The Bucket Foundry

[speedpro]

So, been working on the/a degassing set up. Attachment 342167Attachment 342168

what about a large reservoir that you could create a vacuum in which then connects to the smaller degasser through a valve. It would speed up the application of vacuum to the hot casting. Not too fast of course but easy to control I would think. you probably don't need a particularly hard vacuum so the increased time taken to get the whole rig as low as it goes may not be a problem. OR, have a series of hoses and plumbing so the vacuum in the reservoir can be applied to the degasser and then switch over to the pump direct on the degasser for the last bit.

[Grumph]

Of all the things John did, I do wonder why he bothered doing the heat treating. To easy to bugger it up, it costs not much at Heat Treatments to get done and they are reasonably quick. You would think after the hassle of casting a one off set of cases the last thing you would want is to wreak them with a half ass hardening process.

At the time there was a heat treatment place in ChCh - Alec Farrar Ltd - Alec being an old bike racer from way back. My understanding is that John fell out with the guy running that part of the business - another ex bike racer - and Alec backed his man. As he should have.
John himself had no previous history of getting things done around Chch and the guys around him had never used the Auckland company. And of course everything Auckland is viewed with suspicion down here.
So John apparently said "how hard can it be ?" No pun intended....

For myself, it wasn't till the 90's that I used Heat Treatments in Auckland. I used Farrars till they closed their hardening/heat treatment side.

My first race bike was bought off the guy running the hardening shop.

[Flettner]

Arh well, a series of disasters.
Didn't put any cardboard under the pot, to turn to carbon as an anti stick system. Pot stuck to the base, base fell down side ways, pot can't go back in to the furnace so I have to risk letting it cool outside. Thats how you crack them. It's all going to have to cool off to reset everything, start again. Temp sensor is wrong so the alloy is clearly too hot. Mold cracked and broke open, rooted.
Perhaps I've bitten off more the I can handle. Depresed emoji.
Temp sensor is way too slow.
I guess at least the burner, furnace and pot trasporter work well.

[Grumph]

Practise makes perfect. The old sayings are often true.

[Flettner]

Practise makes perfect. The old sayings are often true.

should make up a pre fire up check list I guess.
Getting old and forgetting stuff.

[lohring]

Join the club of old people. My solution was to hire younger (50 years old) experienced people for the important things and even younger people to keep an eye on me. You just need to keep them busy enough so they don't have time to use their cell phones.

Lohring Miller

[husaberg]

"It is better to be careful 100 times than to get killed once." Mark Twain

[Flettner]

"It is better to be careful 100 times than to get killed once." Mark Twain

absolutely !

Better day today, I'm shaking a little less, managed two castings. Haven't knocked them out yet but everything went well this time. Expensive temp sensor is a waste of time. Back to my old way, three or four minutes after the final bit melts, then go.
%%_?^/# I hate getting sucked in, I should send the barstard sensor back. I perhaps ot needs a battery, i.e. supplyed with an old flat one?

[Flettner]

Hold, not so good, too cold now. Castings are rooted, shorts. Bugger this.

[Brett S]

Were you using an infrared or k type thermocouple? Ive never got an infrared temp gun to work properly on molten metal even with adjustable reflectivity? settings.

K Types are quite cheap from China:

Thermocouple: HERE

Temp Controller (just use as readout): HERE

Ceramic protection Sheath to go into melt: Aussie Here, Alibaba Here.

[Flettner]

Thankfully Servotech have come to the party and are sending me a new ceramic reader tip, sounds like the original is faulty. It's hard enough working with your own mistakes, but having to work other peoples mistakes on top.

[WilDun]

That TV show was good and I could see that John was not the kind of guy who liked to farm out stuff if he could do it himself however 'half ass' it may sometimes have been - I do remember the word "Fuck" being bandied about when he ran out of water and had to rush out too late to the (swimming?) pool for more (and I do remember the barrel cracking in the race in America!

[WilDun]

Neil, - You'll get it sorted , each mistake is a lesson, a year from now you'll be laughing....... but it's easy for me to say that. sitting in front of a keyboard!

[Grumph]

That TV show was good and I could see that John was not the kind of guy who liked to farm out stuff if he could do it himself however 'half ass' it may sometimes have been - I do remember the word "Fuck" being bandied about when he ran out of water and had to rush out too late to the (swimming?) pool for more (and I do remember the barrel cracking in the race in America!

Large indoor goldfish pond as water source. Doubt if he even looked to see if he had any fish in the bucket, LOL.

Cracked a liner - repaired in situ by bronze welding. Holden - probably wisely - declined to race it.

Neil's short casting reminded me. The last set of Britten cases spare were used when the Auckland based bike was rebuilt recently. They were a set with a major void just where you didn't want one. I was told they took rather a lot of epoxy filler....

[husaberg]

Large indoor goldfish pond as water source. Doubt if he even looked to see if he had any fish in the bucket, LOL.

Cracked a liner - repaired in situ by bronze welding. Holden - probably wisely - declined to race it.

Neil's short casting reminded me. The last set of Britten cases spare were used when the Auckland based bike was rebuilt recently. They were a set with a major void just where you didn't want one. I was told they took rather a lot of epoxy filler....

Video is here pretty sure it was the swiming pool to be fair.

the House didn't fair so well in the Earthquake as it was pretty close to ground zero it was on the telly with the multi million rebuild being done by the daughter.