First Sand Casting
If you’ve been reading on my other site, I’ve been busy learning about casting aluminum at home. I built a burner which uses propane at high pressure to heat a crucible containing aluminum, and for my first pour, used plaster of paris for the mold. This did not work very well, so I proceeded to move on to sand casting. Today I did my first sand casting, and let me tell you, the results are WONDERFUL!! I am very happy, and excited about the quality of the latest casting. It is still not perfect, but the step forward in switching from plaster of paris to sand was a huge leap.
I’m including some photos here and a couple of videos for posterity.
Here you can see me after I’ve mixed up my green sand using approximately 10% bentonite clay and 90% silica sand. I’m starting to ram up the mold here.
After pouring, and letting the casting cool, I broke it out of the mold. In this photo it is still very VERY hot, far too hot to pick up, but I couldn’t wait any longer (I had waited about 45 minutes at this point).
After letting it cool more, and cleaning off the sand, here are some close up photos showing some of the defects in the casting. I’ll be researching what happened, and trying to remedy the problems on the next casting. However, I’m very excited as this casting turned out FAR better than my first!
