Todays casting adventure.

[Dan Dubeau]

The advise to sift it is spot on, you might not like the yields you get with a finer grain size, but the results will no doubt be better than mine. I'll add another. If you do make your own green sand, buy some proper bentonite clay. Don't risk blowing up the kitchen blender grinding up kitty litter lol.

Learning a new process from scratch is so full of variables to begin with, I'd urge anyone to start with as little as possible.

[Dan Dubeau]

Dan, that is awesome, good job!
Cheers,
Jon

Thanks Jon.

[A.K. Boomer]

Thanks. Yes, there is a lot of prepwork, but I did get pretty fast at molding over the course of these pours lol. Ironically the quicker molds poured the best.

I hate painting for that reason. All the prep work and something dumb like that can wreck it. I do have some projects to drag out side and paint here shortly. Dreading it like you wouldn't believe.

You never know what's going to get you with painting, one time I had a hood perfect, took a little body work and also some primer to correct very small errors, spent allot of time with it - then ready for painting, I took my time and wetted down the floor so it sealed the dust some - since it was a hood and flat I was just going for one thick coat since the paint had great coverage --- I shot it --- stood back and was amazed, thing looked perfect like a piece of solid colored glass,

Im walking around it looking for flaws --- nothing,,, im thinking "this is the best iv ever done - im somebody"

go to grab a brew, head back out and im just taking it all in then all the sudden "hey what's that? what's going on?" the whole hood has a slight etched look, "oh no"

I just watched the whole disaster unfold right before my eye's --- the top paint cote went into "crinkle mode" I don't know if it was incompatible chemistry between the primer and the paint or if I shot it too soon after priming...

fast forward about 5 more minutes and the entire hood looked like the kind of paint they used on those old hoover vacuum cleaners...

I just headed back to the fridge for more beer - lot's more....

[Dan Dubeau]

My Father was a Painter at GM, and has lots of stories like that. That's probably the reason I hate painting, as my efforts were never good enough lol.

One story that stick out was one of the maintenance guys that would come around periodically to fix something. They used to have random batches of trucks go through with all sorts of paint adhesion problems, and could never figure out the source. Turns out the fabric softener the guy used for his coveralls cause a reaction in the paint, and even though he never set foot in a booth, it was enough to cause a problem whenever he was near the trucks while doing his job. He'd be working on something and 10-20 trucks would go by and have issues later on. Crazy. Hats off to the person that figured that one out. I love trying to solve problems like that, but that one would have drove me nuts lol.

There's a 1980 Olds 442 sitting in my barn right now that will get a new paint job (black/gold) this summer. We were tossing around the idea of doing it ourselves, but I'd really like to just pass on that excitement to someone else lol. Not a battle i'd like to fight. I really don't even want anything to do with the car to begin with, but that's another story for another day lol...

[A.K. Boomer]

That's incredible --- and yeah whoever figured that one out is a chemistry genius ---- wow... I will retain that one to tell others....

the more that I think about it the more it makes sense though --- paint might rely on even the smallest amount of static electricity for the coat to stick, fabric softener does more than just soften the fabric, it's makes the cloths "go dead" with zero static electricity... i think that's the main connection...

[Hawkeye]

Dan, SLK001, Thanks for the tips on making green sand. I had planned to sift the sand and bentonite together while dry. Our local metal supplier stocks bentonite. I don’t plan on casting in the near future, but I’ll save a couple 5 gallon buckets of sand.

[Dan Dubeau]

My first green sand attempt was from the sand pit in my backyard. I had to sift a lot of sand to get a very small portion of usable stuff. I can't remember if I actually made any castings with it or not. That's when I broke down and bought a $5 bag of playsand lol. It was MUCH better, but still, the grain size is pretty big for any fine detail.

The internet is full of home brew recipes and other tips and tricks to save a buck to get started, but in my opinion after having done it now, I would have been better off to start off with a batch of good quality commercial casting sand. It's like trying to start learning how to machine stuff, and using the cheapest import cutters, drills and taps you can find etc. You don't know if you're doing something wrong, or if it's the equipment that is causing failures when they break or leave rough finishes. I'm not saying it can't be done, it can, but with so many other variables at play in casting to begin with, eliminating one of the biggest while learning is IMO money well spent. Once I get better, and get a better process down and understand how and what proper sand feels and molds like, then I'll attempt to make my own again in the future.

[SLK001]

You can buy sand in bags already sifted to the sieve size you want. Look for a drilling supply outlet near you. Here's a link to a company that sells that stuff near me. They also have bentonite in 50 pound bags.

[Dan Dubeau]

You can buy sand in bags already sifted to the sieve size you want. Look for a drilling supply outlet near you. Here's a link to a company that sells that stuff near me. They also have bentonite in 50 pound bags.

Yep, the internet DIY community tends to get locked onto the "if I can't get it all at home depot it can't be done" mentality. Some industrial supply houses tend to not want to deal with average Joe walk in customer too, but all it takes is a phone call to find out.