Category:Casting Shop

Description:

People use the casting shop to make small metal castings for jewelry, sculpture, and engineering in gold, silver, and copper alloys. Facilities include: Investment bench, sand-casting bench, kilns, vacuum caster, oxy-propane torch, wax-working bench, vulcanizer. (Links to tool resource pages) Classes in lost-wax casting and sand casting are offered. (Links to class listings)

Casting Shop View

Casting Techniques:

Lost-wax casting: Starting with a wax pattern, shop users make molds in gypsum-based investment. Molds are heat-treated in a kiln and then cast in metal with a vacuum-casting machine. Picture: \Main_page_pix\lost_wax_pour.jpg (Link to lost-wax casting class listing)

Sand-casting: Durable patterns are pressed into oil-bonded sand to make a mold that can be cast in metal with no heat treatment. (Link to sand-casting class listing)

Rubber molding: Durable, nonporous patterns are molded in heat-vulcanized rubber to be reproduced in wax with a pressure-injector.

Tools:

Vacuum caster: This machine pulls air through the pores of a lost-wax mold to draw the molten metal into fine detail during casting. RED tool: Tool-testing required. Link to: Vacuum Caster Tool Resource Page) Located under the hood against the south wall.

Sentry Kiln: For heat-teating and burn-out of lost-wax molds. RED tool: Tool-testing required. Link to: Sentry Kiln Tool Resource Page Programmable controller, temp limit: 1350 F.

Electromelt furnace: For melting metals to cast. RED tool: Tool testing required. Removable graphite crucibles for different metals, including gold, silver, argentium (Ag-Ge), bronze, brass. Temperature limit: 2000 F. (Link to Electromelt resource page)

Safety:

There are significant hazards in this lab. Molten metal can cause very severe, crippling burns. Eye protection, closed-toe shoes, dust masks, hot gloves, aprons, must be worn at various times when tools are in use. Dust contains crystalline silica: Dust masks required. Precautions are similar to those for welding. (Link to casting shop safety page)