Re: Small Injection molding unit?

--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@y..., "Smoke" <gordonr@r...> wrote:

> That should work for testing anyways. It melts at a pretty low
> temperature, just like most of the "injection wax.
> I've been machining patterns from candle wax. Works good if you go

slow.

> Thanks Dan,
>
> Smoke
>
>
> >Hi Smoke,
> >I'd be happy to give it a try. All the wax I have to play with is
> >candle wax. Will that be close enough? I suspect that considering

the

> >relative viscousity of melted candle wax versus melted plastic that
> >the injection molder is plenty strong.
> >
> >Dan Eaton
> >

I finally got some time to play so I fired up the injection molder
and started chunking in pieces of candle wax. Melting the wax was no
problem at all. I lowered the piston to see what it was like pushing
it out without a mold in place. I had some leakage from the piston
until I had pushed the remaining plastic out from the last time I
used the machine. Once that was clear the leak stopped.

I put my mold in place and tried filling it. The machine has plenty
of leverage for pushing the wax around. I almost got hit by a stream
of hot wax shooting out the relief port of the mold. Never had that
problem with plastic.

I popped the mold into the fridge for a couple minutes to cool the
wax and then pulled it apart. The wax had filled the mold but I
wasn't able to pop the pieces out like I normally do with the
plastic. The wax just crumbled when I tried ejecting it from the
mold. That's more a problem with the mold design than a short coming
of the injection molder.

I think the machine will do what you want to do with wax. My machine
is probably way over powered in terms of heaters. One change I'd
suggest is adding some moveable shields around the heater nozzle /
mold area. That hot wax really shoots out under preasure and a
shield might save you from a burn.


I also played with my Gingery charcoal furnace today. When I've used
it before I've had problems with the blower and the cruciable. I've
found the perfect setup now. For the blower I'm now using a Wagner
heat gun for removing paint. Gingery had suggested using a blow dryer
so this is a close fit and a little beefier design better able to
handle running a long time during melts.

For the cruciable I found a 4 1/2 inch cast iron melting pot at the
new Bass Pro shop in town. It fits perfectly and the combination of
the new cruciable and blower worked so well that I don't have any
scrap aluminum now. I melted everything I had and turned it into 10
clean aluminum bisquits (that bisquit tin will never be the same).
Most of that scrap was swarf I and a friend had saved along with some
other larger bits and pieces. After I melted down all the good stuff
I tried a couple of soda cans just to see how they'd worked. Man, you
got to be pretty hard up for aluminum to go that route.

Dan Eaton (Saint Louis)