The Bucket Foundry

[Flettner]

No they are a mold for a RG500 with individual heads.
On a net troll the other day I seen this.
http://coreprintpatterns.com/projects/

I are starting now to realise why Neil suggested to do a metal tool though.
Can Neil talk though the process?

Wow, some real patternmakers. Nice work they are doing.
Metal tooling, you can use Shell heat set sand, good strong stuff. But you need a metal die.
I use either the CNC to cut a mould or just turn my wood dies into aluminium, copy cast them. This will shrink the sand core down a little so you either live with it or up the size of you original to suit.
The truth is I find that by allowing the sand core to shrink slightly is a good thing, it makes fitting the mould together easier.
The swoopy ports? Yes I measured up the width originaly (cases are not here now) and all would fit, just. Now you have me thinking but this mould is a two (or three) engine design. The two other engines are single cylinders. If there is a problem the ports can be manipulated slightly to suit. First casting will go on a rotary valve single.
But I've got a VMX series to race starting next weekend and the Kawasaki is all over the bench in bits so I might have to put the mould making aside for this week. Pitty because I can't do patternmaking unless I'm " in the zone, you know, enthusiastic " and I am now, who knows week after next? What causes this, age? I tend to forget where I'm at (on the pattern, not literally yet) and it takes a while to warm to it again and I must say I am NOT in the zone for putting this Kawasaki back together.

[husaberg]

Wow, some real patternmakers. Nice work they are doing.
Metal tooling, you can use Shell heat set sand, good strong stuff. But you need a metal die.
I use either the CNC to cut a mould or just turn my wood dies into aluminium, copy cast them. This will shrink the sand core down a little so you either live with it or up the size of you original to suit.
The truth is I find that by allowing the sand core to shrink slightly is a good thing, it makes fitting the mould together easier.
The swoopy ports? Yes I measured up the width originaly (cases are not here now) and all would fit, just. Now you have me thinking but this mould is a two (or three) engine design. The two other engines are single cylinders. If there is a problem the ports can be manipulated slightly to suit. First casting will go on a rotary valve single.
But I've got a VMX series to race starting next weekend and the Kawasaki is all over the bench in bits so I might have to put the mould making aside for this week. Pitty because I can't do patternmaking unless I'm " in the zone, you know, enthusiastic " and I am now, who knows week after next? What causes this, age? I tend to forget where I'm at (on the pattern, not literally yet) and it takes a while to warm to it again and I must say I am NOT in the zone for putting this Kawasaki back together.

By one piece RG500 I meant one head per cylinder rather than the original shared
Dea made them (or they did make them) in batches of 4 I guess hence the 4 sets
For those that aren't familiar with Std RG500 heads they look like this.


The pattern maker stuff was well cool Mahogany no less.
Elsewhere it show the copy program they use to make it with a 3d printer or a CNC direct.
http://coreprintpatterns.com/3d-software/
Your stuff however is way cooler to me.

[WilDun]

The pattern maker stuff was well cool Mahogany no less.

Elsewhere it show the copy program they use to make it with a 3d printer

Your stuff however is way cooler to me.

Woodern patterns can look fantastic, I can remember the original wooden pattern for the Masport Potbelly Stove on display (all varnished up} in the foyer at the Masport foundry in Mt.Wellington, - looked real good!

As for 3D printers have a look at this site -(think it must be in Canada or Alaska) - at first, the guy looks like he couldn't do this sort of stuff, but after watching the video right through, I changed my mind!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWVVSZP3Au4

[Yow Ling]

Yes that is a great video Will.
I wonder if the casting resin Rencast would burn out like his PLA did ? Then I wouldnt have to get any greensand

[WilDun]

Yes that is a great video Will.
I wonder if the casting resin Rencast would burn out like his PLA did ? Then I wouldnt have to get any greensand

Neil would probably know that, but I believe that hard machinable wax would burn (melt) out even better, it could also be used for casting I would think.

Seems that you can make quite good hard machinable wax quite easily (it's expensive to buy), by mixing candle wax or similar with milk container plastic etc. but you've got to be careful when melting them together to make the hard wax, that you don't get the wax too hot and start a fire!

I already made a mould a while ago, using a plastic handle for the pattern and coating it with 50/50 plaster and sand mix! - Of course I'm having to wait till my furnace is up and running before trying it out.

http://daleshort.cc/doku.php?id=pages:machwax

[WilDun]

I can't do patternmaking unless I'm " in the zone, you know, enthusiastic "

I can assure you that age doesn't help at all.
In my case the mind wants to keep on trying to get it's message out, but the body doesn't want to comply and tries to suppress it, giving everyone the (wrong) impression that I'm lazy and befuddled. - well, that's how I see it anyway!

[husaberg]

I seen this Neil would be interested in the layout boxer four. I thought I was clever thinking of the layout about 30 years later

[husaberg]

a few more...
Certainly a prettier and less fraught engine config with the gearbox that the Koing

[Kickaha]

He won three world championships but none with that motor

[Grumph]

Neil would probably know that, but I believe that hard machinable wax would burn (melt) out even better, it could also be used for casting I would think.

Seems that you can make quite good hard machinable wax quite easily (it's expensive to buy), by mixing candle wax or similar with milk container plastic etc. but you've got to be careful when melting them together to make the hard wax, that you don't get the wax too hot and start a fire!

I already made a mould a while ago, using a plastic handle for the pattern and coating it with 50/50 plaster and sand mix! - Of course I'm having to wait till my furnace is up and running before trying it out.

http://daleshort.cc/doku.php?id=pages:machwax

I had ambitions of doing lost wax casting some years back. Bought a block of paraffin wax big enough for a OHV cylinder head. From memory about $80 at the time. Never got round to it and finished up selling the block to someone.....Wouldn't know where to go now to get more - if i had the time....

[WilDun]

I had ambitions of doing lost wax casting some years back.......... if i had the time....

I think everyone interested in casting around the seventies and eighties were keen on lost wax castings, but the problem is that you still have to make the patterns with sprues etc. in the first place in order to produce the shape and of course that means either machining the wax to the required shape or making a mould to pour it into, then there are the problems with shrinking or slumping (with larger items).
I was lucky enough to work with a lot of s/s stuff made this way - beautiful job!

Sorry I still insist in spelling it "mould", whereas Americans spell it "mold" - same with "Zee" and "Zed" and aluminium I guess! - and then of course,there's the tomato controversy - never ending! so lets (try to) remain unique here! - my granddaughter speaks with an American accent and she spends a lot of time trying to correct me! so I've got a thing about it.
My Apologies to any Americans who might be reading this of course!

The good old tried and true greensand casting method is still up there and completely dependant on skill to get it right - I'm sure Neil will agree!

[ken seeber]

This is a great thread.

We, at STRIKE PRODUCTS, made a prototype cylinder barrel for a 100cc Yamaha KT100J engine, which is widely used in Oz karting, but nowhere else (I think). Because of the production methods used in the manufacture of the Yamaha cylinder, there were/are significant performance differences due to casting dimensional variances. The prototype barrel was based around a fully CNC machined, shrunk-in, CI liner, with the aluminium barrel cast with an accurate core making process.

The barrel concept was offered, with a lot of national support, to the then Australian Karting Association and also to the now current Karting Australia body. The idea was that this would have been available as an alternative, aftermarket part for the engine. The link below gives some further background to the proposal: http://www.strikeproducts.com.au/upl...l%20241011.pdf

Either way, no luck, so the current proposal is to introduce new engines. Europe wins, Australia loses. I�m almost over it now. Almost.

The porting layout was based very heavily on the Yamaha barrel so the port size, passage sizes etc remained faithful to the existing rules. As you can see, it isn�t a high power engine.

Firstly, we designed the overall porting layout using Solidworks. From that model we then created designs for the shapes of both the main central core which incorporated the exhaust and inlet passages, plus the two (left and right) transfer passages.

These were then printed using the SLA method (China won here, 10 days after they got their approx. A$480 inc. freight, we had them (4 pieces) in our hands). Note the hollow nature of the prints (better quality in terms of possible distortion with heavy sections and less cost), the ribs, the bosses for location dowelling and also tapping for back screwing to a mould plate.

For the transfer passages, we created �coreboxes� using either pourable, 2 part polyurethane resin or silicone. In all cases, we vacuum de-bubbled the mix before pouring. This was done in two stages, using a corebox housing, made from some split �4 inch pipe with a central aluminium divider. The first stage was to embed the print in plasticine for the inner side, and then pour the larger outer side. Then with the print still embedded in the outer side, the plasticine was removed and the inner side poured. We used a release agent to be sure there was no sticking.

When assembled it was a simple matter to fill these with sand, Fenotec in our case. Removal was easy, particularly so with the slightly softer silicone.

Accuracy and finish is excellent, but this is obviously a product of the original SLA prints. Next time (?) we�d use our own FDM printer and make them from ABS filament.

There you go, lots of ways to skin a cat.

[husaberg]

This is a great thread.

We, at STRIKE PRODUCTS, made a prototype cylinder barrel for a 100cc Yamaha KT100J engine, which is widely used in Oz karting, but nowhere else (I think). Because of the production methods used in the manufacture of the Yamaha cylinder, there were/are significant performance differences due to casting dimensional variances. The prototype barrel was based around a fully CNC machined, shrunk-in, CI liner, with the aluminium barrel cast with an accurate core making process.

The barrel concept was offered, with a lot of national support, to the then Australian Karting Association and also to the now current Karting Australia body. The idea was that this would have been available as an alternative, aftermarket part for the engine. The link below gives some further background to the proposal: http://www.strikeproducts.com.au/upl...l%20241011.pdf

Either way, no luck, so the current proposal is to introduce new engines. Europe wins, Australia loses. I�m almost over it now. Almost.

The porting layout was based very heavily on the Yamaha barrel so the port size, passage sizes etc remained faithful to the existing rules. As you can see, it isn�t a high power engine.

Firstly, we designed the overall porting layout using Solidworks. From that model we then created designs for the shapes of both the main central core which incorporated the exhaust and inlet passages, plus the two (left and right) transfer passages.

These were then printed using the SLA method (China won here, 10 days after they got their approx. A$480 inc. freight, we had them (4 pieces) in our hands). Note the hollow nature of the prints (better quality in terms of possible distortion with heavy sections and less cost), the ribs, the bosses for location dowelling and also tapping for back screwing to a mould plate.

For the transfer passages, we created �coreboxes� using either pourable, 2 part polyurethane resin or silicone. In all cases, we vacuum de-bubbled the mix before pouring. This was done in two stages, using a corebox housing, made from some split �4 inch pipe with a central aluminium divider. The first stage was to embed the print in plasticine for the inner side, and then pour the larger outer side. Then with the print still embedded in the outer side, the plasticine was removed and the inner side poured. We used a release agent to be sure there was no sticking.

When assembled it was a simple matter to fill these with sand, Fenotec in our case. Removal was easy, particularly so with the slightly softer silicone.

Accuracy and finish is excellent, but this is obviously a product of the original SLA prints. Next time (?) we�d use our own FDM printer and make them from ABS filament.

There you go, lots of ways to skin a cat.

Clever So how do you cast around the sleeve? is it corrugated like a Yamaha or Honda cast in place one ?Also is it aluminium coated for adhesion?

[Yow Ling]

Husa, its shrunk in not cast in

This is a great thread.

The prototype barrel was based around a fully CNC machined, shrunk-in, CI liner, with the aluminium barrel cast with an accurate core making process.

[husaberg]

Husa, its shrunk in not cast in

"The prototype barrel was based around a fully CNC machined, shrunk-in, CI liner, with the aluminium barrel cast with an accurate core making process."
So it is indeed ,I see its not only your neighbour diary you read Mike.