This bench was the most recent addition for my foundry activities. I needed a sturdy bench for ramming flasks, a storage area for extra flasks, and for the Petrobond sand. After following several threads on some casting sites, I decided on this configuration. It has a welded angle iron frame, 2" by 4", with a 2" by 2" section of steel plate for half of the top. The other half of the top has removeable, sliding angle iron pieces to hold a flask when shaking out. The sand is captured underneath. A piece of Oak plywood fits over the opening to provide more bench space when needed. Since I do not do large castings, the bench size has proven to be adequate.
A drag ready to ram with sand and the casting pattern. The two clamps shown have VERY strong magnets in the base. I use them to hold the flask and bottom board to the bench top. I seem to have trouble when ramming, (the flask frame tends to lift up from the bottom board, am I ramming too hard?). The clamps eliminate this problem. Perhaps I need to refine my ramming techniques to eliminate the need for the clamps!
Some ingots in one of my ingot molds. The mold is simply several pieces of angle iron welded together underneath, with the sides also with an angle. The ingots fall right out after cooling. I have been using Aluminum tire rims for casting ingots. They are fairly cheap at a recycler I frequent, and the Al makes excelllent castings. (356?)
