Aluminium casting

[Gbo]

Admins please move if necessary.
Hi I am preparing to get into aluminium casting. This is mainly for tracks, road wheels, sprockets etc for a 1/6 Chieftain (absolutely love the things) I am planning to make the patterns by 3d printing. Anyone else doing anything similar? Thanks

[tankme]

I've never ventured down the road of casting my own parts, but printing the blanks is definitely a great way to go IMO. I think you will have to do some testing to see how much shrinkage you get with the material you are casting from. Great part about 3D printing is the ability to scale the part up by any percentage in a matter of seconds and reprint. And you can print multiple blanks so you can cast a bunch of parts at once. I know a lot of the folks that cast their own tracks for custom tanks used "spin casters" to eliminate air pockets in their castings. Personally, I would get a quote from someplace like PCBWay before investing in all of the casting stuff just to compare prices.

[Gbo]

Thanks Derek it is daunting to think how many links I will need and the size but time is no problem(or at least it won’t be when I retire) and they are only 100mm x 35mm each and 200 of them eeek

[HERMAN BIX]

Well if you cast in anything other than 3D I'd like to see it!
We have a section for printing, but not casting, so as the pioneer in this area, you are most welcome to post your findings here & I wish you the best of luck on the outcome.

[Jib]

Yes, I am in a similar situation. I can’t imagine my project being cheaper to outsource rather than doing it myself, but can’t hurt to look I guess.

I would also be interested to see how casting in 3d print material goes. What material would you be using for your molds?

[Ecam]

Yes please, pictures so we can follow along. Totally intriguing and wicked cool. Would love to follow along in the process.

[Exhibitedbrute]

This is something I would certainly look into as I would rather metal tracks on my Matilda so let me know if it works out

[Gbo]

I am building the furnace at the moment using an old 15kg butane gas bottle. And trying to go down the waste oil burner direction as I get further on I will post some pictures. I have always had the urge to try this since a visit to a foundry from school.

[jee]

very interesting, there are (or were) several video's on youtube how to do it. it is still on my wishlist but I have to many projects already

[Dogberry]

Please keep us updated with your progress.