Turn Styrofoam cups into METAL - Experimental metal Casting - Lost foam casting
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- In this video I experiment with lost foam casting by attempting to turn Styrofoam cups into metal. I used drywall joint compound to coat the Styrofoam and allowed it to dry before dissolving the foam with acetone and then burying the cups in sand. This can be a great way to preserve the detail on foam objects.
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I think the problem with the first (shown on camera) casting of the cups was the fact that you stopped. You should continue even with there's a flash. It's normal to see stuff like that when you burn lost casting material. The concept worked, incredibly well.
This is a really cool idea and my first thought would be to doublestack the cups. Twice the wall thickness and you could keep the styrofoam texture.
lean cup
Good Idea, I was thinking that he might do that.
Your level of patience is second to none. Use a propane torch to burn the styrofoam out of the molds, the foam will be gone and the molds will be heated.
To cast really thin things in aluminum with the lost form method, you have to heat up the mold. I heat up the mold to burn out the Styrofoam, then pour in the aluminum into the hot mold. With enough head to get the pressure high enough i can cast parts thinner than 1mm.
To burn out the mold i put the mold into sand in a metal container, and then heat up everything in a furnace. The the Sand will hold the heat for quite a while. This really helps to get the liquid metal to every part of a thin walled mold.
As a mold compound i use clay slurry with soap, sand and rock wool to build up thick and stable shell around the object.
Might sound weird, but Id like to see that process.
Your a geniouse !!!!! Im trying some of these technics to improve my lost foam casting .
Thank you !!
Paint the cups with some white PVA paint first, to get a layer to interface with the drywall compound. Also try diluting it further for the first coat, and using a paint brush to do a few coats first, before the more thicker coats, and for glueing the sprue on take styrene and dissolve in acetone till saturated, and use a drop of that on the sprue, then touch the cup to there, no glue residue. Acetone will have to be left in for a day or so, but cure the compound in an oven at low heat first, around 120C, so as to try to melt most of the styrene out first, holding so it is sprue down in some of the sand, so the melted plastic can flow mostly out.
You can get perfect casting with aluminium too, you have to bake the moulds in an oven to burn out all the styro residue, and cast the metal when the molds are still hot.
Having done this a few times now - thinner is not a good idea with lost foam. It's a great method for thick blocky things, and in those cases you don't need to melt out the foam because pouring temperature aluminum burns through it just fine as long as your maintain a constant pour with proper gating.
I was thinking the pewter cups would be better with a mirror finish, but I actually like that they took on the texture of the Styrofoam cups.
In industrial lost-foam casting, it's common to coat the foam with refractory plaster and sand in many layers, and then to burn the foam out in an oven before casting.
Try some Ventil tubes. Like smaller versions of your feeder tube. Makes the acetone part easier and it casts much better
Awesome job and demonstration. Now I need a Circle K Polar Pop cup, the foam ones degrade quickly when reused.
It's always a good idea to pre-heat your molds
I have seen others create the mold with some kind of water soluble plaster. Then heat (in a kiln) the mold to burn off the styrofoam so you have a completely empty mold.
A vent tube or 2 may also help with the gassing issue as well as preheating and burning off the residue before hand.
Dude! Bravo! We owe you a beer!
You could always try firing the molds in your kiln, if they can take it.
'dissolving plastics into a solvent' often is a lot more like 'coalescing the plastic into a big ball of goop'. With the right combination of solvents, patience and temperature I think you can get a really clean result; but id experiment with those factors in an open jar so you can test the propensity to leave globs behind.
Mikey is one step closer to living his dream as a styrofoam cup, yo.
Great idea. First attempt could work but You need to pour faster. Not from crucible but useing spoon that you'll empty in 1 seckond. But to pour so fast plaster cant be saturated with disolwed foam- to much gases.
Awesome video!
Those things cast in bronze would look sweet
Yeah I learned that trick about styrofoam when I was trying to spray paint some once and it just started melting. Maybe try again with different kinds of foams? Like you know couch foam and things like that you could carve
I dont know what it is but you are incredible
What a great experiment and an interesting end result. Are there any thicker styles of styrofoam cups that are available? Alternatively, can you cast two cups together? Perhaps trimming the top of the inner cup to appear to be a single cup with a smaller interior. Wishing you a blessed week, gentle weather and restful evenings. Peace brother
Any time I’ve “dissolved” styrofoam in acetone, it’s just melted the styrofoam down into a nasty plastic goop, which I’m guessing is what got so hung up in the thin walls of the casting. Not sure if water would affect that goop at all, like displacing the acetone and causing the goop to dry out like it does when the acetone evaporates, but maybe melting the foam down with the acetone, then flushing the casting out with a stream of water, like a garden hose nozzle or a stream of acetone if you could somehow manage that without melting the equipment, could flush it all out from in between the thin walls. A perfect styrofoam-textured metal casting would so satisfying.
Congratulations you just made napalm :D it's why the stuff flared up when he tried to cast it.
@@matthewvandeventer3632 Oh, believe me, teenage me was very, very, aware of how flammable it is... If I’m not mistaken, it’s even mentioned in the Anarchist Cookbook (which I would never, and have never, possessed nor read, TH-cam…)
I would double up the wall thickness using 2 cups, and removing the rim of the second, then burn out the remaining styrofoam in a toaster oven or something similar. Additionally, using The thicker walls and base would make casting easier. Also, real investment casting plaster isn't too much more expensive than the drywall mud you used and can be removed more easily by plunging into water while the mold is still hot, but the metal has solidified.
preheat the mold will help the aluminum casting.
after the acetone clean let these mold dry and make a clean burn by heating them in a kiln and raise the temp slowly till the mold gets red hot like 1500 F for and stay at that temp for least an hour then you let the mold cool off inside the kiln naturally till they get to room temp and any traces of poly styrene will be gone in ash try that with your next mold THEN you should have WAY better result with your next aluminum pour.
It was a nice save! :) In 1986 we worked with lost styrofoam technique but not with so thin pieces. But before I forget: I sent you a sponsorship offer, please check your mailbox (incl. the spam folder)!
Normal People: When i see Styrofoam cups they are just Styrofoam cups
Robinson Foundry: When I look at Styrofoam cups i wonder if they can be turned into metal
Me: when I see Styrofoam cups i see food
Great video
I feel like there should be sprues from the rim for ventilation purposes.
If when disolving the cup or pouring air gets trapped in the thin walls ... it will bubble or get trapped there.
Gasoline is a solvent of Styrofoam. Would Plaster of Paris be a better mold, eliminating the drywall joint compound? Then you might try Copper, Brass, Bronze, Silver.
Turn them into bells? They sound nice
Because you are filling the molds from the top you don't have a path for the air to escape. You should have your sprue go all the way to the bottom and allow the metal to flow upwards, with the column of metal acting as a pressure column forcing the air up and out though a vent located at the top (where you placed your sprue).
What if you also baked the molds in an oven for an hour or so? That should get rid of any residual Styrofoam.
just like to know could you use them to drink hot or cold beverages from them or do you have to use a different kind of metal
Very interesting!! Would you be able to drink from them or no?
How do you know the vermiculite is not ACM asbestos containing?
Perhaps stack 2 cups and cast as one?
Welcome to Saturn circa 1991 when the first Lost foam casting engine assembly was produced by GM and went on to be used across various GM lines to this day.
I didn't know that! Very interesting.
Maybe suspendaslurry and burn the Styrofoam out and preheat the mold?
You could make a design in the styrofoam and transfer it easily to the casting, like when people use their thumbnail to put in the initials…
This is perfectly hilarious
I think the entire mould needs to be left in acetone for it to dissolve. I would love to see this attempted again, with some better equipment and other metals like copper.
How about a Dixie cup! You gotta make sure it's red with a white rim.
Come on, let's see your painting skills 😀
Happy 4th of July, btw.
You could make 12, then play Beer pong with the Mrs. and close friends
It does have a easier way. To put in sand and cast without adding those extra mixtures.
Technically, those cups are just “foam’ cups. Styrofoam is a trademark and is extruded, while the cups are expanded polystyrene.
Expanded polystyrene is worse for casting ,extruded leaves much better finish . Both can be used thou.
i will buy that cup from you! I would like to use it as a poker trophy.
What about a cooler? It's thicker than the cups
Can i use 3d printed object instead of styrofoam
Neat!!!
Have you ever tried using sheetrock as a mold?
Congrats you just turned a disposable cup into a reusable one! Now that's "going green"...
shouldn't you have made a overflow channel? that also acts as a channel where the gasses escape? I Believe that is common when using a lost casting method using highly flammable materials.
I can't drink from either a Styrofoam cup or a metal one :D
It would be cool if you could paint the metal one white with food grade paint, make it look like Styrofoam again
So I've been thinking, all these youtubers who show off lost foam or lost PLA method casting, and they use various materials for encasing the material, like either some type of special plaster or that expensive as hell yellow ceramic stuff, and then spend a week to add thin layers over and over, that makes me wonder the whole time like what if you just use straight up pure cement, like add a layer of pure portland cement as and lather that on so it retains the details, then encase that in a thick thick layer of mixed concrete (so portland cement, sand, aggregate). Like, wouldn't that be strong enough to withstand heat? Sure it might take a while to dry out completely, so timewise it might still suck like the other methods, but it might be an inexpensive sturdy option.
Has anyone tried that? Using cement and concrete instead of ceramic slurry or plaster?
could have just stacked 2 foam cups and trim one end to make a thicker mold
Muito bom 😊
Insulation not up to par, I'd guess.
notice a trend of you getting more views with every thumbnail that uses the name on the left and a dark gray/black backdrop, just a note
Im telling you that is something im going to try making out of aluminum it would be cool AF to drink out of a painted white "ALUMINUM cup" shaped like a styrofoam cup lmao
The aluminum would work perfect if it was a little hotter and the fill riser were taller.
Strange. No chocolate frosting on the aluminum ingots.
quention is can you drink out of them
Well done came out great. What was the stuff u filled up the cup 2:35?
He tells you. Go to 2:32, and listen to what he says.
@@anzaca1 yes I know I am trying to figure wtf is in it
👍👍👍
Figure out a way for aluminum or brass to work.
Just need to preheat those molds so it drives the rest of the rest of the Styrofoam out and prepare the plasterer for the heat extremes. . Mix in some sodium silicate with plaster of Paris for your investment media. , , It will help refract the heat a little better as well as help those molds hold up and probably leave a nicer finish on the aluminum.
This only allows 340 or 1080 premium... Ok TH-cam.
Imagine drinking lean out of this
You could try preheating the molds, it give you a little longer for the metal to flow into the gaps
kilning them would get rid of any residual styrofoam/acetone slurry as well
This is something companies actually do.
I was actually thinking that he could do as u mentioned. This would help to take out the poli styrene from the mould but again you would possibly need to be careful about the mould cracking in the heat cycle but it could help to stop the water from the joint compound from boiling so quickly with the water then also causing problems with the mould filling up easily because of the small thickness of the cups same thing really as lost pla if you don't get rid of the pla you have a lot of issues with the mould filling even
It does look like cold lap, something that I have experience of when the metal is too cold when poured, however if the metal is too hot, it's so runny it runs into the sand an you get a sandy casting ( like a casting, but with a metal/sand skin )- not good when zirconia sand is used, it blunts carbide tools like you wouldn't believe.
Acetone dissolves styrofoam - it doesn’t remove it, it just leaves a varnish of polystyrene behind.
Heating the molds to ignition temperature of the polystyrene might help because otherwise you are fighting the combustion gases from burning styrene in trying to get metal into the mold.
And there is no gas vent so all the gas is trying to go up,from which you pour metal .And thats why it had so much porosity . Pouring basin and sprue are a joke.
What about building a couple of small diameter vents off the rim back up to the top? That would vent the air, you probably wouldn’t get the bubbling, either. Might be worth a try 🤷♂️
A bottom fed casting would be even better, allowing the gases to exit through the riser instead of flowing against the flow of metal. On some small castings, spikes are poked through the sand to touch the pattern to give a path for gasses to vent out, and the resulting metal that enters the vent can be easily snapped off.
@@joejoejoejoejoejoe4391 I cast bronze coins and thats the method. I use a flat two-part sand mold. Metal goes in one edge of the coin, and I have 2 small air vents at 1/3 and 2/3 position going up. That way, the metal can flow in and push any gases up and out the vents as it flows. It also helps when you're casting things like animals, flat, that have four legs and a tail. Put an air vent at each extremity or it won't fill completely. Those extra small "sprues" are easy enough to cut off.
Why not burn out as much foam as possible after clearing most of it with acetone, as in lost PLA casting? As you point out the thin walls are already pushing it so no need to add foam residue as a second complication.
This is what I was going to suggest.
When you melted the styrofoam, you created solid plastic in areas. You could see that in the casting attempt.
If you were to burn out all of the styrofoam, not only would it all vaporize as a gas, but it would preheat the mold for when you pour into it.
The problem is, he used Drywall Compound, which is gypsum dust mixed with water. It doesn't do well in extreme heat, so burning it or heating it in a oven, would reduce it back to gypsum
I was likewise thinking that heating the moulds to burn out the foam would work well, even more so if you used plaster built in layers very thin mix at first then gradually thicker coats in layers. Add in increasing amounts of silica sand then when estimated about three to five millimeters thick. Just heat in the casting furnace to burn em out. Then do not let them cool before the pour. Pour the aluminum while the moulds are still glowing hot. The heat of the moulds will help the metal to stay flowable until the temperature drops to freeze it in shape. After that it's just dunk in water to cool even more and get the moulds to crack from the temp swing shock.
@@KrazyMitchAdventures hence why I said plaster, as shortened for plaster of Paris. Gypsum while it does contain some likeness to plaster of Paris, it is not the same as.
I know how to cast using plaster embedded with silica dust and sand at very high temps, that when quenched the plaster crumbles into a slurry in the quench water. It's a fantastically interesting process and very dangerous to do if you are not wearing protection, since the risk of splash burns is quite high when the just off incandescent mould and metal hits even rolling boil quench water there is quite a bit of stream and lots of popping taking place. So if you do it, be extremely careful and don't stand right on the quench. Long grippers are a very handy tool for that kind of stuff.
@@KrazyMitchAdventures That's true. He would need to use the suspendaslurry stuff.
@Robinson Foundry could these cups be then used as a mold to do loss casting with aluminium and other high temperature metals?
Probably. The sand etc is what handles most of the heat.
Maybe if you preheated the mold to burn out the remaining Styrofoam you could avoid off gassing and fire.
Acetone will dissolve the Styrofoam but not remove it. It just turns into slime that takes up far less space
Couldn't you preheat the mold? You would probably need to do a different style mold, but if it is already hot when the metal is poured there would be plenty of time for the metal to flow into all the little cracks and crevasses before the whole thing slowly cooled.
Interesting experiment. Styrofoam teddy bear next!
The experiment left you with some cool looking cups! I think they turned out good. Never thought I would see a nice metal Styrofoam
I really hope this hasn’t deterred you from trying this with higher temperature metals. It would be nice to see an aluminum, or even a bronze styrofoam cup!
Cool! My family has an aluminum foundry. One day a guy up the street brought in a display figure of the Pillsbury dough boy. It was made from styrofoam. We covered it with nobake sand and cast it. He put the casting in his front flowerbed. You did a good job gating the cups. One trick that helps is to run a narrow hole next to the inlet. A "riser" hole to let gas out. A 3/16 rod hole is all you need.
Preheat the cast.
*Preheat the cast.*
**PREHEAT THE CAST!!**
I wonder if that would help. But it’s what my brain screams when the metal cools too quickly.
This was really interesting. The pewter cups look really good.
What about baking the molds before casting to burn out the remaining foam?
Did he really need a knife to cut that he could have just snapped at styrofoam 😐😐😐😐😐
If this is an in-between video, I'm not sure I'm properly prepared for what comes next. 🙏
Jesus loves you all and have a great day also remember to not say the Lord's name in vein and to say your blessings before you eat.
those are 99% air so pretty easy to cast em
2:56 forbidden Reese’s cups
0:30 ah yes metal peanut, now even more tasty
I gotta say, the packing peanuts look so freakin cool. The cups came out cool too. Like mini trash cans lol
Bro that's awesome 😎
I remember reading about aluminum casting temperatures, as little as 50 or 100 degrees Celsius can make a big difference in how the metal flows....Casting something so thin the you may have needed the aluminum to be a little hotter and or needed to preheat the mold so the metal stayed hotter longer.
The drywall joint compound looks really tasty ngl
I like
I haven't seen a styrofoam cup since the 1980's, why are you guys still using those horrible things? Stop! It ain't worth it!
SICK! Keep up the cool vids!