Reconditioning a Relmac lathe

[irving2008]

So am i right in thinking you will mould around the fire cement or ?

The fire-cement is just to seal the holes to retain the metal inside.

Well I tried a pour ths morning - not very successful :(



- couldn't get enough heat into the pan (maybe its a bit big for small amount, but the burner is only 1kW as well), so it starts solidifying as soon as I start to pour
- you're supposed to scrape the 'slag' off the top, but its hard to tell whats slag and what isn't... it doesn't seem to scrape
- you're supposed to heat up the bearing housing/shaft to about 100deg to help the flow, but I found it hard with a blowtorch to get any heat in there...
- I carefully forgot to leave any air holes in the seal. As a result after about a third of the metal went in the pouring hole solidified and clogged up and that was it... no more pour! I need to leave a way for the air to get out at the top of one of the dams



So need to find a larger gas ring and a smaller ladle.

Next job is to clean it all up so i can start again... :( going to try removing the rear dam and melting it out...