Customer Reviews

Metal Casting: A Sand Casting Manual for the Small Foundry, Vol. 1

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Mr. Stephen Chastain's newest addition to the amateur foundry
literature is a two volume set titled "Metal Casting for the Small Foundry" and builds on his established technical expertise and straightforward explanations in his two prior works "Iron Melting Cupola Furnaces for the Small Foundry" and Build and Oil-Fired Tilting Furnace". Mr. Chastain has condensed an enormous amount of material into these two volumes. By my count he has extracted information from 35 references and conveys the information in a clear manner and readable manner. No other work does this for the beginning foundry enthusiast. A summary of Volume 1 Table of Contents follows:

Chapter 1 The Sand Casting Process
Basic Foundry Equipment

Chapter 2 Foundry Projects
Making a Match Plate Vibrator
Mold Making
Making Wooden Flasks
Making Flask Hardware
Making a an Aluminum Flask
Rammer

Chapter 3 Melting Equipment
Crucibles and Ladles
Furnaces for the Small Foundry
Beginners Charcoal Furnace
Stepping up to a Gas Fired Furnace
Forming Sheet metal for Furnaces

Chapter 4 Temperature Measurement
Thermocouples
Making a Thermocouple Thermometer
Optical Pyrometers

Chapter 5 Foundry Sands and Binders
Molding Sand
Clays
Mullers and Mulling
Cement Binders
Development of Oil Bonded Sand
Petro-Bond
Furan Binders

Chapter 6 Coremaking
Cores
Core Binders
Core Finishing
Core Jigs
Core buoyancy
Strainer Cores

Bibliography 19 references

Appendix Thermocouple tables

Suppliers 23 suppliers/vendors

Index

In short, Mr. Chastain have provided a fairly complete reference
for the beginning and intermediate metal caster in a concise,
readable format. He touches on information that takes nine
separate books in my current library but provides practical
techniques and examples of projects lacking in these
works. Volume 2 builds on this knowledge for the intermediate
and advanced amateur foundry enthusiast. A of the Table of
Contents follows:

Metal Casting vol. 2

Chapter 1 Solidification of Metals
Freezing of Pure Metals
Frizzing of Alloys
Phase Diagrams

Chapter 2 Aluminum Alloys
The Effect of Alloying Agents
Grain Refiners
Solution Heat Treatment and Precipitation
Hardening
The Composition of Aluminum Alloys

Chapter 3 Copper Alloys, Brass and Bronze
Copper Based Casting Alloys
Silicon Bronze
Brasses
Manganese Bronze
Tin and Leaded Bronze
Aluminum Bronze
Solidification Range of Copper Alloys
Brasses and Bronze Foundry Practice

Chapter 4 Metallurgy of Iron
Carbon
Silicon
Carbon Equivalent
Alloying Elements
Ductile Iron
Alkali Fluxes

Chapter 5 Gating Systems
Parts of a Gating System
Filters
Design of Gating Systems

Chapter 6 Risers and Feeding of Castings
Directional Solidification
Chills
Heat loss from Risers
Making Insulated Riser Sleeves

Chapter 7 Patternmaking
Shrinkage
Machinable Allowance
Fillets
Wax Extruder
Follow Boards
Core Prints
Stop-offs
Building a Vacuum Chamber
Making a Matchplate

Chapter 8 Foundry Projects
Make a sturdy Flask Lock
Make a Knee operated Air Valve
Cylinder Head Casting
Piston Casting

Chapter 10 Automotive Castings
Casting Piston Rings
Production of the Ford Flathead V-8

Chapter 11 Miscellaneous
Molding Deep Fins
Lifting Force on Cope

Bibliography 16 additional references

Appendix Aluminum Casting alloy table

Suppliers 23 suppliers/vendors

Index

I have always wanted to cast parts to fix my lawn mower, go cart, and such. I half way tried it once with not much luck. I was determined to cast a rear axle support for my go cart that had broken. I ordered this book after reading good reviews on some casting websites.
The book makes sure you have the right tools and materials to start you out on the right foot. Then it goes step by step through small projects to give you practice. It even teaches you the fundamentals to take it to the next level. It took a few tries, but I have finished my rear axle support and added in my own design to make it better. I just ordered volume 2 10 minutes ago.

Great DIY book.

I am happy to have this great book. The book was apparently written some years ago as you can tell from the pictures, but the information is invaluable. Anyone wanting to cast brass will find this a treasure! I would have rated this book higher if the pictures were of a higher quality, and the information was more comprehensive. By comprehensive, I am referring to the specifics of building the nozzle for the furnace... This information was not fully covered. However it is still a very valuable resource.

The author has a firm grasp on the mechanisms and motivations of anyone who WANTS to shape metal through foundry arts. An engineer by degree- Chastain writes from that perspective- so it can be a touch daunting to those who are not into the lingo. BUT- that is why you are reading this book... to learn! (but honestly- you have to want it- this book is detailed enough you wont be "dabbling" in it when done- it is serious and it addresses foundry work as a serious work/hobby/creative outlet)
-Great intro to foundry arts, and excellent prep chapters to get folks started without throwing a newbie to the deep end.
-Great for advanced high school minds and college level readers- with a little legwork and some serious self study- this book is the fuel for a creative mind.

Steve Chastain writes good books. Clear and practical. I have several and will buy more.

The blurb on Vol 1 says "it will show the beginner how to make a sand mould" and is written in "non technical terms"
Well I would say that if you are a beginner you will end up confused and frustrated by reading this book. The author is obviously very knowledgeable about the subject but has no idea how to present it in an easy to follow "how to do it" format.
For example: The actual "Sand casting process" is covered in only half a page in chapter one, and then the tools required are listed . However if you have no idea what a "rapping bar" is and what it's used for (page 17) you won't find out until page 34.
Suddenly in chapter two we jump straight into making a pattern for a "match plate vibrator" The beginner will be none the wiser with the description that "board mounted patterns require a vibrator to release from the sand" when he doesn't even know what a board mounted pattern is at this stage. This is quite a complicated pattern requiring the use of a lathe, making sand cores, metal "chills" etc etc. All very interesting but way too early in the beginners sand casting education.
This book is badly laid out and often you are reading the text that refers to an illustration that is at least two pages away from the text or worse! two pages before the text (page 90).
A further annoyance, I think it's cheating for a book written in 2004 to use illustrations filched from publications from way back in 1941 and earlier.
In chapter four we are learning how to build a "Thermocouple thermometer" I hardly think this is stuff the beginner needs and it is not until chapter five page 126 that we finally get to the information on "moulding sand". However here it gets extremely technical where we have several pages on sand grain sizes relating to US sieve numbers. I doubt that the beginner will be able to recognise a no 40 sieve grain from a number 200 and so a lot of this information is irrelevant to a beginner metal caster and should have been relegated to volume 2.
The book does have a lot of useful information but should be treated as a reference book. It is not (in my opinion) a "how to do it" manual especially if you are just beginning to get started in metal casting.
Bill

Deffinitely buy this if you are al all interested in casting metal. Alex G. Bell for a phone, Albert Einstein for a discussion on time-space, and Stephen D. Chastain on foundry work.

Make sure to get vol. 2 also.

If you want something like "make it yourself" and you are handful and have some knowledge of crafting is ok, but if you wat to use this book as a method for learning about castings without a previous knowledge I wouldn't recommend it for you. My fault.