Week 12:Molding and Casting

Assignment Activities

1.Group Assignment.

.review the safety data sheets for each of your molding and casting materials, then make and compare test casts with each of them

.Extra credit: try other molding and casting processes

2.Individual Assignment.

.design a mold around the stock and tooling that you'll be using, mill it (rough cut + three-axis finish cut) and use it to cast parts.

extra credit: use more then two mold parts

For the Group Assignment link: Group Page

In this week 12,For Molding and Casting Week I dive deep into the molding and casting process though it was a while passed that chapter of molding and casting in my College but we learnt it as theory but now was practice of it, This was really an Awesome week.

In our Node we sat and discuss about molding and casting in details and everyone was then assigned to choose any design he wanted and designed it in a way that he wants and After design the mold of that Pattern.

Firstly,The main difference between molding and casting is the use of the material in the process. Casting will typically involve metal, while molding focuses on plastics. In both cases, the melted material goes into a die or mold to create the final form.

For More explanations between molding and Casting.

After Understanding the main difference between molding and casting, I continued with brainstorming of what I was about to design so that the mold could be presentable and could be simple.

WAX Safety Measures.

I have read the safety measures of the WAX through the WAX datasheet, I have been gained more details of how I can handle the wax in molding and casting,I have seen more essential components in the data sheet some of them are:Wax Properties,Hazards Identification,First Aid Measures,Fire Fighting Measures,Accidental Release Measures,Handling and Storage, and other Useful information regarding the Wax.

I wish to share some useful information that I have used while making wax mold, below are the Wax Characteristics.

• PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

  

• HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION

  

• FIRST-AID MEASURES

  

• FIRE-FIGHTING MEASURES

  

• ACCIDENTAL RELEASE MEASURES

  

• HANDLING AND STORAGE

  



And There are other useful information and for more information regarding this datasheet you can download it below

Wax_Datasheet

After Reading the Safety of the Wax in Molding and Casting I continued to think about What I was going to mold like a pattern I was going to use.

Now I decided to cast something like the small bulb that I have seen in our workshop.

Then After the selection of the material I Started to design in Solidworks like The 3D model and The mold of the Pattern.

Below Are the Steps I followed to Design my Pattern and the Mold

• Firstly I sketched my Pattern(bulb)

• And After Sketching the Pattern I used the Feature Called "Revolve Boss" to Round Bulb.

• And After Revolve boss feature the final pattern Was this below.

• After Making the Pattern the next thing was to design it's mold, I opened the part into Assembly and clicked insert components and clicked new part After I created the plane because their round surface.

• And I sketched the outview of my mold, for it's purpuse is to hold The shape of the Pattern I used feature in mold called cavity which takes the shape of the pattern and paste it in the internal side of the mold.

• And The Parts of The Mold(Cope and Drag) are almost the same in The cavity only difference was to joining slots.

• The Assembly of all the parts are below


Below is Video of Assembly

After making Molds the next thing is to Save Assembly it as STL file(extension STL) in order to be imported in V-Curve.



Then Next Step is to import each part of the mold (Cope and Drag) in the V curve as 3D model.

1. I opened V-Curve Pro and I Clicked on create new file and Import the 3D files.

2. Then I setted the bed size of the wax I was About to use.

3. And I selected the stl files that I saved.

4. I opened The parts in V-curve interface so that I could move each side of the part

5. Then after positioning well my workpiece I changed the settings and I selected the way to cut my part with 3D model and that is 3D rough surface.

6. After Saving the way next is to select tool to be used in this I was going to use ball nose 1/8 ball nose with diameter of 3 mm

7. Other settings we use defaults and then I calculate

8. After calculated this is the toolpath to cut the workpiece.

9. The shadow of the shape pr top view.

10. Then I was remained with the saving the toolpath

11. These are the components that I used to make my Mold on CNC machine.
12. I used Wax as the mold parts(Cope and Drag).

13. I used glue and it's gun to coalesce the parts of the mold on the sacrificial bed of the CNC Machine.


After joining the wax with bed on CNC Shopbot machine I started to cut my mold parts.




Video Of CNC Engraving internal part of the mold.

Pouring the molten Wax.

After being done with mold on CNC I oiled the mold in order for easy separation of mold surface and the end product.



For the molten (Liquid) I have used the wax because it's the one which is available and the it has the low melting temperature and it freezes in few hours.

As I said above,I used wax from honey bee, and I meted in the oven, Below is the oven picture.



And I putted my wax in small container and then I putted them in the oven.



Then I waited 20 minutes in the oven to melt the wax (convert wax into liquid form) since for the Bees wax has a melting point of about 144 to 150 °F (62 to 66 °C),then after this period I took it while it is in liquid form.



Then I found the coelesced mold which I was going to use.



Then I poured the hot molten wax in the mold.



Below is the video.

Then I waited for 2 hours for the melting wax to solidify and be solid.



Then After solidification time I separated two parts of the mold to look inside.



This is the video While separating the parts.

Then finally the remaining was to remove the end product in the mold,and desired product was this below with it's pattern.




Final Output



In this week I gained many regarding the nature of material and the properties of the material mostly I concentrates to the melting temperature and freezing temperature of different substances.

hereyou can download the files.