At long last the summer has given me another chance to redeem myself in aluminum (Why the summer.. when it would seem that copious amounts of heat and fire go better with winter).
Here I've finally documented almost the entire setup, from carving to placing in the sand, to pouring.. the only part I've left out is the finishing.. which really is just grinding and wire brushing.. not exactly prime time interesting...
I had a number more projects for this burn than the last.. and unfortunately raised the bar a little too high for one project: the Thing.
The idea was meant as a present for my Dad's birthday, but not for anything other than to try and do it. First a wide-ish base about the size of a good thin novel, two vertical stands that each hold two gears. those gears inter-mesh and allow you to turn the one on the far right side with a handle, to turn the furthest left gear, with something silly on it to spin (deely-bopper?)
During pour, the large mass of aluminum melted and caved in more than half of the structure before it set (not pictured). So sad! Also the multiple structure pour resulted in the two large gears for the thing melting and caving in before being set as well! Awful...
BUT! Sylvia's little guy, two gears and at least two things made by the D worked great! So not a total failure.
When I can, I'll add pictures of the finished (wire brushed) items, and the total monstrosity of a failure (it's like 4 pounds of aluminum).
