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| http://hintjewelry.blogspot.com |
Have you ever wondered how a
car engine is manufactured? Maybe
you've been curious about how your metal charm necklace was created. Both of these are actually made very
similarly using metal casting!
A great class offered to Penn State Industrial
engineering students is IE 311: Principles of Solidification Processing. This classes gives IE students the
opportunity to learn about metal casting processes. The class has a hands-on lab to facilitate learning. You even get to pour molten
metal!
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| www.cnczone.com |
A
cool metal casting process we learned about recently is called Lost Foam
Casting. The first step of this
process is to draw your design on styrofoam and cut out the mold. Then, you must paint the mold with
ceramic paint. This helps create a
smooth surface on the mold. The
picture to the right shows a house number plaque mold. Next, the mold is placed upright in a
bucket. The bucket is then filled
with dry, loose sand.
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| www.pittstate.edu |
Next
comes the fun part -- it's time to pour the molten metal! It is important to be properly dressed
in a protective suit to ensure safety.
Once
the metal is poured into the bucket, the styrofoam is burned out, and the metal
takes on the shape of the mold.
Below is the completed house number plaque.
This
is just one of the many metal casting processes we learn in IE 311. As you can see, we have a lot of fun!
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| www.cnczone.com |
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