CASTING CALL!

To All.

The subject of this message is also the subject of the first article
in my blog...
bobhooversblog.blogspot.com
....where you will find some ILLUSTRATIONS of what I've been doing over
the weekend.

Have you ever cast aluminum?

Me too. In fact, most home-builders have some experience in the arts
of Thor. Most of us never progress beyond flat-castings. Those who
get Serious about casting will have delved into Cored Castings. And a
very few of those are able to Speak of Lost Wax or Lost Foam and a few
other more of the trickier bits.

I'm trying to cast individual heads for the VW engine, which is pretty
much a loser in the Power Department. That's because it wasn't
designed for Power, it was designed for Durability and Low Cost and
half a dozen other things you want to see in a practical People's Car.

And then I come along and start talking People's Plane!

I'm being forced to learn two things. The first, and where I'm most
likely to fail, is in the casting itself. Particularly in making a
suitable pattern and cores to produce a cylinder head capable of
satisfying the SECOND thing, which is to come up with the design of a
cylinder-head casting capable of coupling the required amount of heat
to the atmosphere.

I've got Liston's book on the design of aircraft engines and he has
been rather kind to people like me, taking the time to explain the
factors he uses in his equations. I don't think I'll fail because of
dumb-ness. The area in which I'm most likely to fail will be in
translating those Factors and the equations in which they are used
into the wooden patterns needed to turn the abstract into reality.

The illustrations in the blog offer some idea as to how I'm
approaching the problem. Something they don't show is the fact I'll
have to go back to basics with regard to the casting, since none of my
flasks are large enough to accept a pattern as large as the one needed
for a single head. That was something of a surprise but there have
been others :-)

All in all, it has been an enjoyable weekend.

-R.S.Hoover