Hi everyone! I’m a relatively new member and I’d like to learn everything I need to know to work in small metals. I have foundry experience and feel confident about normal foundry practices, but I am not trained in small metals–yet. How can I get started? Thanks!
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Welcome! What kinds of things do you want to do with “small metals”? Based on your comment about foundry experience, are you looking to cast?
This specific committee works with jewelry techniques (casting, shaping, forming, stamping, polishing, etc.) but the original category name (Jewelry/Small Metals) was created just to point out that you don’t have to make jewelry to apply those techniques.
There are at least one or more people applying these techniques to miniatures and not making jewelry.
If you want to machine small metals, the Machine Shop has a Sherline micro mill, a Sherline micro lathe, and a Cameron watch-maker’s drill press.
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Hi, thanks getting back to me! Yes I would very much like to cast!
I want to learn the casting machine (and the machines that go with it like whatever you use to burnout), what casting techniques you all use for small metals (in case there is a difference between the lost wax, direct, and sand casting I know), and the micro machines you listed.
I would be happy with learning it in the scope of jewelry or minis.
I would also like to 3D print and cast those bad boys.
I just want to get casting but I’ve never had the chance to focus on small metals before so I want to make sure and get the proper training. 
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Casting is a team event at DMS. No one casts alone; this is partly for safety and partly because some of the steps take more than two hands.
We have many casting-related tools in our studio. You can see them listed on the wiki. With your prior casting experience you will recognize these things.
All of our casting is lost wax casting. We cast in bronZe, silver, or gold. You provide your own virgin casting grain (I recommend riogrande.com), so you select the material type. I strongly recommend that you cast in bronZe for your first several attempts. BronZe is much cheaper to experiment with than silver.
The Jewelry committee has a resin printer that prints wax resin. You can learn to use it via this online course. The login is the login that you use to sign onto DMS computers (i.e., NOT your Talk ID). Many people use (the free version of) Fusion 360 for the 3D CAD design but you can use anything that can output an .STL file. Fair warning about Fusion 360: it has a non-trivial learning curve.
You could also make or buy a wax master. We have a wax injector if you have a silicone mold. Occasionally we conduct a class on making your own mold, usually using Castaldo LiquaFast. We have the frames and the vacuum machine and when we do a molding class we would provide the LiquaFast.
You should review this self-study course that will describe our lost wax process to you. It focuses on our small casting machine (the Tenabe Kenden centrifugal caster) but the process is the same on our larger casting machine. It will describe the spruing process, the investment process, the two vacuum machines, the burnout process, and the smaller casting machine. Don’t worry that the larger J2R casting machine isn’t described; you will receive the most help with that part of the process.
The self-study course prepares you to be a knowledgeable participant in our casting “labs” (class). We try to hold those once a month; on a Sunday evening/Monday noon … keep your eyes peeled on the calendar. We, ummm, well - we typically post on the calendar just a few days before the class and it fills up right away. We try to cast the last weekend of the month but with the various holidays we are a little messed up.
Typical progression would be:
(1) you would take a casting lab class, in which you will get to inject one of our molds or make a ring from spruing wax, then sprue and invest. If you have your own (small) wax master you can use that instead. On day two the team will cast in bronze, which is provided as part of the class. If you can’t make it on day 2, that’s OK.
(2) That class would “certify” you to participate in future casting labs as a capacity-controlled “walk-in” but without being in the class.
(3) With repeated participation as a walk-in, you might become a part of the casting team. Competent volunteers are always appreciated.
Whew. Lots of info.
Now, as for the machining part. I can think of two likely reasons to machine your castings. 1) You are making parts that have to fit together, or 2) gross removal of a big honking sprue (that’s the technical term 
). #2 isn’t necessary; just a nice convenience. I suspect that you’re not going to need to machine your castings - at least not initially. Unless you have a lot of casting and machining experience, I do not recommend a set of mating parts as your initial casting tests. In fact, having done a lot of it lately, and repeatedly questioning my own sanity, I’m not sure I’d ever recommend it. 
The micro tools are in the Machine Shop. The Sherline mill or lathe require training (separate courses). I can’t picture much use of the lathe for refining cast parts, so the mill is more relevant. We haven’t offered any classes in a while; mostly due to Covid concerns. Obviously you should watch the calendar. Also watch Talk to see if anyone announces that they’re teaching a course. Failing that, state your interest on talk and when there gets to be enough interest (about 4-5 people) we might be able to get a course running.
Do you have any machining experience? That’s going to be the bigger challenge. Our courses will teach you how to operate the controls on the machines but they will not teach you how to be a machinist. I think that if/when you get to the point of wanting to machine your castings, hunt me down at a casting lab and we can talk in person
Chris
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Wow, that was very thorough and helpful, thank you! I’ll get rolling on the classes and keep an eye out for pours.
The machining experience I have is just on a per-piece basis on larger sized pieces. I think I’ll be focusing more on small casting right now.
Thank you so much for all your help!
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