2nd tipper casting (squish casting, not mixed enough) went bad (1st squish went great); holes in bottom where too thin; instead of heaving it, I staged a crash off a trestle, where it now is a sedum planter (took picture as installed and watered it).
I’ve had lots of luck with sedums sprouting on their own from clippings in very little earth so I’m optimistic
Did metal casting and other castings today; still working
need a prototype photo?
here’s the tipper I successfully cast; made to look beaten up; a real workhorse;
here’s a tipper I just finished casting, paint still wet; it’s 100% cast incl wheels. in the 2nd photo, even the rail is cast; that shot contains code 215 as an experiment in casting.
here’s how I made the only non cast parts, the axle and housing. flat brass, flux solder, 027 rail (tubes spread with screwdriver), solder, layed 027 over brass and solder and gave it about 2 seconds of butane torch. CA attached to bottom but might screw in if problems like I’ve done previous ones
Incidentally, the couplers are screwed into the body. Use about a 10 or 12 gauge wire and used a 2-40 die to make an all-thread screw, which I predrilled hole in coupler and body and attached. The same wire I used for the attachment serves as the coupling post
Incidentally, the body of the tipper chassis contains BBs (from the gun) to lower the center of gravity so the tipper doesn’t tip over!
Here’s the squish RTV mold. It wouldn’t come out of the concrete casting so I ended up breaking the concrete with a chisel and sledge to extract it. It originally was gonna be a pour mold but ended up being a squish. I used CR 600 resin but today will try some CR 900 and let it cure 48 hours. Key to squish is to slosh the resin around good
when squishing, you really do want the resin to squish out the top so you know it’s completely filled up; you can make some pretty thin structures with squish. The spray paint serves as a mold release and also embeds color. Here, you can see the resin (white) that squished out the top. as soon as you remove the casting, trim this off with scissors.
When making a casting nearly completely enclosed, it’s a bit challenging getting the mold off the casting when it’s cured. you have to be careful and slowly work your way around. notice that to conserve RTV and get double use I made gear castings in the tipper casting to serve double usage
I tried to melt the large block of lead with propane torch but wouldn’t melt so put in on a burner in grill outside; still didn’t melt; so took the pot into the creek and got a fire going nice and good with wind howling to make it hot; it melted very nice
so
I ensured a level area and poured. Metal in large mass stays molten a few minutes when out of fire so no need to work too fast
btw if your creek is rubber, don’t start a fire on it. Mine is all concrete so I can do this sort of thing
my lead rail experiment was complete flop. rails separated b/c the lead cools too quick. also, lead rails don’t work b/c they fall apart so soft. solder works but hard to pour in the narrow mold. Solder frogs easier to cast b/c larger surface area and can pour quikly
yuck!
otoh, casting resin rails goes smooth; i’ll keep this one out in the sun for a year to see how much abuse it can take and how durable it is; it is cr 600 but i’ll try some hard cr 900 today and label the 2 rails and report back to you in 1 year with results
incidentally, the rail I cast is from an MTH realtrax master. for toy train gurus, a resin rail would come in handy where you want an unpowered section or for bridge guardrails
Graet pictures Everyone !! I have a short clip of Amtrak 56, Lake Shore Limited going by our mainline at MP 128 ! I’m thinking the last car is one of those private cars !!
Frank- The Hobo in your photo must be the Bionic Man to have run so far & fast. [;)][:o)][:D] Dave- I hope you’re careful with the Lead Castings so you do not get any Lead Poisoning from them.[xx(] Take Care.
