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Wax burnout oven rebuild + vacuum casting table

 
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Fredo
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Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 251
Location: Kingdom of Nye Area 51

PostPosted: Mon May 13, 2013 8:20 pm    Post subject: Wax burnout oven rebuild + vacuum casting table Reply with quote

This is the vacuum casting set up I put together the past two days... The oven was a basket case when I got it.. I stripped out the old element and replaced it with some coiled nichrome wire left over from building the vacuum formers.. It's a thousand watt element and is full on when pluged into an outlet... It'll plug it into my 1000 watt powerstat. That'll let me control the voltage from 0-140 volts.....
You can see the floor,or what was the floor, after the melt down.. In the center you can make out what once was a crucible, only the bottom is still there.. They took a crucible full of flux and some gold dust.... Turned it on high and left it to melt the gold, figuring it would go to the bottom of the crucible.. I plan on breaking up the old floor and flux, then run it through a ball mill.. You can see little round specks of gold throughout.
Decided to replace the floor with a mix of perlite and sodium silicate.. I used about 3 pints of perlite and about 8oz of SS. The mix, loose spread, stood about 1/2 in. higher than the floor would finish out...
I used a pc. of 2x4 and mallet to compact the floor. A light bulb in the oven dried and hardened the floor in about an hour.. I painted on another 3 oz. of SS. and dried it again.. It's as hard as a rock now.. A few coats of kiln wash will finish the floor..
I stripped my small vacuum former and used the frame for the oven stand and vacuum table..
My little 1.5cfm 1/3hp vacuum pump collapsed the can in about 3 seconds..

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2113_zps6b0f4543.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2117_zps56afd5ac.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2116_zpsc21c0f79.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2119_zps6a692581.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2121_zps0e8afac4.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2122_zps06cb0c48.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2127_zpsa9821c8a.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2128_zps614ede4c.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2130_zps9946219a.jpg
http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz158/mytwhyt/oven%20and%20vacuum%20casting%20table/IMG_2138_zps91f84f26.jpg

Will be back with more pics on the process of lost wax vacuum casting...
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IMMark
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Joined: 18 Nov 2010
Posts: 189
Location: Columbus, Ohio

PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2013 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting Fredo....thanks for posting, and yes updates Very Happy
Mark
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jdougn
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Joined: 18 Mar 2009
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Location: Louisville KY area

PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, post up some more on this. I played around a little with lost wax casting decades ago. You can do some really neat stuff with that. We had a vacuum pump but mostly used a centrifuge since it worked better & quicker for the small stuff we were doing. Although, it was rather spectacular when the mold failed and flung molten metal all over the place!
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Fredo
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Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 251
Location: Kingdom of Nye Area 51

PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 11:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is the wax pot I use to melt and keep a 1/2 gal of wax at 165*f.. The pump is for injecting wax into molds and is removable for dipping. The cup and foot of this small goblet I'm making are formed by dipping..
To start, a small amount of water is put in the balloon at a faucet. It gos in the fridge until it's very cold.. It's then dipped into the wax for 5-8 seconds. It's pulled out of the wax and allowed to drip back into the pot as it hardens..
The water's drained and the egg shape is trimmed for the cup. The foot of the goblet is from another dipped egg shape.. The stem is from a drink straw injected with wax, then cut free when it hardens..
All the putting together can be done with an alcohol lamp and dental type tools..


This what the balloons look like when dipped.



They aren't the ones to be used for the goblet, only for show and tell..... I'll put up some more pics of the goblet I'll be making, later today.......Fredo
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If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you,
it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun...The Dalai Lama..Seattle 2001
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Fredo
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Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 251
Location: Kingdom of Nye Area 51

PostPosted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've let this thread lie for awhile now... My first vacuum cast was a complete failure.. I thought a soup can would work as a substitute for a flask... I think it flexed enough to hairline crack the investment to the bottom.. I hit it with the full vacuum really fast. In a heart beat, the pewter goblet I was trying for came pouring through that crack until it filled and clogged the vac line.. That's when I stopped until I got new plumbing pasts... As usual with me I started doing something else and keep at it... I'll redo the casting table and have another go at vacuum casting soon.... Here's pics of the plugged vac. table..

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