Anyone have a Seattle Findings rolling mill?

Many of us recycle scrap and roll or draw it into a lot of different shapes. After a while, and many mistakes, you learn how to do it. Until then it is hard, but that is true of many things. I am retired and don’t need to account for my time. I enjoy taking the time to roll out ingots. I usually do it at the end of the day as a kind of wind down process. Most of the sheet that I make is used for bezel backs and elements that will be sawed out, punched out, textured or turned into small odd shapes. That way, if there is a bad spot in the sheet, I can work around it. I also sand and polish the sheet before I do anything to it. This way I can find the bad spots. This also makes polishing little pieces a lot easier. You do have to protect for fire scale with alcohol and boric acid if you are annealing or soldering. This probably doesn’t make sense for a production shop, but it works for me. You can go to my website and look under the “more” tab for the “Rob’s Links” page. I have posted a couple PDFs that show how I go about casting and rolling ingots. Tell your friend that it is usually simple, but only after it hasn’t been for a long time. Good luck…Rob

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hi,

i was hoping rob would post his casting notes!

my below comments are just my personal memories/ experiences …and not instructions…

…need a hot enough torch…

need to “season” the metal molds before using (i wiped on some cooking oil with a high smoke point in the oven at 500 degrees F…i think i used avocado or peanut oil(?)…i am not sure about graphite molds…i want to try some time…

gotta prepare/ glaze new crucible with casting flux…gotta get the crucible hot enough to glaze the flux well

i seem to have faster metal melts if i use the thicker cylindrical crucibles versus the bowl/ dish type “whip” crucible setup, and preheat the crucible before i put the metal in… i think the thicker crucible holds the heat better(?)…not sure if this is true or not…both setups work for me…i want to try an open graphite mold soon…anyone have opinions on those?

i have an easily adjustable/ enclosed soldering/ heating area (firebricks, etc from clayking.com) and keep the mold near the crucible so i can get it heated up too…i use firebricks to make different levels so i can steady everything and just (hopefully) easily tilt the metal into the mold

i have a have a huge baking sheet under everything, and brick edges so hopefully nothing can roll off

i use covered shoes, leather welders gloves to keep my hands from getting too hot…and the special lens glasses to protect my eyes…

…a graphite rod to stir out the ”slag”(?) if any…

…vise grips to open the mold if it has a screw…

…i leave the ingots and rods in the heat cave for a bit…i never know exactly when to quench to maintain annealed state, for subsequent forging to just under 50% or so…(lots of opiniins about forging in the archives)…i put the ingots on a steel mesh screen after, and hover my hand above it, to feel the heat level…then analyse the quench reaction to see if i need to adjust next time…

the metal takes on a particular “roiling” sort of look when it is fully melted…and then i continue to heat fir about 30 seconds more after that…

i am not great at pouring rods…yet!

i think i prefer the wider/thinner ingots that result from a closed, combination mold…versus a narrower open strip mold…plus the strip mold is kinda long.

just my musings…

julie

Okay that makes sense, it’s feasible to do once I know what I’m doing.

I’d never try to produce all my sheet (and I don’t have a torch capable of melting very much at once anyway), but for instances where maybe I need an inch or two of a thicker gauge than I normally keep on hand, it would be great to be able to roll that out myself instead of ordering it.

Julie

By now you have noticed that no body has the perfect “final” process for everyone. But they all develop a process that works perfectly for them and the finished product they are working on. Most of the sheet I make goes into creating a 22 gauge sheet that becomes earrings: squares, discs, etc. I am very careful of my sterling scrap and always at 25% +/- new silver when I am melting. And while it is very hard not to I try and have no old solder in the melt. My melt torch tip is a standard Smith Little Torch single orifice tip #7 ( I had to go look) and I melt as much at a time as is capable with that tip. I often pour for a greater thickness into open delft clay molds and then I forge the shapes heavily on all surfaces with a cross peen. I believe the forging process is as critical for good material as is any other part of the system. And when I roll the sheet I anneal more often than most. I think my Economy broke because of not annealing often enough so now I have this habit but I think a good one. I use the same seasoned crucibles, smoked molds, graphite rods, hammers,… etc. that everyone else does but my steps are a little different. This is my experience and not everyone’s. Technique is a shorthand we all develop and it comes from years of experiments and “doing”. Since the results I get are what I am looking for I see no reason to change how I do things.

Have fun, play on, be safe

Don

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hi don,

yes, i agree totally. thank you for reminding me about delft/ petrobond clay…i am really interested in trying the clay method…i am thinking that i can make a bigger mouth sprue to aim for, which could be really helpful to me.

julie

hi,

i need to make a correction here…i use a 2lb brass mallet with my disc cutter…i said “sledge” which sounds like a steel sledge hammer…i was just thinking i shouldnt to say “hammer”…i couldn’t think of “mallet” at the time​:flushed::grin:

I have this one. It came without a box and was the only one they had when they moved to their present location. I didn’t notice it, but it had a crack, and by the time I started using it, they wouldn’t take it back (past the two week returning date).
I had to get someone to fix it for me. It will give you a print but your piece has to be well annealed. I wouldn’t buy it again.

I picked up this same mill last year as well. To be honest, it’s kind of terrible. At my 9-5 we have an old Gesswein combo mill that works great, so I got kind of spoiled with this one.

As was mentioned earlier, the stated maximum opening is 2.5mm. This isn’t exactly true. 2.5mm is the maximum point at which the gears will still touch each other. So even at 2.4mm thickness, the gears slip a bunch.

Also, the one I bought came with 2 sets of rollers, one set for flat, and one set for grooved. For me, and the way I typically end up rolling wire, this lead to me having to switch out the rollers multiple times a day. It’s not a huge deal, but it is a good 10-15 minute bit of time that could be better spent elsewhere.

So, while the price is definitely enticing, I would say you actually get less than what you pay for with this particular mill.

Cheers!
Scott