Metalworking

I can't seem to get wood to respond to me at all. This page is a collection of all the interests that I have in working with metal. This could be everything from founding metal, working sheet metal, building tools or things around the house.
I must warn you that I don't take a bunch of pictures of what I am doing, probably because I am busy doing it and don't think about it. Plus, I don't want to have the camera too close around because I will probably destroy it somehow.
But I will try to have as many as I can Hope you enjoy it and maybe even learn something. That would make me feel pretty good!

First things first

I think that when I think of metal, I have a linear line of thought on it. From the ore in the ground to the smelting of the ore, to the pouring and molding to create the finished metal. But digging for ore and smelting is an unbelievably hard and dirty job, so lets just start on founding metal into molds to create parts and stuff.

I have spent a lot of time on the internet researching the building of a personal foundry and I think I have a good idea of what I want to do. The biggest problem I have in any of my projects is getting all of the ingredients together. I spend about 10 to 11 hours at work monday through friday and when I am at work, usually my concentration is there and I forget all about things I need to do elsewhere. My wife has noticed this and calls me all the time to remind me of things I need to do. That is a good thing.
I am also trying to squeeze as much as I can around my racing hobby also. That can be pretty time consuming as well, our course it depends on what I blow up or how bad I wreck. But that happens from time to time.



I have been helping a friend of mine expand his building at his business. About 100 by 75 feet. Here are a couple of pictures of kinda before and during. We are still working on the after.






Of course I am still attempting to get a good start on some of my projects and finish some others. Seems like one of the most valuable resource is TIME. But as time allows, I try to stay busy.


I have the foundry built. I will soon post some pictures of the build (as soon as I locate them) and you can see what I have done. I have been melting things and pouring ingots. That is as far as I have gotten there. I stopped because I want to build a sand muller. So I have that project to do also. I am using a 40 gallon hot water tank as a donor for the drum on that deal.
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I have also purchased a small 13x34 metal lathe. this is an enco unit. Having a lot of fun with it, turning down my ingots that I have poured. Still need to learn a bunch more on this unit plus I need to purchase more tooling, which sure aint cheep. test
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