Like the title says.

Looking for someone with a bit of experience, or someone who can point me to a foundry that helps under-experienced retards like me pattern and pour 1-off green sand castings (with cores) of up to 50 lbs.

I've only done small things like emblems... You can DIY but expect lots of practice before you actually cast something usable. If it's just structural and looks don't matter, certainly DIY. You will save lots of $$$.

Once upon a time there were many small foundries in the mid-west that would do one-off castings but I don't know of any still operating today. My father worked in a small, family owned foundry as a bench molder (cast iron) and they made many one-off castings, mostly experimental for the farm implement industry. Small foundries like that may still exist in Mexico but not in the U.S.

I took a couple metalcasting classes last year for my degree (Manufacturing Engineering Tech.) and we cast some simple things in aluminum via green sand. What parts do you have in mind to cast? If its simple enough, you can cast it yourself. Making a small foundry is pretty simple and finding enough scrap aluminum isn't hard to come by either.

I've thought about this to. I have quite a bot of scrap aluminum and have thought it would be cool to do something like this. I did a bit of it in high school, but that was a LONG time ago. I might have to do some looking into this.

i would start with casting resin.. get that technique down, then move to the hot stuff.

There are several books that are geared to beginners out there ( Lindsey publications has a few -> http://www.lindsaybks.com/ )

Don't forget to take shrinkage into account.

quote Originally posted by avengador1: Don't forget to take shrinkage into account.

Right, thats one reason i suggested starting with resin.. it has similar issues one has to overcome, but is FAR safer.

quote Originally posted by ryan.hess: I've only done small things like emblems... You can DIY but expect lots of practice before you actually cast something usable. If it's just structural and looks don't matter, certainly DIY. You will save lots of $$$.

Yeah, me too. I've done lost foam, and green sand, but only simple one-piece patterns of small emblems also.

Aluminum has very minimal shrink, relatively low melting temperature, and its easy to get. As long as you don't expect to make jet engine turbines, you should be OK to use it

Heres a site of a guy doing neat projects with castings (among other things): http://www.gizmology.net/index.htm

Not so. There is still one in Lyons, KS. They do mostly steel, but still do some prototyping work in other materials f rom time to time.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by spark1: Once upon a time there were many small foundries in the mid-west that would do one-off castings but I don't know of any still operating today. My father worked in a small, family owned foundry as a bench molder (cast iron) and they made many one-off castings, mostly experimental for the farm implement industry. Small foundries like that may still exist in Mexico but not in the U.S.

So if I were wanting to cast Iron Duke manifolds, it sounds like I'd have a difficult time finding a place to pour them.