so has anyone actually cast a copper waterblock ?

[Moparchris]

yes ive searched the forums, i read (i think) all of the pages on casting blocks and i know its hard to cast copper but i think i can do it and i also already have all the equipment i need

i think ill do a lost foam casting because its easy to make the mold and ill probly cast it in sand then mill the base of it flat i cant mill a block from scratch because ill be getting my dad to mill the base at his work and they dont have any small milling bits

so? anyone done it ? even in aluminium mabie ?

(http://www.freewebs.com/blahgh/castingequipment.htm - my casting stuff )

[JFettig]

Copper has been done by a few, roscal, and marvin I think the guys name is here both have casted copper, Its a really difficult metal to cast without problems. Aluminum is much easier. Maybe make a structure that is rather small to go inside another and cast it in silver. Silver casts pretty nicely.

Jon

[Ls7corvete]

LMK how it goes! I say go with aluminum, the temperature difference is not that great, the corrosion is a problem but there are plenty of systems that manage to mix metals and survive.

Anyways some old stuff over at OCforums if you search for it.

Put me on the list of interested parties if you ever cast anything.

[Moparchris]

i know i could do it in aluminium but im not sure about copper, ive made things out of copper alloys before and they turned out fine but never pure copper

i dunno if its just me but the search at ocforums isnt working

[Ls7corvete]

You have to sign up to search. The info is there, old but there.

Do you have anything to post about your casting? I am really interested in the process. I am to the point where I think I will get some wax tommorrow to try and carve a water block up for casting.

I say give copper a try, bill has shot this down before by stating there will be problems with gases in the metal but I dont think that we are looking for the quality he is.

I was thinking of making a cheap foundry and getting some quality casting sand and just see what I can turn out myself in aluminum. If the design is successfull I will go to silver, if not, not much lost.

Fascinating process, I am very interested in your experiences.

[Moparchris]

i havent had any time to try it out yet, ill do it soonish though and ill probly post some pics up of how it goes. i think degassing the melt wont be a problem, i have propper flux and stuff and that SHOULD remove and stop gas getting into the melt

if you do get some sand, try and get some petrobond, ive never tryed using it but ive seen things made in it and they come out alot smoother than with greensand

for me there wouldnt be any problems at all casting an aluminium or silver block (except that i have no silver lol) just that copper is hard to cast.

[Ls7corvete]

Yea I will definetly try and get some petrabond, that is the only thing that will actualy have to invest in, the rest I can scrounge up.

I am eating a ton of popcorn to get the metal tin ATM

LMK when you get some pics, also if you have any design Ideas I would like to see those as well.

[Keldon]

I've never cast anything, I'm just curious to see your results if you ever try it...
Maybe this link will help you, maybe it won't, but it's really short, so you won't waste much time if it's useless... It's a small text about the problems of casting pure copper and copper alloys:
http://www.key-to-metals.com/Article64.htm

[Moparchris]

ive read that before, thanks anyway

im not sure on the design atm i was sortof thinking something like..



or mabie something with bigger, wavy sortof fin things

[Ls7corvete]

I like the first one, those pins look like they would turn out well in a cast. I was thinking of doing a spiral block, seems like an interesting design, not sure if their are any benefits to it.

If we get this going we can experiment as much as we like

I am trying to get some cast molds going now.

[Snakez]

Bit off topic, sorry..

I've always wanted to have my own forge/casting setup. Metal shop at school had a furnace, so I know some basics.

Does it cost much to get set up?
Can some of the equip' be made or scrounged up?

[Moparchris]

Originally Posted by Snakez

Bit off topic, sorry..

I've always wanted to have my own forge/casting setup. Metal shop at school had a furnace, so I know some basics.

Does it cost much to get set up?
Can some of the equip' be made or scrounged up?

http://www.backyardmetalcasting.com/

you can probly throw something togeather for pretty cheap, my furnaces are all made with ceramic fibre insulation which is pretty expensive but a castable refractory can be made up pretty cheap

i still havent done anything aobut making that mould or anything lol, dont even have gas to melt the metal yet

[Moparchris]

well.. this is a real shit pic of the pattern so far, its not finished yet and i probly cant cast it untill the weekend anyway so ill finish the pattern tommorow (finally a day off work) then cast it as soon as i get some gas and have a bit of time



as you can see (hopefully lol) the pyramid shapes are much larger than the pic i showed before, this is prettymuch only a trial casting so ill see how this goes then mabie try something a little more fine and spend a bit more time on the pattern

[Ls7corvete]

Looks good, how are you gonna setup the barbs? one over the center? a cross flow? I think I will copy my maze4 as practice. Maybe try to cast a mcw50 top in brass if I can get some brass.

IDK how well casting will turn out but I am enjoying it so far and its cost is very little!

[Moparchris]

yeah one over the center and 2 outlets, i need to split the flow in my system anyway so i want 2 outlets

[Moparchris]

ok well i havnt tryed it yet.. soon also i was told i should try adding some phosphorus (about 2% to stop the copper sticking to the air then just before i pour the flux with degas it but not if theres heaps of air in there, thats why it needs the phosphorus apparently

but where do i get it ?

[Moparchris]

well.. i havent tryed yet but i just thought id say that im still going to do it, probably on tuesday when i have a day off work if i get the time (gotta do some xmas shopping and other things as well )

anyway i finished off the pattern a while ago and ive got enough copper to do it with (this is only scrap to try it out, if it works good ill probly buy some copper ingots)

[Ls7corvete]

Sounds good. My foundry is well on the way, I have already done a couple aluminum melts with it, very fun stuff I have some petrobond waiting for me. I am going to do a practice cast tommorrow and then rig up a "test block" to see how well a block will come out.

If that all goes well I will look into having one of my nice spiral designs CNCed with a tapered endmill to produce a prototype and start copying the prototype, with sand casting, in diff metals.

I wasnt planning on copper but now I am reconsidering.....

[Moparchris]

are you using a propane burner ? and what sortof refractory in the furnace ?

anyway.. i managed to cast my copper block today

ive gotta get it machined (my dads going to do it at his work - i'd do it there but ive got no time with my own work)

it came out pretty good, though not perfect, the machining will fix that though. at least i know i can melt and cast copper. one thing, im not too sure why but i think it mightve been TOO hot, when i piured the copper about half way through pouring part of it went pop and sprayed little beads of liquid copper in the air, i was wearing big ass leather gloves, a clear face mask and a jacket so i was pretty safe but just be carefull

and oh yeah.. my furnace is made of ceramic fibre insulation rated to 1600 degrees celcius and i melted part of it while i was trying to melt the copper

the pics i got of it are pretty shit, the colours gone real bad as well for some reason. (once agian lol) and i dint try to get any of during the casting, didnt have time.

ill get some pics once its been machined and cleaned up better

damn ive got to buy a new digital comera, this things old as

[Ls7corvete]

Im using charcoal now, starting to dislike the coal, too hard to get the temp right. I did a couple casts of alum today and they were all way too cold. My refractory is clay, sand, cement and perlite. Its cracking but holding up pretty well.

What kind of casting sand are you using? You should get some oil bonded sand, there is no moisture in it to boil and throw liquid metal into the air.

I am trying to get with anouther forum member to have my block "printed" out using a 3d prototype machine. Then I can do some casts.

so how did you end up going about degassing the copper?

Looks good, cant wait till I get mine made up.

[Moparchris]

yeah, ive never used coal but it looks a little messy, propane is damn good if you have an efficent burner (i have a vacume cleaner reversed on mine for a blower and it works good)

im only using greensand, its pretty good though my castings (depending on the pattern and if im bothered to make it nice or not) come out just as smooth as my friends who uses petrobond and i think the little shower of copper wasnt caused by the moisture, i dont really know where it came from but i thought it came form in the crucible :shrug:

i added enough copper brazing rod with phosphorus in it so that there was about 1% phosphorus which is meant to stop the air sticking to the copper, i also used a flux that has a degasser in it so i put the fluz in at the last minute, quickly mixed it, scraped out a little slag and poured it fast as i could but then i dont really know for sure that theres no oxygen in it and its probly microscopic if there is any anyway

i attached some better pics, hopefully by the time the blocks been machined ill have a decent camera

[Moparchris]

anyone got any ideas for a GPU wb design that will be easy to cast but low pressure drop at the same time, nothing too extreme, mabie just something with a U sortof shaped channel in it ?

the GPU one should be a little tidyer out of the sand, the cpu one is quite rough, mostly cause of the pattern, you can see in the last posts middle pic how the sand fell out so theres more metal on the left not that its going to really matter, its just not that great looking, it was basically only a test run anyway

i havent got the block machined yet cuase my dads been off work and their workshop has been closed

[JFettig]

see if this gives you any good ideas

thats an older revision, but still a good one

Jon

[Ls7corvete]

Instead of straight walls for the channels, how do you guys think having them as triangles will affect the performance? I am guessing that with the same area for flow it would be similar? sand casting a taper is so much nicer, I am thinking of not even trying to make a normal chanel and making them triangular, kinda like your cpu block.

[Moparchris]

hmm, yeah it wouldnt be hard to cast if the fins were tapered, i dont think it would effect performance much at all, i might go with something like that maybe