|
Thanks Ray, I didn't previously know that. I was
just remembering the lost wax process from an old National Geographic article
I read probably 30 years ago about
indians in Arizona making silver jewelery using
the lost wax process. Strange how some things
stick in your mind for many years yet I can
never remember which day the garbage man comes! Grin.
Your explaination leaves me with several
questions. If the kiln is sealed and the wax vaporizes out of the mold located
inside the kiln, when the kiln
is cooled and you open it to retreive your mold,
where did the wax go, is it now cooled and reformed, coating all over the inside
of the kiln, as well as all
over the outside of your now cooled mold, or does
the wax somehow become totally destroyed due to the heat and is not able to
reform
later when the kiln cools down? If this is
true, does it become carbonized and appear as ash inside the kiln? I know matter
cannot be destroyed (except by antimatter) but only
changed into other forms, so if the wax is totally
gone from the kiln and the kiln is totally sealed, what does the wax become? Or
does the kiln have a vent to allow gas to
escape and the wax escapes as a gas? It's been a
very long time since I last saw or used a kiln. High school actually, and I
don't remember if they were vented or not.
Also, do you make holes in the bottom of your mold
so the wax can run out or does it make no difference whether
the drain/vent holes are at the top of the mold or
the bottom and the wax would vaporize out either direction?
I'm interested in this because I have need to cast
some small parts for one off prototypes for my firearm accessory business.
I have previously been making them by hand out of
solid bar steel. That takes too much time and effort compared to
casting.
As always, thanks for the helpful
info.
Bill Akins.
|