Customer Reviews

Metal Casting: A Sand Casting Manual for the Small Foundry, Volume 2

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A Sand Casting Manual for the Small Foundry, Volume 2 goes way beyond basic shapes in sand, pushing the small foundry hobbiest to produce professional results. Especially useful is the knee valve for the matchplate vibrator from Volume 1. True to form, he has lots of tables showing how to use different metals. Discussions include various Aluminum, Brass, Bronze, and Iron compositions, along with sepeific guidelines on how to gate and riser them for optimal results.

He includes sections on making your own insulating sprue sleaves, covered sprues, riser and sprue geometry, runner and gating systems, and many others. He also includes a generous section covering pattern making for engines, including discussion of aircooling fins, and water cooled heads.

I have cast and used the rammer, and cast the matchplate vibrators, and flask hardware from his first book. I am currently working on a Gingery Lathe, using a propane burner, but have found Steve's books to be the next big leap after Gingery. If you are new to the hobby, consider starting with Gingery's Charcoal Foundry also from Lindsay. If you are already casting, Steve's book is what you need to start producing real professional work.

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

Volume 2 is a little more upbeat and in-depth than volume one- but I think the material covered in the first part is a natural progression of volume one. Not a criticiism of the author- just an observation that folks who applied themselves to the first volume may already have learned some of the topics in Vol 2.
-I think this book shines its brightest in the fact the same author has expanded on concepts from the first- so continuity is not an issue. Even with the overview material the Volume 2 clearly picks up where volume 1 stopped. Folks encountering any project "glitches" through volume one may find their questions answered in Volume 2 readily. Most aspects of furthering the foundry craft in a home based hobby are carried into this volume- but you can getr a feel the commercial venture is picking up steam towards the end- I like to see that.
Definitely reccomended reading and I would strongly encourage anyone to do their begining projects again (if they encountered problems) with this tome under their utility belt.
-Great for college level minds and creative souls looking for knowledge and unbiased authoring.

This is the only book that really covers the material for use by a hobbiest, such as myself. Really provides the information you need to get good results and understand what you're doing.

Just like volume 1, this book pushes the amount of information that can be crammed into a book. This book goes beyond basic. Steve gives you the tools to produce professional quality castings and arms you with knowledge so you understand why things are done the way they are. First rate.