I've a paper to write for my grad class, so I need to be quick.
I spent three hours yesterday, with two mates, casting figures. Not one head or musket came out properly. Even after I cut vents and drilled holes for venting in one of the molds.
After a while, we all noticed that the metal seemed to be too cool, even though I had turned up the heat knob.
As I do not yet have a thermometer for the pot, the one I ordered will take nearly a month to arrive (sigh), I could not verify the temperature, but I believe all of my casting woes are due to an inconsistency in the temperature of the metal.
I will likely be returning the casting pot and getting a new one...but I have 20 bars of metal still in the pot that will have to come out first.
Initially I found that its hard to get the right temperature as I was not able to cast a single horse until after a week of trying. One legged horses do not live long in the wargame world.
ReplyDeleteI only do the smoke test so far and while I know the correct smoke signal now I have no idea of what the actual C is.
Yeah, I was using the smoke test too. After a pour, I tested again and no smoke. So, I turned it up, and then it got too hot and the talc in the mold started to smoke when I poured. I already had the knob at 70%, whereas last week, it was the proper temp at about 55%. I've read up on the casting pot that I got and several customers have complained about similar problems. Unfortunately, there's not many options available and I certainly do not want to waste energy melting one ladle at a time.
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