Metal casting class: recap

Thanks to everyone who showed up for the metal casting class. Members cast their own custom parts in aluminum bronze, starting from patterns made on the shop’s 3D printers.

The method was lost-pattern plaster casting, and the appeal of it is that you can go from a drawing to a solid metal object without ever cutting metal:

1. Print the pattern. Each person started with a part printed on the 3D printers, with a sprue attached, which is the channel the metal flows down.
2. Invest it. The pattern gets buried in plaster inside a flask, and the plaster sets around every detail of it.
3. Burn it out. The flask goes into the kiln, where the printed pattern burns away and leaves a cavity that is an exact negative of it. This is the “lost” part of lost-pattern casting.
4. Pour. Molten aluminum bronze goes into the hot mold and fills the cavity the pattern left behind.
5. Break out and finish. Once it has cooled, the plaster breaks away, the sprue gets cut off, and what is left is the part.

Everyone went home with something they had cast themselves.

Aluminum bronze is one of several metals the shop’s furnace handles. Members have also poured aluminum, brass, copper, and sterling silver.

If you have an idea for a future class, or something you would like to cast in metal, join the Discord server or email mail@columbiagadgetworks.org.

Curious how the setup works? See the metal casting page.