Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
(OP)
I am trying to prepare some casting tooling to cast zinc and/or aluminum. My goal is to cast a shallow parabolic dish, approximately 70 cm diameter. I have at my disposal a friend who's an expert metalworker, but he doesn't know casting, and I'm not entirely sure what I want them to produce to meet my goals.
My thought is to produce something similar to two identical and very heavy weight parabolic dishes with a small spacer around the rim equal to the thickness of the finished dish. We would pre-heat them both, pour molten metal into the lower half, then set the top half on top of the bottom half and allow it to cool very gradually.
We've tried simulating this using smaller steel commercial parabolic dishes, but we found the metal would adhere... to the point where it basically soldered the dishes together.
What kind of surfaces should I be looking at as a casting surface for zinc and aluminum? A specific steel? Stainless steel? How smooth should I make it? What about release agents?
My thought is to produce something similar to two identical and very heavy weight parabolic dishes with a small spacer around the rim equal to the thickness of the finished dish. We would pre-heat them both, pour molten metal into the lower half, then set the top half on top of the bottom half and allow it to cool very gradually.
We've tried simulating this using smaller steel commercial parabolic dishes, but we found the metal would adhere... to the point where it basically soldered the dishes together.
What kind of surfaces should I be looking at as a casting surface for zinc and aluminum? A specific steel? Stainless steel? How smooth should I make it? What about release agents?





RE: Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
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RE: Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
http://www.zypcoatings.com/
RE: Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
Unless your part is very thin you shouldn't need much pre-heat. Put the two parts together and then pour the molten metal into the gap. You will have trim the top edge afterward.
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RE: Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum
RE: Help With Reducing Adhesion With Casting Tooling for Zinc & Aluminum