Cost Effectiveness

[FL-Flintlock]

You can get sick if you breathe too much zinc fumes from the brass.  I've heard this refered to as the "zinc chills".  From what I gather, this is only a temporary condition and has no long term consequences.  The simple solution is to melt in a well ventilated area.

I'm here to tell you that zinc fumes can and will cause long-term damage because I got it!     Galvenize is zinc and zinc is also used in many industrial paints since the lead banners caused all the hoopla.  Zinc poisoning is downright nasty and once you get it, even the slightest exposure to zinc will make you sick - you learn to read the "ingredients" on every single package because many cold medicines & cough drops contain zinc and if ain't sick before you take the med's, you dang sure will be shortly after you do.  Milk does help, buttermilk is better, all of it you can get in you and as fast as you can get it in you.

[Larry Pletcher]

At the Bowling Green Seminar in 88 or 89, Dave Wagner became ill while casting brass.  A couple of us were preparing the sand molds for a butt plate and trigger guard.  Dave was the one who handled the molten stuff.  He spent the afternoon and evening in the hospital.  I don't know how much brass pouring Dave did at CW.  Dave had a number of other health issues, so we were not sure what made him sick.  Zinc fumes was our first thought.   

Regards,
Pletch

[flintriflesmith]

 . ... On top of that it basically takes no longer to case  10  of the same trigger guard then it takes to cast 1 ...

 

I'd love to see how you set ten molds and melt 3-5 crucibles in the same time it takes you to do 1.  That would be worth a YouTube video!

[Captchee]

 well it takes little longer LOL . hows that .
 But you don’t need multiple crucibles and you don’t need to have  one form for a single part  .
 If  your forms are large enough , you cast multiple  parts in that one form . Linking all to one reservoir.
 The reservoir is the key to casting multiple parts

So in reality your only confined by the size of your furnace ,  crucible and forms   .
 The foundry set I linked to  has a big enough crucible to melt enough brass to cast 3 average size TG .
 The form though is only big enough to  make  one and  hardly big enough for that .
 Thus I have build a 24 x24  set of forms as well as a 36 x 24 .
 In that set of forms I  normally cast in two pours  but  in one melt .
IE there are two reservoirs that connect to the surrounding parts  .
So  when im using that form . I may be casting 2 TG’s , 4  thumb inlays  and  3 or 4 sights , all at one time .
 Myself I always try to cast as many as my form will hold . IE if your going to melt  enough material anyway , you might as well use it .
Sometimes you even get lucky and can make multiple castings  from the same sand mould . Draw back though is that each time you do that , you lose detail. So normally you want to make a new cope and drag  each time  

 Now what can be a pain is butt plates .  They can take multiple forms , stacked together to make a single  butt plate mould  . To get around this , I  started  doing lost foam casting for  parts that have negative angles  .
 You do loose the pattern. But they are much more easily   made from foam so  .
 But you can also   get a cleaner casting  because you don’t have to remove the pattern

 So lets say im doing  castings for a rifle .
 I ll set up a mould for the BP .  Then a mould for the TG . If there is to be a cast thumb piece  or RR pipes , then  those parts will be part  laid up so as to be cast at the very same time as the TG . IE the are in the same form / Same sand mould .all connected to the same reservoir
 I then pour to that mould first  because it will need better flow properties .  . Once that mould pops , I pour to the  BP .
So really no magic . Just Proper prior planning

[northmn]

One of the things the do-it-yourselfer starts to demonstrate is what I feel the old builders must have done.  I have always felt that once the foundry was set up in the old shops that a lot of pouring was done at once.  I have even wondered if their wasn't a bit of trading going on, where different items were kind of "specialized in" by one gunsmith and traded for another specialty by another.  Some claimed Dickert made locks for others and if so there was probably a little barter going on.  Also it has been stated that the gunsmith did other work to turn a buck as they say.  A small foundry would be a good way to do so.  Some other things are also a matter of time.  One source for round ball lists 100 32 at about $8.00 per hundred and 58's at $17 or so (you ahve to buy 58's by the 50 count and pay for two boxes).  My 25 cal buckshot was about $25 for 5 pounds which yields a lot of shots which is about 1450 ball.  Larger ball can give a fair payback for casting time, cost of the mold and electricity used but it takes about as long for me to cast 100 32's as it does 100 60 cal ball.  Even with "free" lead I do not like to cast smaller calibers.

DP

[44-henry]

I'm not a big fan of melting any type of metal without good ventilation. Every year I teach a couple classes involving foundry work and even though our foundry setup has pretty good ventilation I find the back of my throat gets raw and I have a funny taste in my mouth when I'm around students doing any melting. Granted I'm not a full time foundry person by any stretch of the imagination, but I still have a fair amount of exposure to it through student work and it does make me a bit uneasy.