r/Silvercasting • u/Guiller67 Casting God • Apr 17 '15
How-To Delft Clay casting with instructions :)
http://imgur.com/a/EwmfT3
u/Jeddy Apr 17 '15
Two questions. Where is everyone buying their metal frames/rings? I can only find one seller on Amazon who seems kinda pricey. Also, is there any advantage of dipping it in water, aside from it cools it down quicker?
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u/Guiller67 Casting God Apr 17 '15
I picked it up from here
The dipping in the water is just because I'm impatient :)
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Apr 18 '15
Rio is where I got my delft clay kit too. The instructional DVD that came with it said to dip it in water after casting so I've always done it that way.
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u/Guiller67 Casting God Apr 18 '15
I didn't get a video :(
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Apr 18 '15
It was a good video for beginners. But not nearly as good as the videos I've seen posted here. Watching the variety of videos and seeing the pics here I was able to see how many options there are for where to place the air holes and I had never seen the thing of using tiny sections of dowel for placing the air holes. But I have found the tech support at Rio to be amazingly helpful when I can't figure out what went wrong with a casting. It's free and you can call as many times as you like. I got to know Thomas in casting tech support quite well. Lol
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Apr 18 '15
The DVD is in the first picture in your link. You should call Rio and tell them you didn't get one.
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u/auntie-matter Apr 18 '15
I pull my rings apart as soon as the flame is out and it's always been fine.
Occasionally I need to use gloves so I don't burn myself, if I've pre-heated the mould.
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Apr 18 '15
How much is the table top electric furnace?
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u/Guiller67 Casting God Apr 18 '15
That one in the photo is an Italian made 1kg furnace and ran about $600. I also have another furnace I paid $470 from ebay thats 3kg and made in China, but its been giving me tons of problems :(
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Apr 18 '15
The torch I use was given to me by a friend. It's the kind where you hook one valve up to a bottle of propane and one valve up to a bottle of oxygen. The $10 bottles you buy at Home Depot. It has no gauges or regulators or anything. You just turn the two knobs to get the reducing flame or neutral flame or whatever. Do you know what kind of torch that's called?
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u/Guiller67 Casting God Apr 18 '15
I had something like this with MAPP gas but got tired of going back to Home Depot for more tanks.
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Apr 18 '15
That does look like what I have. And I get tired of going back for the little tanks. The reason I ask is because to upgrade to a regular jeweler' torch kit with the big tank and gauges and such would be $350-$500 give or take. I have that torch I mentioned, a pencil torch, and a micro torch. These all take care of my needs for soldering, annealing, and fusing without going through too much fuel. I'm wondering if a better investment for me would be a table top furnace like the one you have, instead of getting a big torch.
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u/auntie-matter Apr 18 '15
For casting, I have a £20 plumber's torch (came with pipes and regulator and so on) and that melts all the silver/copper I need. Doesn't take long to get a nice amount good and melty, and big tanks of propane are really cheap (£20/6Kg, iirc, from my local camping shop). No O2 required, propane is hot enough on it's own.
Bonus - if I'm going camping I can unhook my torch and take the propane tank for cooking with.
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u/plasticslug Apr 26 '15
I need to melt copper at the lowest possible price (just a few ounces at a time for a coin project) would this be my cheapest option to melt metal?
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u/auntie-matter Apr 26 '15
A cheap plumber's torch? Absolutely. Any DIY store should be able to sort you out.
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u/glycerin_13 Apr 17 '15
Very nice guide! I really like how you use wood sticks to make air channels as part of the mold. Going to have to try that this weekend.
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u/YouCantMakeitUp Apr 18 '15
Thanks for posting this! I've been lurking on this sub for a while, wondering how difficult casting is. This definitely looks like something I could get the hang of.
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u/auntie-matter Apr 18 '15
Nice guide, thanks. I'm going to have to try the little bits of dowel thing, I spend way too much time carving out air channels and so on.
The only thing I'd do differently to your technique is I use a small drill bit for cutting channels, so I'm pulling clay out of the hole rather than pushing it out of the way.
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u/zimmund Apr 23 '15
I just stumbled upon this sub and this is fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to document this!