[jgro]

If you're interested, I built a Gingery lathe also. You can see it documented here: Jgro's Shop Pages: Gingery Lathe . My inspiration came from Lionel's build here: Building my Gingery style lathe . If you want help/inspiration, come on over to Alloy Avenue: Alloy Avenue . It's filled my some very knowledgeable people when it comes to hobby casting.

jgro

[AxelFoley]

So I went down to an open house at a Maker Space today, and got to do a little more work.

I need to give a quick shout out to them. They are called Ideas Squared, and are based out of Phoenix. Nate and Preston were very nice and gracious hosts.

This is their website:
Ideas Squared - Makerspace, Product Development, Manufacturing | Phoenix AZ

I went and manually machined out most of my carriage, still need to do some trimming on the sides and my wear pads/slide depth, and my trench. Unfortunately we ran out of time today, I spent much of my time learning how to operate a mill.

They happen to be interested in casting as well, so they went ahead and started a print of my cross slide in PLA plastic. We will use that to do a lost investment casting next meetup.

As for the rest of the parts, I am of the mind to cut them out of foam with a cnc router and then cast them.

Some parts I may just mill out of steel stock. I know this carries me faaaar away from what the book is doing, but hey, I will end up with a far better machine than what I could have ever built with hand tools alone.

[metalworkz]

I got my Petrobond from a foundry supply in Oakland, CA because I lived in the east S.F. bay area at the time. You should be able to find a source near you with a search and it has been years since I got mine but I am fairly certain they are still in business. I can't remember the name of the place, but a search should yield suppliers to choose from when you are ready to buy it.

[metalworkz]

Yes the second one looks better than the first. As long as you let the mold cool down it will probably be OK, but if you are not pushing to get it done right away letting it set overnight will not hurt. When I am trying to get a part done the same day I will just wait a few hours. It is tempting to open it right away and see what you have worked so long to make but have patience and let it cool.

[AxelFoley]

I just found out we have many "Hackerspaces" here in phoenix where you have access to cnc mill, lathe, 3d printers, cnc woodworking routers, etc.

I think at the very least I will recreate everything in sketchup and just route out my patterns, although really what i'm thinking of doing is casting the primitives at home and cnc milling them all out.

I know that kinda skips a lot of the DIY aspect of this, but I've certainly had my fill of manual pattern making. I appreciate how it's done, but if there are smarter, easier ways...

I would probably end up with a better machine anyways.

On that note, I am almost of the mind of thinking there could be an updated edition suited to the things that are available now - Online shopping, hacker/maker spaces, 3d printing, etc.

Of course, Gingery isn't with us anymore, perhaps someone could create a some additional chapter/volume. Even if you want to do everything by hand, there are cheaper ways to go about this.

[RotarySMP]

There is no point changing to different sand, or differnent process like lost foam, as long as you are not putting in the work to make accurate smooth finished patterns with correct draft. It is a hell of a lot easier to bring the wooden pattern into shape before moulding it, than is is to try and clean up a metal casting like that.

You are probably also pouring too hot. Alloyavenue.com is an excellent backyard casting forum. Also MYFORDBOY has a brilliant set of how-to videos on Youtube which will step you through all aspects of casting.