We have just started to experiment with bronze casting in my shop after we had Daniel Ricco demo at our hammer in last fall. I haven't noticed any excessive cost involved in burning out the molds in our kilns. we generally melt the wax out in a kitchen type oven over a pan and then calcify the mold in the kiln at 1100 to complete the burnout,this helps keep the smoke down some. once calcified we will hold at 1100 in preparation for the pour.

the cost of the bronze has been the greatest expense so far.

Hi Noel,

Lost wax casting is not really any more expensive than many knife making technologies.

To tooling up it will take a few things though. A burn out oven makes a pretty good heat treat oven (for smaller blades) so no lost efforts there if you can round one up. A vacuum chamber to remove air bubbles from the investment (high temp refractory plaster-like stuff) is a good idea. Many come with a table that can also pull the vacuum through the investment flask for a vacuum assisted gravity pour. Jewelers use a centrifugal casting arm to sling molten mental into the investment mold, but their work is often quite fine with minute details.

As for making this stuff there are all kinds of tutorials on the internet, but it takes a degree of aptitude and understanding.

You can go quite primitive too though. The first burnout oven I ever made was with soft firebrick, refractory cement and stove top burners that I wired to the brick on the sides and top. I hacked up muffler tail pipe to make investment flasks. Heck you can even use tomato paste and canned food cans. I made my first vacuum chamber from a one gallon glass jug that I cut the bottom off of and one-hole rubber stoppered the top for the vacuum tube feed. I pulled the vacuum with a compressor from a refrigerator. It was all quite ghetto, but hey is was fun and worked.

Have you looked into sand casting or cuttlefish casting? Depending on the complexity of your models, that might be a low cost approach you could explore.

As for operational costs, I have found the cost of dental/jewelers investment and the oxygen and especially acetylene for melting the metal to dent my pocket book way more than the electric bill to run a burnout oven.

If you manage to cast any fittings one of the things you'll have to work out is the shrinkage. You'll find what fit snugly on the tang as a wax model will not quite fit as a metal casting. Matthew, do you have any tips for resolving that?

Aloha,

Phil

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Also as far as the equipment for the entire procedure, investment materials etc... If anyone could point me in the direction of a good company to look into for the equipment, or good books on building your own equipment, it would be vastly appreciated!!!

Thank you everyone!

-Noel Manis

As someone who's spent a lot of time making jewelry, I agree with all that Phil has to say. you can get by with very little if you're interested in casting simple fittings. Casting into firebrick, cuttlebone, or Delft clay is inexpensive and quite easy to do. Of course, the more rudimentary you go with casting, the more clean-up time is involved for the cast piece.

If you're trying to do the lost wax process using a burnout kiln, spin caster, etc. - yes there is a significant initial investment (pardon the pun), as you'll need the vibrating vaccuum table, kiln, and spin caster to get good, consistent results.

My best suggestion is to pick up "Practical Casting" by Tim McCreight - his books are very detailed and informative, and offer many recipes and alternate methods of getting from point A to point B when it comes to casting.

I haven't tried anything that needed to fit, I have tried to engineer the all of the pieces I have tried to avoid that issue. I think you can use the shrinkage to your advantage, use it to file for a good fit up. most of what we have been playing with has been gravity cast, a few thor's hammers, viking broaches etc I did cast the wolfs head pommel on the sword set in my gallery but I cast that as a stand alone and fit is up to the blade after casting.

MP

Thanks Guys for the info and wonderful advice!!

Matthew- For how long do you cook the wax out in the oven usually? Do you max out the temp?

Phil-I love the glass jug vacuum idea!! Haha I think I'll look into making myself one of those!The fittings I am interested in casting with be high detail work, so I'm not sure sand casting will work. I have not looked into cuttlefish casting yet though, is it another lower detail such as the sand? The shrinkage is certainly something I will have to work out through some trail and error low detail runs before spending days on a high detail piece to be ruined hah. Though as Matthew has said once I've hammered out the issues with shrinkage the fact that they will need a little file work could become quite beneficial for that extra snug fit.

Dean-Ya, those other mediums will be good to know about for some cost effective simple fittings! I'll check out the book. Sounds like just what I'm after.

-Noel

first run in the kitchen type oven, is at 350-400degf with the mold upside down suspended over a pan. we cook it until no more wax is running out of it.

in the kiln we run it up to 1100degf and hold until we we have the bronze ready to pour.

MP