I know for a fact that there are many readers of the Hot Metal ezine who are eager to learn how to get started in this fascinating metal craft. For those who don't know, the hot metal ezine is a free ezine published by: www.myhomefoundry.com. Readers need to absorb all they can about the craft before they become involved with metal casting. To be successful, it is advantageous to possess basic workshop & metal fabrication skills. You will be building your own equipment and some of the many tools & skills required to fabricate this equipment will include: arc welding - lathe operation - thermal cutting, and the ability to use many other workshop power tools. Without these skills, the establishment of your hobby foundry will not happen as quickly. But of course you can always use the skills of other people to get the things you need, but there is nothing quite like doing it yourself. There are many ways you can get around the lack of workshop equipment & skills, one of the best is doing a joint project with a mate or buddy. By combining the different skill sets and talents of two people is one of the best ways to get something like a hobby foundry up and running. A joint venture will enable you to share: - The skills & the project equipment & building fun-The experimentation-The total learning experience-The spoils of the metal castings when you have your foundry fully operational. With two people to bounce ideas around, you will quickly find that things will start to happen. By going it alone, the learning will be long & at times quite frustrating because there is no one to turn to for help when you need to. There is much to learn about metal casting, not to mention the trial and error period, but as they say, experience is a great teacher. You wont ever learn all there is to know from a single course or book, but the ebooks available from our web site are designed and written to help people make the start, without the huge expense, you will learn how to be resourceful, and to call on many skills to build your own equipment and tools etc. People who are unfamiliar with metal casting think it is an odd hobby, but they are also very interested to find out more about the hobby, others tend to think it's just to hot and dirty to get involved in, and that's fine... no one is going to force anyone to do anything they don't feel comfortable with. But metal casting is not that difficult to do once you understand the basic methods & principles, then with a little practice, everything just seems to fall into place. Being able to cast metal opens up a whole new world for any one into restoring old engines, old cars & motorcycles, antique iron or old machines. The ability to remake worn or broken parts will save a bucket of money, and will quite likely save a lot of time & money over the course of rebuilding & restoring a project. Hobby metal casting as an absorbing and personally rewarding metal craft hobby. |
