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Report:
The leaf blower stopped as I tried to remelt all the alluminium I have to clean it up and test the large ppuring unit to see if it will hold together and work as designed...the spark plug is badly oiled up and I am soaking it in detergent in the unrealistic hope I can save it..I will then try some acetone ..but these days it seems when a plug is gone it is gone...anyways if I can save it I will clean up my alluminium later...maybe even do the main pour if I feel better.
The mold is finished ..the central parts (see photo white unit) are wood ..the rest clay although rather decent could not match the better precision achieved with the wood..will it burn..you bet but I hope not too much..the more it burns the more I will have to machine away...which reminds me I need to build a machine...mmm...at least start finding all the files on the place here...but there will be some stuff to tidy up for sure..I need to make a lathe.
To explain the photo.
The painted part is mainly clay save the circular sections in the center..the pegs.. four little ones are clay and for bolt holes...I have dowel but these were in place and not easy to replace...so I left them..dowel would have been better.
The concrete on the corners is to add strength to support the concrete item in the photo which is heavy and will go on top of the mainly clay unit..the concrete unit has a raised part where the molten alluminium will go and the idea is you stop pouring when the alluminium starts to come out of the smaller hole you should see on the concrete unit.
The concrete unit will sit on top of the clay unit but I plan to use a flour and water paste to provide a seal...so the process should smell like bread baking.
However if it all comes together I will be very happy..if not I will have on more try at casting but then make the unit out of resin and stainless steel pot scrubbers.
Now off to fix this damn genny and get some air conditioning..it was 100 f in the van yesterday which is real hard to take.
Alex
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