[sudo-discuss] wax into bronze

Wed Jul 30 10:54:37 PDT 2014

Let's forget about bronze for now, and just focus on lower temperature
alloys that you can melt on a stove top!

Field's metal <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field%27s_metal> melts at 144C
(the temperature of a hot cup of coffee) and is nontoxic. It's a bit
expensive though, because of its high Indium content. There's some
Bismuth/Tin alloys that melt at a little above the boiling point of water
and are much cheaper. Great for casting buttons, medals, figurines, and
other trinkets. Or for mechanical components that won't be exposed to high
heat.

There's a bunch of other low-temperature casting metals available that have
different useful properties in terms of strength and ductibility etc. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusible_alloy#Low_melting_alloys_and_metallic_elements
http://www.rotometals.com/Low-Melting-Fusible-Alloys-s/21.htm

Field's: http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/lowmeltingpoint144.htm *$69
for 1/4lb*
"used for die casting and easy prototyping."

Bi/Sn: http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/lowmeltingpoint281alloy.htm
*$15.29/lb*
"This alloy can be used to anchor shafts in permanent Magnesiumnet rotors,
locator members in aircraft assembly fixtures, metal parts in glass,
Magnesiumnets in fixtures, make nests for parts in jigs and dial feed
stations, Cores for electroforming, Embossing dies, form blocks, Joggle
jaws, Lost wax pattern dies, Duplicate foundry patterns, Tracer models in
profiling, Molds for plastics, sheet plastics, plastic teeth, prosthetic
development, Potting electronic components, Laps for rifle barrels."

Patrik

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 9:38 AM, Anca Mosoiu <anca at techliminal.com> wrote:

> I too would love to participate in a wax carving workshop, and a
> mold-making one as well. And I would love to learn more about bronze
> casting.
>
> tl;dr below:
>
> I know someone who's a sculptor, and she talks about the expense of
> working with bronze - both in terms of the cost of materials, and the cost
> of operating a forge.  She also talks about how incredible it is to work
> with FIRE and melt metal, which makes it sound really amazing.
>
> There's a fair bit of time involved in preparing the mold for complicated
> object so that it can be cast properly.  The lost wax casting method
> involves making the wax object, putting the mold material around it,
> drilling holes in the mold where the metal gets poured in, and then melting
> the wax out.  If you plan to make a one-off piece, you break the mold after
> pouring the metal.  Otherwise, you have to know how to cut it so that it
> can be removed from the cast object (e.g.if you have parts that fold in on
> themselves).
>
> I was curious, so I went online to see where one might buy the raw metal
> for casting.  Bronze is apparently about $15/lb (
> http://www.mcmaster.com/#red-metal-ingots/=t29up6) from an industrial
> supplier, but I found it cheaper through eBay (12lb ingots for $90 + $20
> shipping from the east coast).  It contains copper, which at the moment has
> a pretty high market value (and is a reason why people steal copper wire,
> statues, and things).  People buy leftover bronze from machine shops, but
> there are issues with mixing different kinds of bronze alloys together.
>
> Woo!
>
> Anca.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>
>> I will have to ask about pricing, but perhaps we can make something so
>> awesome that they will decide to make it "on the side" so that they can
>> sell copies of it for their own profit.  Think something immensely useful.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 30 Jul 2014, Marc Juul wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 9:32 PM, Jake <jake at spaz.org> wrote:
>>>       yes the place I got the robot from is a foundry that makes
>>> seriously the most beautiful bronze sculptures / statues (no size
>>>       too big) that i have ever seen ever.
>>>
>>>       and one of their people visited sudoroom and liked the place.  If
>>> we made someting out of wax that was beautiful, we could
>>>       talk with them about turning it into bronze.. or a negative that
>>> could make many copies.
>>>
>>>
>>> My experience with professional bronze casting is that it's super
>>> expensive! Are they willing to give us a hefty discount or what? I'd be
>>> interested if I knew it could be made into bronze for sure without
>>> breaking my/our budget.
>>>
>>> --
>>> marc/juul
>>>
>>>       On Tue, 29 Jul 2014, Vicky Knox wrote:
>>>
>>>             Wax into bronze?!?!?!!?!?!?! :D I love chose your own
>>> adventure email threads. I just clicked on the "..." on the
>>>             sentence: "Also the people who sold us the robot can turn wax
>>>             into bronze..."
>>>
>>>
>>>       _______________________________________________
>>>       sudo-discuss mailing list
>>>       sudo-discuss at lists.sudoroom.org
>>>       https://lists.sudoroom.org/listinfo/sudo-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>
> --
> -=-=-=-
> Anca Mosoiu | Tech Liminal
> anca at techliminal.com
> M: (510) 220-6660
> http://techliminal.com | T: @techliminal | F: facebook.com/techliminal
>
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