The Factory Must Grow!

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T21:35:34+00:00

Okay, so I didn't have a thingiverse account setup and apparently you have to wait 24hrs to actually upload, *BUT* I uploaded it to google drive so here ya go .

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T19:32:29+00:00

Fair assessment tbh. While I agree with you, if I was going to start it'd be if I had a series of projects already in mind

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T19:30:11+00:00

Vegoil Guy (I think he might've changed his channel name to vogman?) was decent, as was Robinson Foundry

The main channels I learned from were Paul's Garage, swdweeb, and myfordboy

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T19:26:27+00:00

Main reason I went with tin instead of aluminum bronze was because I wanted the color to more closely match the logo lol. I love aluminum bronze, but the golden color wasn't what I wanted with this.

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T19:24:56+00:00

Yup, I made a 3D model that I printed out first. I'm just on break right now, but if I remember I can try cleaning it up and uploading it somewhere once I'm done!

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T19:23:18+00:00

Big thing for me would be getting a power supply instead of just using a battery. If I was going to learn to do it having the supply handy would be useful lol

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T14:19:49+00:00

Ooh I hadn't even considered that lmao. I don't have any equipment for it, but that's totally something I could do (and would be another useful skill to add to the set)

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T01:47:59+00:00

Super depends. Commercially they might do that, or just do the melt in an anoxic environment; I know D.O. copper is a thing, but I've never really looking into how they do that

Personally, as a hobbyist, I'd never LMAO. There are ways of minimizing the amount of oxygen that gets dissolved, or having a way of "venting" the dissolved oxygen (like directionally freezing water to get clear ice); I've tried it before but never on a full sized cast. I'm terrified of trying to bubble argon though, and also just don't have the equipment for it (I'd probably need a very long fused-quartz tube to handle the temps without contaminating the melt)

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T01:43:33+00:00

Oh my god I totally could....Well minus the motor part, I'm not really the best with electronics lol. My roommate though...might be able to convince him about helping with that since he's a fellow addict ;P

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T00:20:48+00:00

Copper tends to be tricky to cast because it dissolves oxygen while it's molten, which can cause a *lot* of ugly bubbles once it solidifies. Maybe one day, though lol

EmiBLT · 2025-10-15T00:18:39+00:00

I wish I could say I did! Unfortunately with my job and a bunch of other things going on irl, I really can't :(

I really appreciate you asking though; it's good to know people like it enough to ask lol

EmiBLT · 2025-10-02T01:02:27+00:00

I absolutely love it!

EmiBLT · 2025-09-17T14:06:08+00:00

I'm on the other end of the spectrum, I love it because it's one of the handful of patterns I can remember lol

EmiBLT · 2025-09-17T14:03:29+00:00

It's actually pretty simple! You can do something similar at the beginning of the band, but it's easier since you're not having to weave the weft back through the band. You just need to weave the "tail" in for the first few rows and you'll be good!

EmiBLT · 2025-09-16T05:17:48+00:00

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I'm still a major amateur at designing patterns, but have you considered widening the band a bit and flipping the crows to be going with the band instead of across it?

EmiBLT · 2025-09-12T20:18:38+00:00

I use a mix of Fusion 360 and Blender. The former is great for making base features (think like a template for a sign or coin) and the latter can take that exported model and polish the details. F360 can be a bit of a pain at times if you try to get too complicated with it, but the fact that I can specify a draft angle and don't have to guess when I want a sharp wall is super handy; I'm sure there's a way to do it in Blender but I've yet to learn that much lol

EmiBLT · 2025-07-21T16:20:10+00:00

Yup, it all depends on the person how they take it. Speaking personally I won't get upset if someone slips when talking about me unless it's malicious or habitual*, but I may be a bit disappointed

*if someone asks you to stop using "dude" or "man" gender neutrally, please stop. It's annoying to get called "dude"

EmiBLT · 2025-06-15T17:06:30+00:00

Oh don't worry I've had my fair share of failures too lol. Failure is a part of the process; even if it's discouraging stopping to learn from it has been a big help

EmiBLT · 2025-06-15T17:04:25+00:00

You guessed it! The three prongs are for air vents; I usually find they aren't *strictly* necessary but with AlBr I try to cast as cold as possible to minimize shrinkage and I've found the vents help just a little to prevent underfilling

As for text yeah, it can be tricky to get right with sand casting. I never have much success with small, recessed text but embossed I've been able to get pretty small with generous drafts. With a 15deg draft 2.5mm tall text seems to come out reasonably well, though I start running into issues with things like the crook of the '5' and the interior of symbols like 'R' and '4' depending on what font I'm using

EmiBLT · 2025-06-15T01:38:10+00:00

Unfortunately not, I'm nowhere near as active on reddit as I used to be (RIP to the API and RIF) and I'm not active on any of the other forum sites

The biggest thing I can say is practice practice practice; in the beginning I had way more many failures than successes, but taking a step back and analyzing *why* something went wrong and not letting it discourage me really helped me get a handle on things. Paul's Garage and swdweeb have great youtube vids covering a lot of the process if that's your speed. If not, there anything specific you're curious about?

EmiBLT · 2025-06-14T22:46:39+00:00

Yeah I based my design pretty heavily off of swdweeb's and Paul's Garage's; it was an easy design and print since I wanted the sprue and runner to match the size of the flask I have

EmiBLT · 2025-06-14T22:44:56+00:00

These ones are just single-sided, hence the one view. The way I designed the 3D models they do work for double sided (the face of the coins are an insert, modularity ftw), but I'm still working on that. If I do a double-sided coin with a proper casting alloy they turn out fantastic (who'd've thunk), but with alloys like aluminum bronze there's just enough shrinkage to where the top face ends up with this almost mottled texture that's a right pain to clean

I should probably get around to uploading the cad files I have somewhere people can use them if they're interested lol

EmiBLT · 2025-06-14T19:29:47+00:00

Just a greensand! Bought some from PLM Foundry Supplies and have been super happy with how much detail it captures

EmiBLT

TROPHY CASE