Blue Horizon by riekmaharg2

Sand casting and panel fabrication

This was by far one of the most time consuming and challenging parts of the entire project. It began with creating a 3D toolpath to run on a CNC machine as I needed to make a set of aluminium castings which had curves that had to match perfectly. I had originally planned to used wax to create the castings:


However it proved too slow to machine on my homemade CNC machine, and was too time consuming to sand and repair any imperfections, so I was forced to use wood to create the mould for the sand casting, using the toolpath I had already created:


Once the wooden moulds were finished I then took them to the sand casters. Unfortunately however I wasn’t able to take photos of my moulds being casted but there were some others which were surprisingly complex:


They use a mould to create a sand form using a special resin or oil to bind the sand, which molten aluminium is then poured into. Each mould must leave at least a 5mm gap for the aluminium to pour into, as it cools very quickly as it travels through the mould.