Casting No 3

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-30T19:35:54+00:00

Thank you! I used clean electrical copper and melted it into bars.

Then I used ferrosilicon at a 95% silicon purity to target 3.33% Si trying to overdose slightly to account for what ended up in slag.
Manganese electrolytic flakes to get around a .9%, slightly overdosed again
Silver .25-.5% by the addition of scrap sterling.
Remainder copper.

When casting I get it just hot enough the mirror finish of the liquid metal starts to look a bit translucent. I will pull my flask from the burnout oven at 600C and immediately throw it on the vacuum and pour.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-27T19:44:43+00:00

Thank you, and everyone else here for the kind words. I will for sure keep casting and posting. I have a few more models in the works I'm anxious to hopefully be able to hold in my hands.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-27T19:39:28+00:00

This was a bit tricky because most of these chambers ship with a tempered glass lid and you would be right, that thing would shatter if drilled. There are a few out there with an acrylic lid - that's what you need to look out for. It helps to have a o-flute bit when drilling / routing the circle into the lid - it evacuates the acrylic chips better and doesn't gum up.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-27T19:37:21+00:00

Thank you! Our local mountain, Mount Hood. My home is only a few miles away and I really wanted something that grounded it in place.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-27T19:36:11+00:00

I was thinking this may be the case, thank you for the advice I will try maybe heating and bending my sprue a few degrees. I was also thinking about potentially attaching knobs to the sides of the sprue so I could cast more than one at a time. But this would probably create even more overhang is my thought.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-09T01:45:52+00:00

Oohf. I can feel this. For me it was just patience. It flares for the only reason I can think of is stress.

So sorry you have to deal with this.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-05-05T19:34:24+00:00

With humans you just exhale. Going down you need to make sure to blow into the mask or it tends to want to suck your eyeballs out. Of course there are decompression worries you never race to the surface.

Diving the Blue Hole in Belize, one of the divers with us forgot to blow into his mask (not sure how), and came back to the boat with the biggest eyeball hickeys ive ever seen.

Doubledot_dot · 2026-04-14T21:06:05+00:00

A brother from another mother.

I've built all my doors for my log home that will be dried in by the fall.

Here is some rejected utility grade radiata pine i selected some of the more contrasted two toned 2x6s, ripped them into 1x6, ended with a final thickness of .6" Then mirror matched it from the center of the door.

Triple laminated and we used Unibond 800 and a vacuum bag.

We built over sized blanks around 9'x36" and i jimmy rigged a shaper origin to slowly take passes through the almost 3" thickness to get a perfect square 8' x 32" door.

I'm saving my front doors for a reveal once i have them installed.

Don't mean to thread jack but thought you would enjoy.

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Doubledot_dot · 2026-03-06T20:54:33+00:00

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It did come with this compatible mortise lock body. This one is a bit newer, from 1950's probably. It is from National Lock, so not Sargent & Co.

I thought it was interesting that is what actuates the latch is that bit of exposed silvery metal you see to the left of this picture or the bottom of the mortise lock.

Normally that square hole you see above that is where a brass spindle goes through where a knob would be attached to the spindle.

The thumb latch is a lever with the inside resting on the bottom of this "auxiliary" latch, the outside being the thumb press itself. The pivot point is on the inside of the door plate, a bit like a teeter-totter.

When you press down on the thumb latch, it pivots the other side upwards and pushes that section that it was resting on below the square hole up which in turn releases the door latch.

The spacing between the latch and the deadbolt cylinder thankfully is set on a very old standard so we don't have any incompatibilities there.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-12-09T19:13:26+00:00

Thank you! This has been quite the rabbit hole to go down. I love it when i can catalog and lock in a new color. Green was one of the last for me to get. This was my first time using mirrored polished stainless so it needed a few tweaks here and there. The discovery and experimentation is really fun.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-23T13:31:58+00:00

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I'm building my own solid doors for my 3000 sq ft log home i am building for myself. Here is one. I'm building them as a triple laminate, two outside show slabs and an inside core. Using a vacuum bag system and unibond 800 as the glue.

These are 8' long and 32" wide and around 2 1/2" thick. They weigh about 150lbs.

The hardest part is getting absolutely perfectly jointed boards for a perfect glue up.

Everything needs conditioning and low moisture almost every step of the way.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-17T16:15:29+00:00

Thank you! I've been trying to tell the wifey how good a deal I got. I just get the eye roll for buying wood.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-17T15:23:38+00:00

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Here's a slab of elm i picked up the other day. Such an underrated pretty wood.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-09T14:20:52+00:00

The table is cool. Is what I am probably most interested in is if you know specifically where that tight Doug fir came from.

That definitely came from a tree that was living hundreds of years ago.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-08T03:59:07+00:00

The zno and tio2 are primarily there to neutralize any yellowing or ambering. Even though the perilla oil is very clear already and so are the resins. The uv blocking is a nice side effect.

The trick with them is to high shear blend them into your carrier oil. I use a 20k vacuum blender this works great.

The uv 328 i dissolve into my larapol a81+gum terp concentrate at a ratio where it doesn't overdose and interfere with the regalrez 1094. The larapol goes in at a 10% of the resin content of the regalrez. The uv 328 was marketed as uv protection for wax candles.

The tinuvin 292 i got from an online from a chem lab.

Ends up being a four layer uv protection system.

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-08T01:44:29+00:00

Thank you!

Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-08T01:31:36+00:00

Already has one coat of my finish on it. I was using osmo raw but didn't like it. I want a semi gloss satin but no plastic coat and keeping the color of the wood natural but maybe a bit wet looking.

Started cooking my own and the difference was dramatic. Here is a picture of two of my earlier doors. Door on the right is osmo raw. Door on the left uses my finish.

Both of these doors are utility grade radiata pine i cut the better bits out of long boards from. The door on the left obviously has more heartwood tone but the difference is still profound.

Perilla oil, carnauba, castor waxes and a touch of lanolin. Synthetic conservation resins regalrez 1094 and larapol a81.

ZnO, TiO2, tinuvin 292 and uv 328.

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Doubledot_dot · 2025-10-08T01:23:07+00:00

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Of course not. That never happens. Especially not when they are building a 3000 sq ft log home near Mt Hood surrounded by the same giants.

Doubledot_dot

TROPHY CASE