Happiness is a Warm Spool Gun

[Panope]

Preliminary testing of my "clamp together" casting mold was successful.

Steve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q7R9Mk1IKM

[Panope]

Shot from today's melt. Water sprayed directly onto molten lead worked perfectly to speed cooling. Water droplets "danced" around on the molten lead surface just like any other piece of hot metal. No explosions. No spattering metal. No problem.



Another shot from today's melt. Solidified ingot literally fell out of the mold without removing any of the side pieces.



Total time from lighting the match to ingot falling on the ground was 1 hour and 50 minutes. Next melt I will stack some bricks into a "U" shaped hearth in order to direct the flames precisely under the mold. Might save some time and a little wood.

[Bluebeard]

Steve,
I am mightily impressed.
As a engineer, amateur welder and carpenter and ali boat enthusiast I am full of admiration for what you have done.

Ian

[Panope]

Thanks, Ian

[Panope]

Here is today's set-up. Elapsed time between lighting the match and dropping the finished ingot out of the mold was 50 minutes. That's less than half the time as yesterdays set-up and also less than half the fuel (took about 4 pieces of firewood).

Steve

Three sided brick hearth helped focus the heat at the work.


Shop-vac blowing on the fire made it HOT.

[GILow]

So... er... remind us again...


How many of these do you have to make?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Panope

Shop-vac blowing on the fire made it HOT.

That's the only bit of the job that didn't suck.

[Panope]

Originally Posted by GILow

So... er... remind us again...


How many of these do you have to make?

15 to 20.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Panope

15 to 20.

Well stop posting and get back to work.


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Bleemus]

Curious how you are going to trim boat? Are you putting a certain percentage in before launch and do the final trim in the water with full tanks etc?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Bleemus

Curious how you are going to trim boat? Are you putting a certain percentage in before launch and do the final trim in the water with full tanks etc?

I don't know how he plans to do it... but it might make a good video.

[Panope]

Bleemus,

The plan is to reinstall ALL of the lead using mathematics to determine where to put it (I have carefully measured the weight and location of EVERYTHING removed from the boat).

The only unkown will be the weight of the of the new interior (lead will be installed first). However, I feel pretty confident with my estimates.

With the ballast located in roughly the right location (for the first time ever), fine tuning fore and aft trim should be doable by loading gear appropriately. Panope has much storage space in the ends of the boat and I can choose to put the heavy stuff forward or aft as needed.

When my father installed the lead originally, the location was a total guess. I am armed with much better data this time around.

Steve

[Bleemus]

Thanks Steve. Big fan of your vids. Looking forward to watching this progress.

[Panope]

Another boring lead-melt pic. I thought the snow was an interesting contrast.

Steve

[Panope]

575 pounds of lead has now been re-cast. Another 1000 pounds to go.

Steve