Green sand casting, New Jack Plane Handles

I got a vintage Stanley jack plane no5 a few years ago and the back handle was broken where the bolt supports it, I found it was uncomfortable to work with the plane. The front handle was a bit cracked but after my baby son decided to use it as a ball it took him exactly five minutes to crack it into two halves. I don't know what material these handles where made from but it looks some type of resin before the plastic age. I decided to duplicate the two handles and sand cast new handles using my aluminum foundry. I also wanted a polished handles so it would be a unique jack plane. I checked on the internet and I did see aluminum handles that where manufacture for one of the hand planes at some stage. Making the sand mould was the easy part, creating the correct bolt core and angle for the back handle was a different story ;-)

The first casting was perfect my plan was to drill the bolt hole after the casting. The front handle drilling was accurate but on the back handle I drilled the wrong angle for the bolt to fit correctly. I experimented with different core types I didn't want to make the traditional sand core. The second and third casting of the core failed but on the forth casting I decided to use a 9mm diameter metal tube, 1.5mm thick and 6mm inner core diameter. I heated the metal tube before placing it in the flask and pouring the molten aluminum. This casting was successful.

Before I made the sand mould I reconstructed the broken end of the back handle. I used a filler and varnish to prevent the sand sticking to the pattern. I also used my foundry casting green sand and it proved again to be very suitable for this type of castings. I left a wide gating system and sprue/riser well and that prevented any casting defects. After the casting was ready I cut off the sprue and riser and drilled the bolt holes.

In the next set of images you can see the unsuccessful handle castings back in the crucible for another remelting session. After the bolt holes where done I used my buffing wheel and polished the new aluminum handles.

In the next images you can see the jack plane with the new front and back aluminum handles ready for use.

27/03/2012
Today I was making a new pattern using my jack plane with the new aluminum handles first time. works great ;-)