Gravity Casting

Dave: did you ever try the gravity casting? If so, what happened?

Dave: did you ever try the gravity casting? If so, what happened?

No, the only thing like that I ever tried was using sand casting sand and
pouring some molten silver into a depression. Got something barely
resembling the thing I wanted. There is a little sand casting thing I’ve
seen on the net that consists of a little metal ring and some very fine
sand thats supposed to cast pretty well, but is overpriced (what else is
new). DAve

Art Jewelry for Conscious People
http://www.opendoor.com/stephensdesign/crystalguy.html

Susan,
I have done some things along the lines of traditional native work
involving cuttlefish bone type of castings but used a lime block which I
felt worked well.It is a very old way of doing things and all sorts of
materials are available to cast metal into including one time castings
into wooden blocks etc…If you’re talking about the steam casting
routine no I have not tried it but it sounds dangerous to me water and
molten metal don’t get along well as I am sure you know and this is the
reason whatever material you cast into needs to be completely free of
moisture or as nearly so as possible. I also use investment soldering
although rarely and it is great where multiple settings need to be
arranged evenly around a coin bezel or similar types of work…Gavin

Gavin Gilmore wrote:

Susan,
I have done some things along the lines of traditional native work
involving cuttlefish bone type of castings but used a lime block which I
felt worked well.It is a very old way of doing things and all sorts of
materials are available to cast metal into including one time castings
into wooden blocks etc…
In terms of “gravity” casting, one of the most interesting techniques
that I ever came across was a workshop on ASHANTI CASTING that I hosted.
It was taught by Paulette Werger. The process is from West Africa, and
the detail possible is incredible. It is a combination of the ancient as
well as the most technologically sophisticated techniques ever imagined.
They combined native materials with an oxygen deprived atmosphere and
“swing it over your head around and around centrifugal casting” to
achieve their results.
If anybody is interested, I can go into more detail.
Lee Marshall
Bonny Doon Engineering http://www.bonnydoonengineering.com

Dave: Of course you know that you can use jewelry investment for
gravity casting…not that you need to try this, but thought you
were going to try when that thread was discussed a month ago or so.
Just wondering…would love to hear if you do.

sb

Gavin: lime block sounds interesting…sounds like a form of sandcasting.
What are the benefits (surface texture, etc?). Never heard of steam
casting before (probably because whoever did it isn’t around after that):
were you thinking of ceramic shell casting? Please explain investment
soldering? Thanks.

SB

Hi Lee: Count me in also…not going to write a book though may be able
to use it in regards to artwork.

At 01:05 PM 11/12/96 +0000, you wrote:

Susan,
(SNIP)
.If you’re talking about the steam casting
routine no I have not tried it but it sounds dangerous to me water and
molten metal don’t get along well as I am sure you know and this is the
reason whatever material you cast into needs to be completely free of
moisture or as nearly so as possible.<

Gavin:

Excuse me for getting into this, but I have some experience in this area.
I’ve learned a great deal from your posts and hate to appear to disagree
with you, but steam-casting is an old, tested, safe (as any kind of casting)
method of replicating wax patterns. I think a commercial steam casting kit
is still on the market but there’s no need to buy one because steam-casting
is utterly simple (except for a couple of crucial little wrinkles) and the
necesssary equipment is probably already on hand in most everyone’s garage.

It’s mainly for “beginners on a budget,” and lacks the sophistication of
other casting methods, but it works beautifully and I still wear jewelry I
cast years ago using this technique. I even wrote an article about it which
sold to a magazine that never got around to publishing it. For those
curious about casting but who haven’t bought equipment yet, it’s an
excellent way to learn basic techniques: wax work, spruing, investing,
burning-out, weighing wax and converting to precious metal weights, melting,
de-spruing, filing, polishing, etc., etc.

Since most Orchid professionals are far beyond this stage, if anyone is
interested in learning more just email me direct and I’ll work out a way of
providing the details.

Regards,

Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS

Richard O. Martin wrote:

At 01:05 PM 11/12/96 +0000, you wrote:

Susan,
(SNIP)
.If you’re talking about the steam casting
routine no I have not tried it but it sounds dangerous to me water and
molten metal don’t get along well as I am sure you know and this is the
reason whatever material you cast into needs to be completely free of
moisture or as nearly so as possible.<

Gavin:

Excuse me for getting into this, but I have some experience in this area.
I’ve learned a great deal from your posts and hate to appear to disagree
with you, but steam-casting is an old, tested, safe (as any kind of casting)
method of replicating wax patterns. I think a commercial steam casting kit
is still on the market but there’s no need to buy one because steam-casting
is utterly simple (except for a couple of crucial little wrinkles) and the
necesssary equipment is probably already on hand in most everyone’s garage.

It’s mainly for “beginners on a budget,” and lacks the sophistication of
other casting methods, but it works beautifully and I still wear jewelry I
cast years ago using this technique. I even wrote an article about it which
sold to a magazine that never got around to publishing it. For those
curious about casting but who haven’t bought equipment yet, it’s an
excellent way to learn basic techniques: wax work, spruing, investing,
burning-out, weighing wax and converting to precious metal weights, melting,
de-spruing, filing, polishing, etc., etc.

Just got out the Rio-VacuForm machine and don’t have time right now for
the steam casting sorry…I have seen the kits for $40 but I didn’t get
one and read about it just no time for now to try it…Ever done the
Vacu-Form thing?///Gavin

Just got out the Rio-VacuForm machine and don’t have time right now for
the steam casting sorry…I have seen the kits for $40 but I didn’t get
one and read about it just no time for now to try it…Ever done the
Vacu-Form thing?///Gavin<

Gavin:

If it’s the machine that makes lots of duplicates of a master pattern by
vacuum-bending them from flat sheet, the answer’s no. I’ve read about it
and wished I had the need for production runs that large – more business!
– but so far haven’t needed to invest in one.

Rick

finitely interested in more info, either publicly on Orchid or via

private email. Over the past several years I’ve been filing away information
on ancient metalworking methods – spurred initially by curiosity about the
techniques the Etruscans used to achieve such incredible granulation results
with “primitive” equipment. If I can put enough together I’d
like to eventually write a series of articles or a book. Your material is
of great interest to me.

Rick Martin

If you havn’t seen it, you might get a lot of info from McCrays book on
metal casting. Steam, potatoe, over-head centrifical, etc.

John Dach and Cynthia Thomas
Maiden Metals
a div. of The thirst for knowledge,
MidLife Crisis Enterprises like that for water
PO BX 44 must be slaked.
Philo, CA 95466
707-895-2635(phone/fax)
@John_Cynthia_MidLife

Hi Rick,

I tried opening the .exe on two different machines, and get “error in
ZIP, use PKZipFix.” error. Not sure what’s going on… never a big PK
fan. Any experience with this? Running on Win95.

Dave

Dave Stephens said:

There is a little sand casting thing I’ve
seen on the net that consists of a little metal ring and some very fine
sand thats supposed to cast pretty well, but is overpriced (what else is
new). DAve

Could the kit you’re refering to be the Delft Clay kit? If so I agree the kit
is overpriced.

However as I recall from scaning a Rio flyer or catalog, you can buy the clay by
itself, 5# I think, for about $15. The little round rings that come with the kit
were just about 3" diameter aluminum rings that were keyed so they went back to
gether the way they came apart. Shouldn’t be to hard to come up with your own
drag & cope. The demo I saw was just a medalion being cast, but the detail &
finish were quite good.

The clay was immeadiately reuseable, All that was required was to eliminated the
discolored material surrounding the finished casting. less than 1/4 teaspoon in
the case of the demo, a silver dollar sized medallion. The sterling was melted
with a propane torch & a little borax.

Dave A

Dave:

I have no idea what this is all about. I haven’t sent any PK files to
anyone. But I’m having continuing problems both sending and downloading
mail to the point that I’m very seriously considering unsubscribing this
group – just to see if that’s the problem. I have sent a couple of replies
to other mail that haven’t shown up on the server. I wonder if this could
be one of them.

Rick

John and Cynthia:

Thanks for the tip. I’m not familiar with “McCray,” but I have two of Tim
McCreight’s books, if that’s who you mean. Excellent stuff. But I’ve
advanced from steam/potato casting to using both vacuum and centrifugal.

Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS

Sorry to throw you for a loop, Rick! Don’t panic! I was responding to
the wrong piece of mail! It was a self-extracting file I downloaded
from the 'net.

Pardon the confusion!

Dave Sebaste

From: Richard O. Martin[SMTP:R-Orion@postoffice.worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 1996 10:12 PM
To: orchid@ganoksin.com
Subject: RE: Gravity Casting

===
Dave:

I have no idea what this is all about. I haven’t sent any PK files to
anyone. But I’m having continuing problems both sending and downloading
mail to the point that I’m very seriously considering unsubscribing this
group – just to see if that’s the problem. I have sent a couple of replies
to other mail that haven’t shown up on the server. I wonder if this could
be one of them.

Rick

Hi Rick,

I tried opening the .exe on two different machines, and get “error in
ZIP, use PKZipFix.” error. Not sure what’s going on… never a big PK
fan. Any experience with this? Running on Win95.

Dave

From: Richard O. Martin[SMTP:R-Orion@postoffice.worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 1996 10:54 AM
To: orchid@ganoksin.com
Subject: Re: Gravity Casting

Just got out the Rio-VacuForm machine and don’t have time right now for
the steam casting sorry…I have seen the kits for $40 but I didn’t get
one and read about it just no time for now to try it…Ever done the
Vacu-Form thing?///Gavin<

Gavin:

If it’s the machine that makes lots of duplicates of a master pattern by
vacuum-bending them from flat sheet, the answer’s no. I’ve read about it
and wished I had the need for production runs that large – more business!
but so far haven’t needed to invest in one.

Re granulation, Could you please send me any info. on granulation? I have
been working on it for aprox. 3 years and cannot get all the beads to stay
on. Lloyd

Missed the beginning … but
Zips for DOS - '95 are different packages…

Jim

At 01:40 PM 11/13/96 -0800, you wrote:

John and Cynthia:

Thanks for the tip. I’m not familiar with “McCray,” but I have two of Tim
McCreight’s books, if that’s who you mean. Excellent stuff. But I’ve
advanced from steam/potato casting to using both vacuum and centrifugal.

Rick Martin
MARTIN DESIGNS

Poor memory, poor speller. Yes it is McCreight. Cynthia used to do
broken-amr cent. casting then we got a vaccum unit and now use in almost
exclusively. I also do some sand casting and a lot of ceramic shell work.

John

John Dach and Cynthia Thomas
Maiden Metals
a div. of The thirst for knowledge,
MidLife Crisis Enterprises like that for water
PO BX 44 must be slaked.
Philo, CA 95466
707-895-2635(phone/fax)
@John_Cynthia_MidLife