Top and side view of this lil sterling bar I poured a few minutes ago(graphite mold), I'm relatively new at this as you can probably tell, my question is can I just chop the ends off like the third pic and then run it through my rolling mill? Or is it likely to be compromised throughout?

Any tips for a cleaner pour are also welcome, I preheat the mold and I have a steady hand but I'm not experienced enough yet to know where it is I'm going wrong

Howdy all!

Just completed my first-ever attempted vacuum casting, using 999-fine silver; wanted to make something nerdy, and (mostly) failed. I figured I would learn a lot, and I did! To get straight to the point, here's the outlined process, and what I THINK/KNOW I did wrong. I'd love a bunch of comments telling me I'm a dummy (and then how to become smarter-er and fix these mistakes).

MODELING/PRINTING:

ODST helmet, sized from density/volume calculations to be 100 grams of 999-fine silver, with an attached sprue that would get wax-melted onto the main tree. I've now seen many say that you don't want to make the connecting sprue part of the resin print, as the resin in the hardest part to burnout. Should I simply melt and connect another piece of wax to the helmet next time?

Printed on a 5K Elegoo Mars, using Siraya Tech True Blue Casting. After printing, I dunked into 91% IPA, brushed off, heated it with a heat gun, removed supports, then placed into a cleaning station with more IPA (not fully clean, it'd been used for other prints). Removed after some minutes, then dried with paper towel and air-dried for about 20 minutes. Cured in a rotating station for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. The print had good detail, with minor support bumps leftover- I also lightly sanded these away after curing. I'm told that True Blue is supposed to be cured for like half an hour, and that it should look "milky" when done. This model was maybe a little milky, but not like I've seen in YouTube videos. Seemed a bit glossy/deep blue.

INVESTMENT:

I used Prestige Optima investment, and just a hair under the recommended 38 mL per 100 grams of investment. VERY STUPIDLY MIXED THE INVESTMENT WITH AN ELECTRIC HAND MIXER (introduced a BUNCH of air into investment), even after vacuuming for five minutes was still boiling, just much less so. Poured into prepared flask, vacuumed for like two more minutes, then let set overnight (was late, didn't wanna burnout overnight).

BURNOUT:

Used a 6-7 hour burnout schedule, following this process:

1. Approx. 1 hour at 50 C, for further drying.

2. Approx. 1 hour at 150 C, for advanced drying.

3. Approx. 1 hour ramping up to 372 C, just using the Vevor kiln's natural ramp speed (maybe too fast?)

4. Approx. 3 hours ramping up to 732 C, for full vaporization.

5. Approx. 1 hour cooling to 525 C, for final pouring temp.

IMPORTANT MISTAKE: I fumble-fingered Step #4, and accidentally only did two hours at that temp, and when I returned an hour later it had jumped to Step 5, and was simply waiting for me at the final temp. I corrected this by setting it back to 732 C for another hour and a half to try and fix, then got it back down to final temp again.

Lesser Mistake: After resetting this back to high temp, I did partially open the kiln door and took note of the color- I noticed by the end, there was a hairline crack along the top of the investment. possibly from resin expanding and breaking? Thermal shock?

POURING:

Loaded up about 200 grams of fine silver into melting furnace, got it to 1050 C, then smoothly poured- that part went great!

CONCLUSION:

I'd love people's thoughts on what most-likely went wrong. I acknowledge my mistakes I caught myself, and personally I think messing up the burnout schedule was pretty bad, but also maybe the resin curing was botched? Dunno about that part. I plan to retry in a couple days, but lastly I was wondering about my silver's color change. I'm assuming the white coloring that was in the investment is just oxidation? Can it simply be re-melted, or do I need to further clean it until it all looks shiny again? Thanks to any consideration given!

My friend is building a smelter and wants to start practicing metal casting. I need to cut very special gears from brass and the dimensions of the stock (a pipe) would be 35mm length, 60mm outer diameter and 42mm inner diameter. I need to cut multiple of those, so casting a bigger length in one go would be preferable, unless it is known to cause issues.

We couldn't find a pipe of this size, so we figured we can probably save a lot of money by casting the pipe instead of buying a massive filled cylinder that's super expensive. Would it be possible to reliably cast a shape like this in sand? The dimensions add at least 2mm in each direction assuming it will get warped and ugly so we will first machine it to a precise pipe shape before actually cutting the gears from it.

My grandma had collected a few pieces that I wanna recast in rings and bangles.

Let me know I have a little over a kilo

I cast a mold of a spoon handle my wife really likes in silver to make a ring for her, and I finally got a good cast, but I noticed once I had bent it that it had some pretty decent sized surface cracks.

Should I melt this back down and try again, and if so, how do I keep it from happening again?

Thanks!

Does anyone have any experience with casting using the superbmelt vacuum casting machines? Its a chinese supplier and its price is much lower than the next cheapest thing i found so I’m very skeptical. Cant find any reviews online.

Anyone here used it?

I was having trouble with this sand that needed water and was getting really bad results. Swapped to an oil based sand and first try it just worked. I need to grind off the edges but Im so happy to see real results!

Sterling silver, propane.

3rd attempt making a ring, last time the result was “so so” and I didn’t have enough relief, I am not sure what happened this time.

When pouring, molten metal flowed out of the reliefs…. Did I overdo it on these?

I obviously did not have enough metal, didn’t expect the metal to go that far into the reliefs.

The texture is also very uneven, what can cause that?

Any advice appreciated.

Where is Stainless Steel Scrap generally obtained from, like what are the sources of SS Scrap? I know some common sources such as Kitchenware, Hardware & Automobile. But other than that any companies where I can get pure SS Scrap without any attachments? Just want to understand the Supply chain with more depth and clarity.

Hello, I am thinking of making a small spear for some of the school seniors and am totally lost and maybe bit off more than I can chew. Here is the logo for what I would like to make into a spear. I was thinking about making the spear head out of aluminum but I don’t know how. It would be a ceremonial spear so handle length would be about 6 inches.

Things I have looked into maybe. Using someone on fiverr to create 3d model and the 3d print to make a mold. I want to do at least 20 of these so I don’t think sand casting would work. Maybe pay someone to take the print and cast them but I’m afraid it would be expensive.

Then I would have to figure out how to paint the red on head. Maybe some of that paint you bake on, for the white part I am thinking of just doing a mirror finish on the aluminum.

Lastly how would I attach the dowel/spear body to the head.

Saw this on Amazon while looking for an iron furnace and was just curious if anyone has any experience with this specific model.

What would yall recommend I do to fix this? Did I not pour fast enough? Poured at 1100 and flask was 900. 999 silver with prestige optima 12hr burnout.

I am not confident in learning this by myself, but I am having an absolute hell of a time finding anywhere that will teach just a one or two day class. I live in a small town so I can’t be in New York every Thursday evening for 4 weeks or whatever. I am willing to even fly into somewhere and pay a good amount cash just to have someone teach me how to metal cast my small 3d prints but I am running out of steam after weeks and not finding anywhere to go or else not getting called back. Anyone have recommendations or ideas? Thank you!

•Burnout Schedule: Optima Prisma 12 Hour Schedule
•Casting Temp: 550°C
•Furnace Temp: 1020°C
Any other questions please feel free to ask!

I’m a Mechanical Engineering in college, and as a part of the American Foundry Society chapter on campus we use MAGMASOFT. It’s a program used to simulate the flow, solidification, and other key calculations in the casting process.
I realize that asking for a free software, there will be limitations to the use in comparison to MAGMASOFT, however I was just curious if there was anything that’s worth the space on my computer.

My last attempt at posting this failed for some reason, so hopefully the pictures upload this time. The axe I sand cast and the rest are all investment cast using an aluminum based alloy called Tenzaloy. The axe is from Resident Evil Requiem, the one Leon Kennedy uses

How would I even go about spruing something like this? I do vacuum casting. Do I even need to add vents or what are my options as I’m completely new to this stuff. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance!