A foundry core is fundamentally easy to make. With the right equipment, safety training and a bit of know-how, it can be done in a residential garage. It's amazing what can be achieved with wet sand, a blowtorch and some molten metal. For the hobbyist with no deadlines or production targets to meet, it can be a relaxing and gratifying pastime. If something goes wrong, you can re-use the sand and melt down your mistakes and keep trying until you get the result you are looking for.
Modern blacksmiths do not have the same flexibility as their forefathers. Customers want everything yesterday. If your foundry workers all go off sick, get pregnant or retire at the same time, your business can be up a creek without a paddle. Before this happens to you, maybe you should think about outsourcing your core-making activities.
Almost 75% of all metal castings are performed using sand. There are a number of different methods for sand casting. Each approach has its own advantages. These methods include isocure, warm box, shell and air set no-bake.
When the desired outcome is a thin-walled core, it has to be strong enough to hold up to the molten metal without breaking down or eroding. For this, the warm box process is employed. Furan, a simple aromatic hydrocarbon, is mixed with the sand as a fixative. The catalyst in this process is heat. However, the boiling point of furan is uncomfortably close to room temperature; this makes it both flammable and volatile. A very good reason to outsource this work to a company that is used to handling it. Once cast, the cores are heated until the outside of the core is hard. Inside, cooling continues to cool.
The air set no-bake process is ideal for complex designs in runs of low to medium volume. The process involves a proprietary mixture of sand and plastic packed around a "positive." The air set method produces castings between 40 and 225 pounds in weight. Another major benefit is that it works with a wide range of materials, including non-ferrous metals, wood, plastic, styrofoam and fiberglass.
In the isocure process, the sand is mixed with a polyurethane resin. An amine gas or some other catalyst is injected into the box right before superheated air is forced through. This is a quick and cheap method for creating large cores.
When the desired outcome is for a fine, detailed finish, the shell process is optimal. The casting box is headed and then filled with pre-treated sand. The outside is then heated to generate a thin, hard shell. Another advantage of using this method that the uncured sand on the inner core can be poured out and reused.
Metalsmiths have been using the sand casting process for foundry core production for more than three thousand years. This is how our museums became filled with elaborate artifacts from ancient civilizations. Back then, it was a simpler, slower time. Today, not only is there more pressure to produce and produce quickly, techniques have come a long way in five thousand years. They are not necessarily more complicated but they do incorporate more hazardous materials. These are just a few reasons why oursourcing this work is to be recommended.
Modern blacksmiths do not have the same flexibility as their forefathers. Customers want everything yesterday. If your foundry workers all go off sick, get pregnant or retire at the same time, your business can be up a creek without a paddle. Before this happens to you, maybe you should think about outsourcing your core-making activities.
Almost 75% of all metal castings are performed using sand. There are a number of different methods for sand casting. Each approach has its own advantages. These methods include isocure, warm box, shell and air set no-bake.
When the desired outcome is a thin-walled core, it has to be strong enough to hold up to the molten metal without breaking down or eroding. For this, the warm box process is employed. Furan, a simple aromatic hydrocarbon, is mixed with the sand as a fixative. The catalyst in this process is heat. However, the boiling point of furan is uncomfortably close to room temperature; this makes it both flammable and volatile. A very good reason to outsource this work to a company that is used to handling it. Once cast, the cores are heated until the outside of the core is hard. Inside, cooling continues to cool.
The air set no-bake process is ideal for complex designs in runs of low to medium volume. The process involves a proprietary mixture of sand and plastic packed around a "positive." The air set method produces castings between 40 and 225 pounds in weight. Another major benefit is that it works with a wide range of materials, including non-ferrous metals, wood, plastic, styrofoam and fiberglass.
In the isocure process, the sand is mixed with a polyurethane resin. An amine gas or some other catalyst is injected into the box right before superheated air is forced through. This is a quick and cheap method for creating large cores.
When the desired outcome is for a fine, detailed finish, the shell process is optimal. The casting box is headed and then filled with pre-treated sand. The outside is then heated to generate a thin, hard shell. Another advantage of using this method that the uncured sand on the inner core can be poured out and reused.
Metalsmiths have been using the sand casting process for foundry core production for more than three thousand years. This is how our museums became filled with elaborate artifacts from ancient civilizations. Back then, it was a simpler, slower time. Today, not only is there more pressure to produce and produce quickly, techniques have come a long way in five thousand years. They are not necessarily more complicated but they do incorporate more hazardous materials. These are just a few reasons why oursourcing this work is to be recommended.
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