So you're ready to start making useful metal molds at home, but you're wondering do it? Whether you are looking to make parts for a repair or to cast metal pieces for an art project, you can create just about any shape using a sand mold, and it can all be done at home or in a studio. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
Setting up the mold
1. Fill the two casting flasks with green sand. The sand is a mixture of silica, sand and clay, with a few other additives. It helps to hold the shape of the mold better than traditional sand.
2. Press the item you are making a mold of halfway into the sand in one of the molding flasks. Pat the sand around it and add a little more if necessary, but do not overfill the flask. If you are creating a design of your own, carve out its shape as if you have pressed half of the item into the sand. It should represent one half of the completed object.
3. Turn the item over, or imagine what the other half of your mold will look like, and press the half into the sand, or carve it out if that is your preferred method. Add sand and pat it down so it will keep it's shape.
4. In one of the casting flasks, dig a small channel leading to the mold and then dig through the sand until a hole opens on the other side. This hole and the tunnel leading to it should only be a few inches in length, but it can be bigger if desired.
5. Place the two casting flasks together end to end so that the sand meets each other. Press them together and set the mold with the hole facing upwards.
Making the Cast
6. Take enough molten metal to fill the cast and put it in a metal container. The metal will be superheated, so wearing thick gloves or using another safety device is necessary to handle the container. You can melt metal in a furnace or somewhere that can produce a similar amount of heat.
7. Fill the mold with the molten metal by feeding it through the opening in the casting flask. It will feed through the tunnel and into the channel you have carved out before filling mold itself.
8. Let the metal cool and harden. This will take a while, but the actual time depends on the size of your mold and the amount of metal poured into it.
9. When the metal has hardened, pull apart the two casting flasks and break your mold out of the sand. You may have to separate the metal from the cast where the actual cast meets the hardened metal in the channel leading up to it. Now you have a new, perfectly casted object.
Tags: casting flasks, into sand, your mold, cast metal, channel leading, mold with, molten metal
