Casting a slilver front sight

[Dave B]

Making a replacement silver front sight blade for an original

[ScottH]

Nice!
I remember doing some cuttle bone casting back in high school crafts class.

[mountainman70]

Nice work as usual, Dave
Now thats Hardcore smithin
Best regards
t'other Dave

[Old and Grumpy]

Wow. Is that bone or wood?

[Dave B]

Thanks guys. Notice how the long stud sort of went away.... I slipped with my file stroke and broke it off    fortunately my blade was tall enough to make  new stud that allowed to pean it on the back side of the plate. I have some silver sheet stock some where and ran across the silver beads my brother gave me from his jewlry casting days. I had a left over bit of cuttle fish bone and a new fill on my Oxy/Acet. Fun stuff

[Dave B]

The casting form is the cuttle fish bone that folks use for their Parrots to chew on to trimm their beaks. We went through a bunch with the kids doing some casting for trinkets for them. I cleaned out the pet shop stock of them. The patter you see on the sliver is from the striations of the bone layers. It reminds me of the resin layers of pine when you burn the finish. I made the sight mold thicker to allow for the removal of the striations. The Elvish smiths in Lord of the rings show the casting of the Rings of Power with cuttle fish molds. If its good enough for them I can do it for my restoration.

[Old and Grumpy]

Thanks. Will play around with lead first. Snake and lizard need food so off to the feed/tack shop. Been wanting some antler, horn and bone also. Can you get more than one casting from it?

[Dave B]

The tapered cuttle fish bone is fragile and required backing to clamp in my vice. I cupped out some scraps of walnut for support pieces that were hot glued to the cuttle fish sections bondo or metal base epoxy would have been a better choice but this worked. The hot glue went soft after the mold heated up but the metal had solidified before it could effect the pour.

[Dave B]

You can but the casting will be larger and loss of detail. You can sand down and re due your pattern if your thickness of bone allows.