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Yesterday's investment casting

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Dick Morris:
All of my investment casting has been done using "waxes" printed on a 3D printer. I'm on my fourth or fifth brand of resin. Some stopped shipping to Alaska, some didn't work very well, and some was too expensive. I have now gone through three or four bottle of Siraya Tech Cast (purple) and am quite happy with the way it prints and casts. I haven't tried the Siraya Tech blue but probably will next time I need resin.

These were cast in silicon bronze. 

I forgot to mention earlier that the plates are .065 inches thick.

The parts were created and the lettering done using Freecad and these parts were printed on an Elegoo Saturn. I've also use an Elegoo Mars and Elegoo Mars Pro and both printed equally well, although the Mars printed more slowly.

Long ago I wanted to do steamboat engines and was going to use tubing with cast or fabricated ends and center, but making sand castings for even those parts seemed formidable. That was over 20 years ago when I created this web page - http://www.alaska.net/~rmorris/steamboat1.htm

There is a guy on Youtube who has made small scale poppet valve steamboat engines (and the boat) that are pretty remarkable. Search for "Liberty Belle Steam Powered Model Sternwheeler ."

I've had most of the equipment for doing investment casting for over 30 years. (I got if from a friend who moved out of his house into a boat and sailed around the world.) I didn't use it until I came across Vogman on Youtube. He was just starting in lost PLA and I followed about four months behind him on the learning curve. When he shifted to castible resin printing I followed suit. His videos, low cost 3D printers, free 3D drafting software (Freecad), and the investment casting equipment I had on the shelf all came together for me 3-4 years ago and caused me to rethink my model building. The detail is exponentially better and I can do thing I couldn't do with sand casting. I find it easier to do than fabrication or using traditional patterns and sand casting, which I have done on and off for over 30 years.

BillTodd:
How easy is it to melt out the resin?

Dick Morris:
When things are going as they should, not hard. I use the same burn out oven and temperature schedule that is used for lost wax. Note that this is a specialized castable resin. Regular 3D printing resin doesn't out burn right and leaves lots of ash. PLA filament burns out well, but with a loss of detail compared to resin. 

ddmckee54:
Sternwheeler huh???

Did you follow the build log of the W.T. Preston over on RC Groups?  If not, and you've got a couple of weekends to spare, here's the link.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?1497645-1-32-Scale-W-T-Preston-Sternwheeler-Build&highlight=w%20t%20preston

I said a couple of weekends because it's a long and impressive build, of both the boat and the power-plant.

Don

Dick Morris:
I've looked at the W.T. Preston log, but I've got a prejudice for steamboat engines with lever operated poppet valves with all the motion flailing about where one can see it. I plan on using California/Cross cut off as is used in the Delta Queen. 

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