Mike Bloomfield

Kahra Fishburn
Chanse Starmer
ENGR45, Fall 2013, SRJC
 3200 B.C. A copper frog,
the oldest known casting in
existence, is cast in
Mesopotamia.
 2000 B.C. Iron is
discovered.
 645 B.C. Earliest known
sand casting (Chinese)
 1455 Dillenburg Castle in
Germany is the first to use
cast iron pipe to transport
water
 1709 Englishman Abraham
Darby creates the first true
foundry flask for sand and
loam casting.
 1809 Centrifugal casting is
developed by A. G.
Eckhardt of Soho, England.
 1825 Aluminum, the most
common metal in the
earth's crust, is isolated.
 1897 Investment casting is
rediscovered by B.F.
Philbrook of Iowa. He uses
it to cast dental inlays
 1960s Compactibility and
methylene blue clay tests
are developed for green
sand control. Also
developed at this time are
high-pressure molding
processes and fast-setting
no bake binders for sand.
 Casting has been used by every major civilization
throughout history
 Most casting was used for weapons making and art
 Some of the most famous castings are the Greek and
Roman era bronze statues (most of the famous ones
you know are marble copies of their bronze originals)
 Most of these statues have been lost. Very few remain
today because they were melted down for their metal
during the major wars of history
• A bronze Cast statue of a She-Wolf suckling Romulus
and Remus (the mythical founders of Rome)
 Definition: an object made by shaping molten
metal or similar material in a mold.

 Major Types of Casting

Lost Wax
Sand Casting
Investment Casting
Lost Foam
Centrifugal
Permanent Mold
 Metal casting can be used to form almost any shape
 All major metals can be cast
 Useful for high volume parts
 Used in the auto industry, pipes, toys, kitchen
appliances, farming/construction equipment, planes,
turbines, etc.
 90% of all manufactured goods contain some form of
metal casting
 Fun fact: in America, you are rarely more than 10 feet
from a metal casting
 In sand casting, usually a two piece mold is used for
more complex parts
 First, a part is used to form a mold by compacting
green sand around the part, half of the part being
molded in the drag, and half of the part being molded
in the cope
 Vent holes, risers and runners would be made on one
half of the mold to allow the metal to flow into the
mold
 The part would then be removed, leaving a hollow
cavity
 The two halves are then joined together and a casting
can be made!
A rough cast before it has been cleaned up. The runner,
riser and seam of the part is visible.
 A special type of sand called Green Sand is used for most sand
casting

 Contrary to popular belief, the sand is not actually green in color.

The name refers to its water content, much like a green tree limb
contains a high amount of water.

 Unlike the name suggests, "green sand" is not a type of sand on

its own, but is rather a wet mixture of:
Silica sand (SiO2), 75 to 85%
Bentonite (clay), 5 to 11%
water, 2 to 4%
Inert sludge 3 to 5%
anthracite (0 to 1%)
 The goal of our project was to make a repeatable
casting process for the Engineering Club
 We hope to cast a small plaque every year to
commemorate the club, as a replacement to the marble
stone pavers that have been used previously
 We decided on sand casting because of its
repeatability and consistency
 We had originally planned on lost wax casting, but
because we wanted a consistent look through the
years, we chose sand casting instead
 We had hoped to make multiple casts from different
materials, but due to some unforeseen challenges we
were only able to complete one.
 Some of the challenges we ran into:
 The zinc we had planned to use was not pure zinc, and
we could not get it to consistently melt
 We had a limited supply of bismuth
 One of our crucibles broke while in the oven, and we lost
that material
 We tried to combine zinc with gold leaf for an
interesting effect, and it just failed…
Oops!!!
Compacting the
sand around the
piece to get a
good mold
Bismuth melts at
271 °C (520 °F)
Bismuth Crystals through a
microscope
 http://www.metal-technologies.com/HistoryofMetalCasting.aspx
 http://www.tanyfoundry.com/case-study-of-lost-wax-casting-
technique-for-bronze-sculpture/
 http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/f01/art105-2.html
 http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/c
ast
 http://aluminumfoundry.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/sand-casting/
 http://www.hnsa.org/doc/foundry/part2.htm
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_sand_%28casting%29#Green_san
d
 http://periodictable.com/Elements/083/
 http://www.amazingrust.com/Experiments/how_to/Bismuth_Crystals.
html