The Bucket Foundry

[Grumph]

I agree - keep it simple for home use.

I have a few late model 4stroke bike engines through here and look at the very complex heads and shake mine....I suspect that the lost foam method is still in use as I can't see any other way of doing some of them.
Just had a 600 honda 4 renicasiled - barrel in one piece with the crankcase top half. That's a simple casting by comparison with the head..

[WilDun]

Yes, all the comments you guys are making is what brought to the Kiwibiker forum, ie after looking at Flettner's foundry pics, I started to get some very good ideas on casting and other foundry stuff, this all through some easy going friendly discussion and a lot about bikes etc to boot!
Unfortunately I get sidetracked now and then and even have had the odd set to with some (very) odd people - think that was on ESE, also many off track discussions on ODDBALL - all good fun and always gets back on track.

Guys,
I do intend to keep everything small, at least to start off with, also as simple as possible and I also understand your point Ken that the bit of wood is just as good or better anyway.

I do however have an old version of solidworks (2007) hence I want to try it on 3D something or other. This is perfectly adequate for me except that after I got it in 2010 everything got disrupted big time when I ended up being hospitalised and not too good for a long time. so after learning the basics it was "put away"and I have finally got it out again and dusted it off, unfortunately after all the anesthetics etc. I now have a lot of brain fade" but I'll try and master it - here's hoping!"

Polystyrene is very messy as far as smoke is concerned though, but on a small scale and at the right time could possibly be used even around my place too, and I'm pretty sure PLA would work well if burnt out thoroughly in the furnace and blown out with an air gun, leaving a hot mould to pour into.
I agree that more complexity would make it a mission and a lot of skill would still be required with wax and patterns, however the stuff I will be making will be small and relatively simple.
If I haven't run out of years, or drive and also space, I'll try all three methods but they tell me that in order to do all this, you have to actually get off your arse, quit talking and do some work ........ unfortunately!

[husaberg]

Looks like handy stuff to have, where would you find it here? (packing crates/boxes I guess). - Maybe I should give it a go before getting a 3D printer!

the garden nursery, it grows even faster here in NZ.
buy a cyclops 3d scanner first

[WilDun]

the garden nursery, it grows even faster here in NZ.
buy a cyclops 3d scanner first

A Cyclops 3D scanner?: - would I need one? would I be rich enough? would I gain anything by using it in my airy fairy "dabbling and metal casting" business? what could I scan?
I bought an old mill drill and nearly bankrupted myself!! bloody near got kicked out of the house permanently and have had to stay in my neighbour's sleepout till things died down!
Any chance of borrowing yours ? (I'll pay the postage).

[husaberg]

A Cyclops 3D scanner?: - would I need one? would I be rich enough? would I gain anything by using it in my airy fairy "dabbling and metal casting" business? what could I scan?
I bought an old mill drill and nearly bankrupted myself!! bloody near got kicked out of the house permanently and have had to stay in my neighbour's sleepout till things died down!
Any chance of borrowing yours ? (I'll pay the postage).

One was $200 on trademe not that long ago
you can scan pretty much anything up to 20cm and get it printed.

Postage for my house might be pretty expensive

[ken seeber]

I do however have an old version of solidworks (2007) hence I want to try it on 3D something or other. This is perfectly adequate for me except that after I got it in 2010 everything got disrupted big time when I ended up being hospitalised and not too good for a long time. so after learning the basics it was "put away"and I have finally got it out again and dusted it off, unfortunately after all the anesthetics etc. I now have a lot of brain fade" but I'll try and master it - here's hoping!"

Willy you old devil, holding out that you already have S/W. If you can save your part as an .stl file, you're right to print something. Maybe if you have a 3D printing company nearby, you could ask them for a bit of a reject PLA print and exp't with the investing and burning out. Anyways, give something a go. Even working your way thru relearning S/W can only be good for the brain.

As a total digression, we did a run with the slider today on the dyno/sprinkler. Will post something later tonight. Good thing was that it still works.

[WilDun]

One was $200 on trademe not that long ago
you can scan pretty much anything up to 20cm and get it printed.
Postage for my house might be pretty expensive

Thanks Husa,
Think I'd better lie low for a while, If I had a real business it would be very tempting of course, but if I do buy a 3D printer (or make one up from my little old engraver) I could probably only just afford it - to be honest I would like to make patterns out of wood or polystyrene as well and take some instruction on that from Neil, after all he has put in a lot of effort on the thread and we can all see from the results just how good the old way can be!.
It is very interesting of course but it would become just another thing I have, definitely not the right time to buy something I "might need" sometime - Bit like stud finders, and the old GPS etc. all good of course but you can't find them when you need them!

[WilDun]

Willy you old devil, holding out that you already have S/W. If you can save your part as an .stl file, you're right to print something. Maybe if you have a 3D printing company nearby, you could ask them for a bit of a reject PLA print and exp't with the investing and burning out. Anyways, give something a go. Even working your way thru relearning S/W can only be good for the brain.

As a total digression, we did a run with the slider today on the dyno/sprinkler. Will post something later tonight. Good thing was that it still works.

Thanks Ken, I may ask for some more advice from you on exporting files from 3D drawings to printers, routers etc. but I've got to understand a lot more about SolidWorks etc. first and become familiar with it. - I only really got to learn the "bottom rung" basics way back in 2010!

Burning out a "complete" sand/plaster mould with polystyrene risers and sprues seems to be an easy option for starters and I have seen it work - good idea, to play around with surplus/reject prints before wasting my money of course.

Anyway there are many ways of skinning a cat thanks for all the help you guys - Oh and BTW my wife is nothing like the picture I paint of her ....... she's much smarter and more understanding than that (also much smarter than me).

Always have an interest in yours and Neils projects.

[OopsClunkThud]

For inexpensive CAD, consider Autodesk Fusion 360 as you can get a free license for hobby and educational use. It's not quite fully baked, but still very usable.

[WilDun]

For inexpensive CAD, consider Autodesk Fusion 360 as you can get a free license for hobby and educational use. It's not quite fully baked, but still very usable.

Thanks,OCD,
I've got all sorts of inexpensive CAD and have used it on and off over the years I mostly use 'Design Cad' - (cheap, totally adequate and with 3D and..... I'm not really proficient with it either!) - you can get sidetracked with this stuff though and really it all becomes a hobby in itself.
I bought a secondhand computer about 6 or 7 years ago to drive my little engraver and had the good fortune to find SW already on it - so I just hope it doesn't disappear - in that case I may be looking at Fusion 360!
Sketching with the good old pencil and paper (with attached eraser) is maybe better most of the time anyway and sometimes a sketch with a few dimensions chucked in will suffice - that's because you only need a proper drawing when it's in a production shop for others to read and where people have to work to a certain standard.

For retired little men like me in a grotty little home workshop, no boss to impress, (or profits to look forward to either), then SW is a huge leap upward and probably is very necessary for the various little CNC machines we can all easly acquire today .... so I'll (grudgingly) have to sit down and learn to do it properly.

[Flettner]

Will, that's the truth, you either invest your time in a CAD program or you invest your time in actual wood / bondifil parts. The right way is a CAD program but they can be frustrating. Usually I just get the shits with the computer and end up just building the part. Lately I've taken to using the CAD program away from home so I just can't piss off out to the shed and make the component.
I'm not telling you how to suck eggs but the CAD can be invaluable when used proficiently, I wish I could.
I'm lucky in that I also have Gibbs CAM, a real good CAM program but not so good at CAD. I just use a series of two and a half D cut paths to generate the cavities I want. Works for me with simple stuff, crank cases etc, but no where near as good as a solid model part.

[WilDun]

Yes I really do need to invest my time carefully and wisely now,(not a helluva lot left) and don't really want to keel over with a bucket load of fancy machines (useful to someone younger) and to look down on them ( from above) just to see them carted off to the tip as junk! - and anyway, what was wrong with steam engines ?? - all this new fangled stuff is confusing me! - gerroff!!

UPDATE
OCD,- had a bit of a look at Fusion 360 and it looks like a good scheme - but I'll just stick with the stuff I have for now and learn on that, however If I actually have to, I'll try that.
If I spend too much time learning that stuff (and it's addictive) then I'll have less time for actual casting, and that was the main object of my being here ( I have got as far as a couple of melts) so I need to perfect that first!

FLETTNER,
When I was a teenager and into my twenties the situation with draughting and design was very different and bloody hard work - now it should be a breeze and the young guys just don't really understand how lucky they are! I would have been over the moon then, if all this stuff had existed at that time!
When I was working I turned down a couple of offers to work on CNC lathes etc but I was very happy doing tooling etc for the CNC machines and some development stuff as well, so I missed out doing this stuff (didn't want to be the personal slave of a CNC machine).

Now,it's very hard work to break into this at a time when you're expected by others to be winding down! - that riles me so I've got to keep trying.

[Michael Moore]

I've got copies of some drawings for BSA B50 engine parts like the crankcases and cylinder head. They must have been a nightmare to do as they are hugely complex. CAD can be quite frustrating at times but most hobbyist stuff should be possible for most users to complete. Don't be surprised if you find yourself stuck at the end of a blind alley and having to take a few steps back and then try to create a feature in a different way.

A nice thing with solid models is you can do assemblies of parts which can make interferences or other problems easier to spot and figure out what is going wrong.

CAD + CAM can be pretty time consuming, but the second, third and later parts are just a fresh piece of metal and a press of the "cycle start" button away once you get good code from the model.

[WilDun]

Yes Michael
Things (in engineering) normally only change for the better, but there comes the time when we become spoilt for choice in design tools and trying out new tools actually becomes the object of the game. The original idea then gets left behind so maybe I should settle for what I have and actually get them to work properly - ie actually doing what I set out to do!

I think I'll just persevere with the old SW which I have in the meantime and hopefully it will serve me well and actually be the start of producing something real.
Trouble is, it could eventually steer me into a printer and printing will become the objective ..... and so on .....and on.
Also, I'm a junkie for (the futility of) trying to revive gear (printer perhaps?) which has been discarded by someone else - I really must try to give that up!.

[ken seeber]

SLIDER UPDATE.
Well after a time away, an involuntary event and back to some hard work, it appears that the slider engine was exactly the same as when I had left it.

So, got it going on Friday, connected to the water brake dyno, fitted with a manual valve to control the inwards water flow. At the same time also wanted to check out the simple load arm and spring scale as I have abandoned the idea of using the software that came with the dyno due to the apparently failed load cell and/or its amplifier. Also we tried out a temp controller to switch on/off acooling fan to the large engine radiator. All good.

It looks like I’m going to have to strip the dyno absorber cos it initially spat out a heap of whitish muck (oxides?) that is also probably still within the absorber as it just didn’t seem to respond to any change to the inlet valve setting. In this case it just held the engine rpm to around 1200, although this didn’t seem correct as it seemed to be revving more than that. Due to the imminent risk of death by electrocution, we figured that we should also fix some of the water leaks.

That being done, it will then go home where I can run it in the back of the shed to really give the neighbours the shits.

Have done a brief vid, but can’t seem to be able to log into youtube to upload it.