really quick & dirty lost foam pour. Started the project at 8:00 am & we started the engine at 1:00 that afternoon. (had to re-set the cam timing a tooth or it would have been earlier)

I would like to report that I bought some "real" de-gasser for BCS & it really made a differace in the castings I have used it on so far.
I will give it a 4-star recomdation if you have a casting that will be polished & any gas entrapmant would be a flaw.

keep posting the projects.

 

[Dan]

Off topic alert; Norman, I was at a thing to celebrate a local nursery's 200th anniversary. They had a blacksmith working there and I was asking him some questions. (really neat old guy. Looked about 80+) As I was telling him about you and this thread, I looked down at his fire pit. He was resting the back of his hand in the coals checking the temp! Old world tuff.

As we talked, his wife, they were both dressed in 1800's garb, sewed an American flag. By hand.

just kinda cool.

 

[Norman]

Thud
I got some pool shock to try. I used it once so far, I need to make a cone shaped tool to push it to the bottom of the melt. I made a small cylinder one to try but it bubbled so hard the metal puked out of the crucible. so I'll make a cone shaped one with some small holes drilled into it.
Dan that must be one crusty tough old dude. it would have been fun to meet him.

hey here is a 3cylinder radial air engine I build a few years ago. I finally got around to shooting a short video of it. It's only good for running the air out of the air compressor. It would never power a motorized bike, unless it was scaled up a bunch, but who would want a steam line coming off and steaming your rocky mountain oysters?!!!

YouTube - ‪3 cylinder radial air engine made from aircraft landing gear‬‏

 

[Norman]

I got tired of trying to smooth up the tool holders dove tails by hand using a file and a scraper. The shaper will do it but it's like watching the grass grow, and I want to do the dovetails all at once. Soo I made a dovetail cutter for the mill. Made the dovetail blank on the lathe then hand ground the cutter teeth with a dremel, once that was butchered up the best I could do I needed to heat treat it heated it up to a straw color and dropped it in water, well it worked. One swipe on each side with the mill and it's done. Hey it's junk yard machining at it's finest.? So far I've bought only 3 end mills for the mill all the rest of the cutting tools are home made. Well even the holders for the end mills are home made. Thought I'd show a couple of photos of the dovetail cutter for laughs.
I used my cheap camera again so the pictures suck.

This home made cutter make quick work of getting the dovetail on the aluminum nice and smooth.

the end of the cutter is concave that allows it to cut cleanly on it's end and not rub the aluminum

I don't think this will cut steel? But it eats right through the aluminum

I didn't show the finished work I still need to take some photos of it.

 

[Norman]

I made this clutch cable holder for my Harley just a few days ago. Even though it's for a big bike, you could do the same for a motorized bike. This could be used for other things that you might want to use a clamp for like a fuel tank mounting etc.
here's some photos of it
rough sketch of what I want on a block of cast aluminum

This is the other side, I machined all sides flat then split the block in half with a saw.

Boring the hole for where it will clamp around the frame. I drilled and taped the 2 halfs and used a single 1/4-20 shcs to hold it together.

the hole is bored and the hole for the cable is drilled

there more on the next page!!!!!

 

[Norman]

marked where I want to remove metal. the cutting, milling, filing,sanding, and cussing now starts until its done.

All done. after polishing it took about 3 hours of work plus some messing around. the seam is real hard to see, I must of done a fairly good job?

here it is on the bike

I could've bought one of these for $10.00 but none have o-rings where the clamp fits around the frame, mine does it keeps the clamp nice and tight plus protests the frame from scratches. I didn't show the o-ring grooves forgot to take a picture of that.

up a little closer.

If I was to make more I'd make a pattern and cast these then the machining would be a lot less. You could make these larger or smaller to fit your bike.

 

[Goat Herder]

Nice trick with the marker.

 

[Norman]

Thanks Goat!
It's a poor man's dykem.... er layout dye. purple works real good.

Thanks for your reply too Elmo!
Your response is right below this.

 

[Elmo]

Neat gadget Norm.

 

[Dan]

Marker trick just saved me a few bucks. The dye stuff was on a shopping list for payday.

Thanks Norman.

I had bought a Mill/lathe. Man, the toys that go with it are a whole bunch of $. But seemingly, any thing for our crazy and tools and toys are always fun. Sadly, after I buy all the stuff to make stuff, I can make my own stuff, to make stuff. lol

 

[Norman]

Dan,

That's why I built the mill and shaper, I make most all the tools for it. Now you need a foundry so you can cast your parts machine them on your lathe an mill. If you want it bad enough, you can make it!!!

Glad you like the poor boy lay out dye. I use it all the time.

I'm kicked back trying to decide what to make next????? I still need to cast the cylinder head I've been saying I'm going to do, among other stuff, it's still so friggin hot here I don't want to go out side and cook in the heat, one of the nice things about being retired, if you want to you don't have to.

 

[Dan]

"one of the nice things about being retired, if you want to you don't have to." good one, lol.

As soon as I work my way up to casting, I really wanna try and make a 2 stroke.
Just landed a purty cool contract. I'm already tool shopping in my head.

 

[Norman]

This one of the sites I like to visit I have a few things posted in this site.
Projects In Metal, LLC Forum

 

[Dan]

Cool site, thanks Norman! Gonna join. (Bummer, wouldn't let me use "dan")

Not to ramble on your thread but had one of those 3AM thoughts. (I call them that 'cause it was and always seems to be at 3AM. Internal clock or that was when I ran outa beer? we may never know)

A from total scratch, steam MB engine! Casting, machining, every thing! Wut I am thinking is just scale up one of the plans for mini ones. Dunno but man, how cool would that be? More a show piece than any thing but a functioning steam propelled MB. LOL, piston rear wheel drive like a train. Would do about 14 MPH but hey.

Is so far beyond my skills at present but that's the thing with our thing. Always some thing to learn.

 

[Dan]

Har, lol! Projects In Metal, LLC Blog Archive Norman Newguy: In the Beginning

About sums it up, ayup.