The casting ended up with a poor surface finish. I haven't worked out the main cause of this. It may be related to pouring temperature or venting.
For small things like this I think it would be interesting to try building a small electric furnace.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Zinc Casting
Did a quick zinc casting of a small knight figure. This was a sand casting demo for some friends who are interested in the skill. I was surprised that the shaft of the mace came out, since it is only about 2mm in diameter.
The casting ended up with a poor surface finish. I haven't worked out the main cause of this. It may be related to pouring temperature or venting.
For small things like this I think it would be interesting to try building a small electric furnace.
The casting ended up with a poor surface finish. I haven't worked out the main cause of this. It may be related to pouring temperature or venting.
For small things like this I think it would be interesting to try building a small electric furnace.
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2 comments:
Were you thinking of a plain-old resistive furnace, or an inductive? I've read some stuff about small, hobby-sized induction furnaces, and while they seem pretty complex to design, they're supposedly much more efficient.
I was thinking just a simple, small resistive setup for doing pours with just a few ounces of metal.
Something like two soft firebricks strapped together with a hole bored into the middle to hold a crucible, with a heating element coiled along the perimeter of the hole, with a third brick on top to reduce convective heat loss.
I have an old toaster set aside with the thought of pulling out the heating elements to use in such a furnace.
I'm sure it would be easy to do zinc this way, and I suspect it could handle aluminum and possibly silver as well.
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