[Sca-cooks] casting

[Stefan li Rous]

Capt Elias declared:
> Never pour really hot metals into a cold mold...
I wouldn't go quite that far. It depends upon the metal being used and 
thus the temperature and the molding technique used.
> When possible, especially when doing finicky work like investment
> casting, preheat the mold.
>
> Here's a investment casting trick I learned a long time ago...
<snip of useful info when doing wax investment casting>

I do pewter casting in carved soapstone molds, which happens to be a 
period technique. The amount of metal is small and the temperature is 
around 600 degrees. Hot, but not explosively hot.

I don't see a safety problem pouring the liquid pewter into a room 
temperature mold. I've had no reason to cool a mold down. You do indeed 
most likely need the mold to be warm to hot in order to get a clean 
pour. However, rather than explicitly heating the mold in the oven or 
whatever, I recommend simply pouring in the pewter a few times. This 
will heat the mold sufficiently so that soon you should get clean 
castings. The first ones, done into the cool then warmer mold, I simply 
recycle by tossing them back into the melting pot.

This is probably getting too off topic for this list. I do wonder what 
medieval kitchen items might have been cast out of pewter, though.

There is a limit to how big an object you can cast using a simple 
pewter casting in a stone mold. I've not tried to cast a spoon for 
instance. Of course bigger items could probably be done by using a 
sling to get the metal into the mold completely.

For those who might be interested in trying some pewter casting, see 
these files or contact me off-list.
casting-msg      (144K)  6/25/02    Casting pewter and other metals.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CRAFTS/casting-msg.html
pewter-msg        (16K)  2/ 7/01    Pewter in period. References. 
Sources.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CRAFTS/pewter-msg.html
soapstone-msg     (25K)  7/23/04    Use of Soapstone in period. Modern 
sources.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/CRAFTS/soapstone-msg.html

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****