LFMC - Redemption

LFMC Redemption...

Some Issues resolved...

So here are the boxes full of sand...

I'm guessing that 10" x 16" x 16"s of sand must weigh close to 100lbs, as my back is just killing me...

Notice the cart that the second box is now sitting on. Eventually I used the cart and a wheel barrow, so that I'd never have to lift a box off the floor.

All of my dry sand barely fills the two boxes shown.

I opted to use my reciprocating saw/Sawz-All as the sand compactor... It worked perfectly, shaking down the sand a full inch or more after about a minute per side.

The feel of the saw and the smooth curved horn that is on the front made me glad I didn't waste any time trying to build anything. This is the best that I've ever had the sand compacted to date...

I call this the "Pile o' Shame", an assortment of mal-formed castings that are about to be busted and recycled as needed.

The furnace worked with out incident, though it did snow through out the day, but quite lightly...

The castings are sitting on a covered box and mold waiting for the first pot to come-up to temperature.

These are three out of 5 castings that appear to have formed properly...

I won't know for sure until the plaster is scrapped away, but they look promising from here.

The other two were flawed, largely due to my doing, both ultimately amounted to insufficient metal to fill the mold properly.

After another few hours of cutting back the sprues, and running a wire wheel over the plaques this how they turned out. All three plaques are 10" by 6 to 7", definitely clearing the 35" Sq barrier that was a stumbling block until today!

There were some minor lumps and bumps that had to be chiseled off but no show stoppers.

So in summary, I believe that the combination of 16" deep casting boxes and a more thorough compaction of the sand have greatly contributed to redeeming LFMC in my estimation.

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