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Miniature Tool Collection
flyingtractors1:
Thanks, Gents. I appreciate your thoughts. Now working on a "new" frog, having learned some from building the first one. Ralph
flyingtractors1:
I am going to try to cast a copy of the #4. This is quite a complicated and lengthy process. It starts by creating master patters of each individual component and arranging and mounting the parts so that they can be suspended in a frame to create a rubber mold. Ralph
Master Patterns are works of art in their own right. Here are the masters for the pipe wrench and the monkey wrench. This is how the parts were arranged to create the molds that resulted in my finished tools. I suppose that full scale tools may have been pressed (pounded) on giant machines, but I employed the methods available to me. Ralph
flyingtractors1:
After the master patterns are constructed ( a trick in itself ), rubber molds are made by packing uncured rubber around the master suspended in a rigid frame.
The packed frame with the master within is baked (vulcanized), and a solid rubber brick is formed.
The master pattern is carefully cut out along the parting lines leaving a cavity in the rubber brick the shape of the master into which molten wax is injected and allowed to cool and solidify resulting in a wax pattern identical to the master.
This wax pattern will be trimmed and adjusted as needed (they never come out perfectly) and will then be suspended in a flask, surrounded by investment (plaster) and placed in an oven to be melted out (lost) leaving an identical cavity in the plaster mold into which molten metal is then poared.
NickG:
Brilliant stuff, thanks for explaining about the pattern making.
flyingtractors1:
Preliminary results of the casting with lots of finishing to do. Ralph
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