Hello from Mildura Australia

[Nickle]

Hello,

My name is Nick. I found this board about a year ago and then promptly changed jobs and moved towns. We have only recently settled in our new house and I am in the process of setting up my shed again. I have a mini lathe and a mini mill and a 4X6 bandsaw. I hope to use them to make small engines in the years to come. Work and family commitments mean shed time is a bit thin on the ground but I am enjoying watching the threads here and learning a great deal from them.

Cheers Nickle

 

[tel]

Welcome Nickle, you'll find there are quite a few Ozonians on here, so you should be right at home.

 

[rcfreak177]

G,day Nick, Welcome, I am relativley new myself, Mildura the fruit capital of Australia, absolutely beautiful countryside so the missus tells me, She is from Adelaide and spent some time fruit picking there. Looking forward to seeing some of you'r work.

Barry.

 

[seagar]

wEc1 from another Aussie at Coffs Harbour.

Regards , Ian(seagar)

 

[Tin Falcon]

Welcome and thanks for the intro
Tin

 

[dsquire]

Nickle

Welcome to HMEM Nickle. Sounds like you have the equipment to get started when the time allows. That will come as you get settled in your new digs. If you ever have any questions just ask, there is always someone around to answer or at least give an opinion. We look forward to your participation in the forum. :bow: :bow:

Cheers

Don

 

[Maryak]

Nickle,

Welcome to our forum. wEc1

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Artie]

Gday mate, Mildura's not far away from me, Griffith. Welcome to the collective... oops... nah we arent gonna assimilate you (gotta be a sci fi fan to get that one), but a collective of minds and talents this is.... loads of good stuff on here.

Ask any questions, share your stuff, this is the place to do it.

Cheers

Rob

 

[Nickle]

Thank you all for the welcome.

I also have a small foundry (mostly casting ingots from scrap but made the odd casting). I am an environmental engineer and work in the water industry. I've read everything I can get my hands on on foundry work and machining as well as haunting this forum and a few other sites on the net. I've had a good play with the machines (I've been aquiring them and some of the tooling to match them over the past five years or so). Now that I am able to set up the shed I hope to be able to get a bit more serious when time allows.
Cheers,

Nick

 

[Artie]

ahhh, a fellow molten metal masochist.... earns you a Karma point right there! Lets see pics of what you got and do.... :bow:

Rob

 

[Artie]

errr.......... you have anything ot do with the environmental water plan just released??

 

[Nickle]

pics may take a while, still finding stuff post two moves since the last use of foundry.

Suffice to say its a home made refractory lined rubish bin with a home made gas burner that scares me witless. I use milkshake cups for crucibles.

The foundry stuff makes me sweat and its nothing to do with heat from the burner!

I work with environmental water but have nothing to do with the aformentioned plan.

Just standing back and watching. Pretty touchy topic around here at the moment.

 

[Artie]

lol...pretty touchy round HERE as well..... went to the recent meeting and was seriously worried that the government speaker was not going to get out of the room unscathed....

As I said some pics of your set up would be great. Foundry work is as dangerous as you let it be. Like a few on here, I have done hundreds of pours and have never had a scare or injury.

Im about to build a new unit as mine has seen better days and is a converted charcoal burner.... could be much more efficient in design now that its on gas... also looking into waste oil burners.... just looking as yet....

Cheers

Rob

 

[Nickle]

Right Oh.

Kids are in bed and I've got a few jobs around the house done so I went and scruffed around in the shed to see what evidence of the foundry I could find.

I have attached a photo as I havn't set up an image hosting service yet.

Here are a collection of ingots some of my paterns for a milling attachment for the lathe and a angle plate for the mill, the casting flasks the furnace and a casting sitting on top of the flasks.

The furnace was originally a charcoal job but I built a gas burner for ease of use. The gas burner is not something I am keen on putting a picture of on the net lest anyone think that it is any way safe and attempt to replicate it. Its basically a length of steel tube with a jet in the center with a small amount of draft provided by a computer fan. The high pressure gas seems to draw enough air in with it so that it requires barely any draft to burn efficiently. The concept is sound but the execution is a bit rough and needs to be made more solid.

Not many castings to show for my efforts as I tend to remelt if I am not satisfied. Suffice to say that my strike rate was not fantastic. Casting stopped about three or so years ago when my first daughter was born. Casting for me has always needed a fairly large block of uninterupted time which just doesnt seem to be available since the little ones turned up. I'll get back to it one day though. Hopefully with a burner that doesnt get the adrenalin running so much!

Cheers

Nickle

 

[krv3000]

wEc1