Thread: Taking The Next Step (Casting)

John,

Your other 10" casting mold is ready, give me a call to arrange pick-up.
Much happier with the finish of this one

Cheers
Tony

Hehe ! I hope to do a test cast in the morning on the first mold will ring in the morning , cheers ~ John

Originally Posted by AuS MaDDoG

Hey,

Earlier this morning I took out some blanks from my new vertical casting molds and so far so good
I do not see any bubbles so that's a good start but will really need to wait until I start to turn them I guess. I will post a photo of the blanks later on. Can't wait to turn a couple of them to see how the colours and the mix's turned out
I am now truly addicted hehe!!

Cheers
Tony.

Nice looking set there, seems there's no stopping you now

Russell.

Hi Russell,

Yeh I just need to perfect the technique now and experimenting with different colours and swirls and mixing
Then the real fun begins with the pressure casting and WW, pine cones, banksia's, and all the rest.

Cheers
Tony

Your mould stand and your blanks look great

I have something similar, using grey electrical conduit as the mould and using black PVC chair tips filled with silicone as the push in plug. Made these up before I had Delrin to hand.

Just about to make a new stand to hold more tubes, will be round and be the full inside diameter of the pressure pot.

Getting more and more to the stage of using round moulds, the round blanks are easier to hold in chucks etc and use a bit less resin, as well as less initial turning.

I was initially sceptical of using vertical round moulds as I thought they might hold more bubbles in, but I have not had a problem with that.

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Your mould stand and your blanks look great

I have something similar, using grey electrical conduit as the mould and using black PVC chair tips filled with silicone as the push in plug. Made these up before I had Delrin to hand.

Just about to make a new stand to hold more tubes, will be round and be the full inside diameter of the pressure pot.

Getting more and more to the stage of using round moulds, the round blanks are easier to hold in chucks etc and use a bit less resin, as well as less initial turning.

I was initially sceptical of using vertical round moulds as I thought they might hold more bubbles in, but I have not had a problem with that.

Fred,

I tried using the rubber chair tips. That works, but the smallest I can find only fit Sierra or larger diameter tubes. Do you have them smaller?

As for the bubbles. I've never had problems casting vertically until I started this copper braid casting, and it's been nothing but a nightmare with bubbles. They seem to cling to the braid, and in my vertical casts, they leak out slowly and leave long streaky voids in the blank, so I've switched to flat moulds for them, but still having bubble trouble.

Russell.

Russell, I use the PVC chair tips as bottom stoppers for the PVC conduit moulds, not on pen kit tubes such as the Sierra etc.

I have used stoppers on pen kit tubes before I bought the Resinsaver Moulds but they were silcone "corks".

These days I just use the Resinsaver moulds for that sort of work.

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Russell, I use the PVC chair tips as bottom stoppers for the PVC conduit moulds, not on pen kit tubes such as the Sierra etc.

I have used stoppers on pen kit tubes before I bought the Resinsaver Moulds but they were silcone "corks".

These days I just use the Resinsaver moulds for that sort of work.

Ahh sorry, my misunderstanding

Russell.

Had to give this a try hehe,picked up the first mold yesterday From Tony ,carved out of 23mm thick cutting boards, Did three to try 2 copper and one stainless braid for cigar pens . Get 4 tubes per length so potentialy 6 pens from this casting .took 240 mils of resin and 1.5 mils activater,didn't want it gelling too fast and stop the bubbles if any from rising , All good very few bubbles I can see I did have a problem getting the casts out of the mold as it is rigid and no flex. Will improve on that next cast hehe. So with all the help from Russell Tony Neil and others it looks like success at this time Cheers ~ John

Originally Posted by gawdelpus

didn't want it gelling too fast and stop the bubbles if any from rising , All good very few bubbles I can see I did have a problem getting the casts out of the mold as it is rigid and no flex. Will improve on that next cast hehe. So with all the help from Russell Tony Neil and others it looks like success at this time Cheers ~ John

Well glad someone's gotten rid of bubbles, I'm still getting them in mine. I've spent the day on the CNC machine though, redesigning the mould. I'm making a separate removeable plug with handle to help get the blank out of the mould. Main hassle is getting the two parts to mate cleanly, and finding a piece of board that's not too big, and not too small. I've also started carving into my HDPE block, and made an oopsie on the first two by not measuring inside the vector boundary, so they were a little oversize

Russell.

Russell ! I did paint resin onto one of the tubes before dropping into mold, and because they rested on the wooden plugs with some clearance I was able to actually revolve the whole tube once covered in resin,this insured nothing was trapped underneath ,because the stainless was a tight fit couldn't do that trick hehe.but I don't recall ever getting trouble with bubbles and stainless . Won't know till cut and turned ,but look ok at this point , cheers ~ John

Originally Posted by gawdelpus

Russell ! I did paint resin onto one of the tubes before dropping into mold, and because they rested on the wooden plugs with some clearance I was able to actually revolve the whole tube once covered in resin,this insured nothing was trapped underneath ,because the stainless was a tight fit couldn't do that trick hehe.but I don't recall ever getting trouble with bubbles and stainless . Won't know till cut and turned ,but look ok at this point , cheers ~ John

Fair enough, so how much mess was there with the paintbrush and your fingers(?) with all that raw resin slopping around?

Russell.

Hi,
Quick question, Tried my first casting this afternoon.
All was going well until 1 hr in I developed an air leak. Now I was in the shed anyway so everytime it went down to 30 PSI I topped it up to 40.
How long do I need to keep doing it for? Its been about 4 hrs so far.

Peter

Originally Posted by _fly_

Hi,
Quick question, Tried my first casting this afternoon.
All was going well until 1 hr in I developed an air leak. Now I was in the shed anyway so everytime it went down to 30 PSI I topped it up to 40.
How long do I need to keep doing it for? Its been about 4 hrs so far.

Peter

Pressure only needs to be maintained until the resin has gelled really, so asuuming standard gel time is 15 - 30 minutes in this warm weather, anything over 1/2 hr should be pretty safe.

Russell.