Casting, first attempt 2001-06-05

The wooden mold frame and the pattern for the driving wheels of the 3003.

Yours truly playing in the sand-box...

The "green" sand is well packed, in fact hammered, around the pattern, and the frame is turned around...

... and the pattern is removed! Pretty good impression, huh?

The implements for melting iron and casting it, starting from lower left: tongs, crucible, furnace, above it raw materials: bucket of pig iron, can of FeSi, box of scrap iron.

Continuing down right: crucible holder with long handle, and the assembled sand molds.

Top: Mr. Caster himself: Kusti Nyholm, two tanks of propane (33 kilograms each), fire extinguisher (fortunately not needed this time), scale for getting pig iron/scrap ratio correct.

Charging the furnace...

Logging time & gas consumption...

Getting hot...

An hour and a half, total 20 kilograms of propane burned. That's a lot of kilowatts! Note the burner: An iron tube pointing into the furnace, with a thin brass tube across the opening. This brass tube has a 1.5 mm hole pointing into the iron tube. Propane pressure is around 3 bar at this point. The venturi effect draws air into the iron tube, and the mixture burns inside the furnace.

OK, here we go - white hot crucible containing 7 kg of molten iron.

Casting - fill 'em up!

Smaller casting looks good when mold is cracked after cooling for over an hour...

Not too bad!

OH NO! This was the evening's only unpleasant surprise. It looks like the iron was not hot enough to penetrate into the narrow spokes. Visually, the color of the melt was a bright yellow, which I approximate as 1300° C...

We obviously need a couple of hundred degrees more to get a proper flow of the molten iron - looking at it when poured, I'd say the consistency was like cream, or motor oil, not "watery", as I think it ought to be. Looks like we'll have to construct some kind of pre-heater for the burner's air intake...

Here's Kusti's own website, describing the process in more detail:

http://www.sparetimelabs.com



Close this window when you are ready...

Any information presented on this website (especially any do-it-yourself instructions) is given without any acceptance of liability for damage or injury - so, always remember: SAFETY FIRST!

The material on this page and its related pages is Copyright © 2001-2007 by J-E Nystrom. You may NOT copy, transmit and/or publish any of my images or texts in print, electronically, on your own website or in any other way. The author retains all rights to this work, with this sole exception: Storing the pages on your own computer or printing out a paper copy, for your own, strictly personal use is allowed.

You may, however, freely link to the "Building Live Steam Locomotives" page at: http://www.saunalahti.fi/animato/steam, or to my Animation Home Page at: http://www.saunalahti.fi/animato.

You should NOT link directly to THIS page, since it's address may change in the future. Also, you may not put any of these pages or pictures into "frames" on your own website.

Thank you.