Success – Plumbago works well as a parting powder!
- I welded a couple of straps onto the lid body for reinforcement
- The hinge works well – I was worried it would flex – it didn’t
- The mould box and my overflow angle iron mould.
- The mould box and my overflow angle iron mould.
- Cleaning up the outside of the cast coupling.
Well today was the first time for many reasons I have been able to do some real metal work! I decided that I would fire up the furnace and melt and mould the coupling between the wiper motor and the milling table screw. I decided that instead of trying to make all the patterns in one go I would just make the coupling.
I find the process quite physical so before the melt I completed the welding of the lid to save me lifting it and raised the level of the pattern moulding at sitting level as well as the pouring. This did reduce the effort required so I will be making up permanent benches to fit onto the portable work benches I have. One will be made of metal (possibly aluminium tread-plate) and the second mdf with a border. However back to today, after using the Plumbago (which was a little more granular than I anticipated) then the pattern was placed in one half of the wood cope.
Once the part was removed (which went much better than with talc powder) the two halves were put together and placed onto a metal surface for the pouring process. The furnace was then started up and the casting completed (more detail will be added to the main website ). After a hour or so the metal was removed and I was pleased with the results.
There were several things I did different this time including using a stainless steel container as a crucible in addition to proper parting powders. However it was very nice to get back to metal! Overall a good session.
The next session will concentrate on completing the power feed. I hope to produce plans of all the power feed design and if anyone would like a coupling casting then please email me.











































