Sometimes we can’t find a part, and fashioning it using the small lathe or pieces of steel just won’t do — so we turn to casting. We’ve made several parts for our vessels; some a necessity and some just for fun. In addition we have melted lead, both for ingots and for the ballast to fill the keels in Seeker.
Different methods produce different results and we’ve used several.
First you need a furnace… so we turned to Super Dave for some help and built one… and the rest is history.
Here’s just a sampling of things we’ve cast, and we’re far from finished as our casting supplies and techniques have a place onboard.
Deadlights
For our aluminum deadlights, we chose casting with sodium silicate sand. Here’s a step by step so you can see the process.
Propeller
We’ve also cast parts for our Hundested Propeller which included the. propellers and distributor ring
Lead
And yes… we even cast lead ingots for ballast.