Aluminum Sand Rammer

This is my second sand casting after a few experiments some successful other less with sea sand. last week I got 25kg Petrobond sand and I have to say their is no comperession and I am realy satisfied with the results.
This time I wanted to make an Aluminum Sand Rammer for my sand casting projects. I was thinking of making a pattern from wood and then I came across hard wood stair banister that was "waiting" in my shed for special occasion. Just by looking at it I could see the tool that I was looking for in my head. I cut it to a good working size and beveled one side for easy ramming of the flask corners. I also made a new wooden flask for this project.

I started by placing the pattern in the Drag and filling it with Petrobond ramming it well.
After drag was covered to the top I turned it over and used spoon to notch and smooth half way down the pattern. After smoothing it with the spoon I filled the Cope all the way up ramming it.

Next very gently I lifted the Cope and the pattern, Nerve wracking job. Beautiful result ;-)
I made pouring sprue to feed the molten aluminum in and small vent hole.
I used a clamp to keep Flask tight and poured the molten aluminum into the flask and the extra into the slim ingot tray that I welded.

Now this is the hardest part, WAITING for the metal to cool before opening the flask...
Still a bit hot but the result of my second sand casting amazed me, BEAUTIFUL aluminum sand rammer. In the image you can see the Parting line between the Cope and Drag.
After light cleaning I have a new tool ready for use.

Sand casting (experiment)

I started my first sand casting as an experimant using sea sand. After making a simple pattern and using only half a flask it didn't really work out as you can see in my image. The best part about aluminum it could be remelted again and again, so I broke the casting and remelted it back into ingots.

This time I bought PETROBOND sand, I got one bag of 25kg it is a bit expensive but amazingly easy to work with and the results speak for them self.
My first proper obeject I made was a Star Trek federation insignia, the original pattern is made from plastic resin that I got a few years ago in a custom model kit box.
The first pour was very good but small part in the cavity didn't fill all the way so I tried again this time using only sprue hole without vent hole and it was perfect.

Aluminum parts and ingots

When we look around we can see aluminum all over the place casted into different objects that we use daily. I took a few images of aluminum parts that I melted in my foundry and turned them into aluminum ingots. I will re-use the ingots for my sand castnig projects. I also separate the aluminum alloys and mark on the ingots what object it was before.
In my images I melted nut cracker, lock parts, cooker parts, door handles, tap handles,tripod legs, scotter parts (resize to fit into the crucible), aluminun brackets, toy car, glasses stand , toilet hinges, wine bottle cork and ladder parts. (Some parts in this images are pot metal)
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 The best aluminum alloys to re-use again for sand casting are probably parts such as car pistons, engine head, transmission bell housing etc'.
In my image you can see a piston that I melted into ingots, to starting  its new "life cycle".