sand casting/aluminum-projects

[Billy Golightly]

I'm really impressed and glad you decided to take this on man, I'm definitely gonna be following, I bought some sand casting books a few years ago in anticipation but never made the time to really do it. Are you melting in the crucible via a gas heat source or?

[Shep1970]

Thanks, and yes propane. I've bought most of whats needed through PMC supplies out of lake katrine, ny. They ship out same day, i've never had anything take more than two days to get here. Very good communication. Start watching ebay for an old BURR sand spoon, very useful!! Think i paid $15 for this one.

Two types of sand-
Greensand-is waterbased, u need to add water when needed

Petrobond sand-oil based, need to add 30wt smokeless 2-stroke oil when needed(many people on different forums said its the same as the special "oil" they'll sell you for 3x's the cash. (Ive been lurking in casting forums too) ha
I opted for oilbased.
Some/most use a sand muller when sand dries out which is very expensive but a few say a paddle mixer can be used i havent needed one yet.
I'll throw up a couple pics friday of my casting boxes (home made) about a $20 cost.
Here's the site for PMC hope it helps https://pmcsupplies.com/
They are on ebay also but make sure to compare prices on both if/when you decide to take this on in the future.

Shep

[Shep1970]

A couple, ok maybe 7 pics of yesterdays melting-about an hour this am on cleanup-200x front brake mount. Yes factory one is steel but i dont think the bike will know the difference, well maybe...
"Just messing around learning" if u look close u can see the the thin tape lines where i covered the holes in original piece to be molded.
Shep

[barnett468]

A couple, ok maybe 7 pics of yesterdays melting-about an hour this am on cleanup-200x front brake mount. Yes factory one is steel but i dont think the bike will know the difference, well maybe...

No it won't but you certainly will if it snaps in half. I wouldn't use it.


PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR AND THE ONLY PERSON ON 3WW WITHOUT AN EDIT BUTTON OR A STAR

[Shep1970]

No it won't but you certainly will if it snaps in half. I wouldn't use it.


PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR AND THE ONLY PERSON ON 3WW WITHOUT AN EDIT BUTTON OR A STAR

Wish i was brave enough to melt steel- it was more or less just for the education part on venting placement.

[El Camexican]

I'm gonna 3rd this. I wouldn't use cast aluminum on anything that's remotely safety related. As far as I know aluminum caliper hangers, triples, and "most" hubs etc. are all forged.

Very cool projects you have there, but please be safe

PS. Please make some Tri-Z clutch covers!

[Shep1970]

Yea.... if you smack the caliper on a tree or anything it might snap like a twig.... but for normal braking it should be strong enough. Amazing work, might have to try it just for fun.

i think you should try it. Little investment but so far i really like it.

[El Camexican]

Best friend already has the setup to cast aluminum, never thought of trike parts for some reason. El is on to something. TriZ clutch covers are near non existent. Another good part that's cast originally is 83-85 200x case savers. They currently go for up to a hundred bucks each. Think along those lines...

Mostly kidding. They're pretty intricate. I think they would require some very high end molds. If anyone ever does it they should beef up the weak spot as well, but I don't think it would be worth doing unless you could sell at least 2,000 pcs at $150 each and they couldn't say Yamaha on them either.

[Shep1970]

Very much agree, you'd need quite the set up for clutch covers,case halves and such case savers maybe doable but strength may be an issue unless of course they were sand cast originally. I'm pretty sure some of the 80's atc tripples are sand cast, if you look under them on some you can see where the old vent lines were. Look like this pic from under side of the fork brace "just example" i gotta look into it deeper.
Hubs must be forged, but the 350x/200x hubs look to have a kinda fine sand finish to them.
"Just thinking out loud here"

Shep

[El Camexican]

Very much agree, you'd need quite the set up for clutch covers,case halves and such case savers maybe doable but strength may be an issue unless of course they were sand cast originally. I'm pretty sure some of the 80's atc tripples are sand cast, if you look under them some you can see where the old vent lines were. Look like this pic from under side of the fork brace "just example" i gotta look into it deeper.
Hubs must be forged, but the lets say 350x/200x hubs look to have a kinda fine sand finish to them.
"Just thinking out loud here"

Shep

Interesting that those trips are cast. I'd need to go look at it again, but I think the rear hub on my YTM 200 is cast. I broke one years back and the threaded holes very fragile.

[Shep1970]

Ok- hondatcs took these pics for me thanks! Near the steering stem you can see the two old vent marks, in the other i dont see any but those thin ribs in the center tell me that it probably could only be a casted part, besides the sand grain you can see on both pieces. If it was forged it would be alot smoother, it would have been smashed between two steel molds with the near molten alum in center.
There's no info out there at all that i could find, these are just my notes feel free to say im wrong.
Excuse the dirt and webs but even the front hubs have strategically placed vents,
that i've never really noticed before.
Wish i knew more about this, hmmm

[Billy Golightly]

I'd be surprised if anything was forged aluminium on our bikes from the factory. They probably have some elaborate pour molds and perhaps vacuum systems to remove air bubbles and impurities but I'd bet almost everything was casted. Not sand because of the production limitation. A lot of the hrc and mugen stuff was sand casted. As far as I know all of the new CPI cylinders are sand casted also. I think it has a lot more uses and resilience than many may believe.

[tripledog]

The top triple clamp on my '73 Honda CB450 is cast unobtainium.

[Shep1970]

In reading i've done there is systems in foundries were the molten metal is injected with pressure and also vacumed on the way out to reduce air, i'd really like to see who actually did the casting for honda. Here(us) or japan? Or jap workers over here? I'd love to see even just one mold that would have been used. I'v been looking, reading, watching for a long time and havent seen too much out there. There's a few u-tube vids of motorcycle enging cases and things which are really cool to watch.
There is the ability to do pretty odd shaped molds at home with a core binder (foundries use the same product for some items)Sodium Silicate based (hardens the whole mold so it wont fall apart)but the heat will weaken the binded sand so it can be used again. If you could do only one or two fine, but prob not worth all the effort in a complex piece. Unless u won a huge lottery and had endless amounts of time.(not here)
But i suppose if i needed just one outer case for a bike i had that was hard to find "i'd already be trying to make it"
But would fail many times trying i'm sure......

That 1/4" caliper piece i made i tried and tried to fracture it but it held up- no big s but its alot stronger than i would have thought. Shelved it for now, the "wear bump" on it wouldn't squeal when it hits disc to let u know u need brakes replaced its too soft of metal- well you know what i mean.
If anyone has the time look up ant colonies and aluminum on utube theres some cool i guess they call it "artwork" just pouring it into an ant hill.
Shep

[barnett468]

.

In reading i've done there is systems in foundries were the molten metal is injected with pressure and also vacumed on the way out to reduce air, i'd really like to see who actually did the casting for honda. Here(us) or japan? Or jap workers over here?

Honda did their own in Japan just like everyone else did. When I was in Japan doing the development work on "The TECATE...The Most Powerful 3 Wheeler In The Universe", I told them it needed larger diameter fork tubes and I told them what diameter I wanted and the amount of travel etc, and 3 days later they were done and the lower tubes were not machined from billet stock nor did they look like sand cast parts typically do.

The aluminum tripple trees are pressure cast which significantly increases their strength and makes the grain structure uniform (no air pockets etc).

That 1/4" caliper piece i made i tried and tried to fracture it but it held up- no big s but its alot stronger than i would have thought.

The reason I cautioned about using the aluminum bracket you made is because it is in fact weaker than a pressure cast piece, and it could in fact cause you and your body parts severe unhappiness were it to break at a less than opportune time, and since you can not see inside of it you can not tell if there are any air pockets that will also weaken it. You can in fact safely use pressure cast brake caliper brackets for many apps, and in fact many mfg's do.

Shelved it for now, the "wear bump" on it wouldn't squeal when it hits disc to let u know u need brakes replaced its too soft of metal- well you know what i mean.

You can buy hard/strong aluminum to cast with and the "wear bump" is completely unnecessary if one simply looks at their pads once in a while which typically isn't very hard to do on a vintage atc.




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