How To Cast Small Metal and Rubber Parts

Using this excellent sourcebook as a guide, you can easily make high quality, defect-free castings for almost any purpose ... at amazingly low cost! Just some of the countless uses you'll find for this potentially profitable skill ... making obsolete or vintage car parts, hood ornaments, garden and fireplace tools, kitchen utensils, automotive parts, replacing broken antique parts, reproducing sculpture, plaques, and other art ... all kinds of decorative and useful objects for your own use or to sell!

Writing in nontechnical language, author William Cannon provides all the instruction you need to cast any part ... putting an end to those long and often unfruitful scavenger hunts through shops, flea markets, and swap meets. This time- and money-saving second edition of the "bible" on casting small metal and rubber parts guides you through all the basics of foundry work.

You'll learn how to reproduce or create new items of brass, bronze, or other metals ... or almost anything made of rubber. Cannon shows you how to organize your own home workshop — the equipment you'll need, how much it costs, and how to set it all up! You can even open your own full- or part-time business.

You'll discover which metal is better for certain jobs and why, how to choose molding sands, how to design and produce molds, and how to repair castings. Plus information is included on coremaking, casting problems and their causes, finishing castings and correcting defects ... even chapters on grinding, polishing, and buffing. Plus the completely updated and revised information on casting rubber parts will bring up up-to-date on all the recent developments in polyurethane rubber.

PART 1: CASTING METAL PARTS

Chapter 1: Survey of Casting Materials

Chapter 2: Casting Your Own Hood Ornament

Chapter 3: Alloys You Can Cast

Chapter 4: Foundary Equipment: Make It Yourself

Chapter 5: Molding Sands, Fluxes, Degassers, and Flasks

Chapter 6: How to Make and Pour Molds

Chapter 7: Core Making

Chapter 8: Casting Problems and Their Causes

Chapter 9: Finishing Castings and Correcting Defects

Chapter 10: Do's and Don'ts for Safety

Chapter 11: Foundary Terms

PART 2: CASTING RUBBER PARTS

Chapter 12: Rubber and Space-Age Substitute

Chapter 13: Making a Top Bow Rest Pad

Chapter 14: Making a Four-Hole Grommet

Chapter 15: Making Door Bumpers and Check Straps

Chapter 16: Making a Fender Lamp Pad

Chapter 17: Metal Molds for More Precision

Chapter 18: Ingenuity Replaces Original Part

Chapter 19: Molding from Defective Pattern

Chapter 20: Molding with a Metal Insert

Chapter 21: Making a Weatherstripping Mold

Chapter 22: How to Estimate Amounts Needed

Chapter 23: Be Careful, Clean, Dry, and Accurate!

Chapter 24: Tips on Cutting and Shaping Rubber

APPENDIX: WHERE TO BUY SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INDEX