Potato Casting a Silver Bullet

[onondaga]

It isn't impractical to make silver bullets, just slow. You would need:

1. Low temp Gold casting investment material, water mix type from a dental lab supplier.
2. Steel investment rings and bases and tongs to hold a hot ring. same supplier
3. Silver
4. Potato, big, cut in half.
5. wax bullet patterns and 8 gauge wire wax. You have to make wax bullets to size.Your bullet mold will do with mineral oil separator painted in it. Pour wax or squirt glue gun into mold.
6. Burnout furnace that will hold a temp 100deg. less than silver fluid temp.
7. A torch that will melt silver.
8. Safety casting or welders mittens, thick cotton work glove, clear face shield.
9. A granite floor tile on your bench top.

Method:
1. make wax bullets
2. Attach wax bullet nose to ring base sprue area with 1/8 inch of wire wax.
3. place ring on base, mix investment and brush bullet with investment,then pour investment to fill ring. allow to set up.
4. Remove base only from ring.
5. Carve a second dimple next to the sprue big enough to hold the silver needed to fill a bullet and 1/2 the sprue. This is a careful measurement for the amount of silver you will be using and the size of the dimple or you can really get hurt or killed.
6. Cut a trough between sprue and dimple 1/4 inch wide.
7. Place ringed investment in cold furnace sprue down, bring up to silver fluid temp.
8. Remove hot ring (Wax will be gone) with tongs and hold ring against granite tile on an angle so you can place silver in the dimple and it wont pour into the sprue. Work on a stone slab about 1 square foot, A granite floor tile is nice.
9. Torch the silver till it slumps, sprinkle borax on it. A helper is best to sprinkle at your word so you don't lose heat.
10. Torch silver till it pools and oxides begin to clear to edges of pool, silver won't completely clear like gold will. Put torch aside very quickly. A second person to grab it is best. This must be very quick. I never did it alone.
11. Immediately tip ring flat on the granite, hold tongs firmly and as the silver runs in the sprue. Firmly grip potato round side and slap the flat cut side of the wet raw potato over the whole ring top sprue and all. Hold very very firmly 30 seconds. Steam will be gushing hard and loud. A good casting mitten over a glove is needed for this.
12. The violent and scary steam pressure will force the silver to completely fill the mold. If you used too much silver it is going to squirt out and get you bad.
13 allow to cool then de-vest your single bullet. Cut the sprue from the bullet tip.
14. You are done with one bullet.

If you have a number of ring and base sets to fill your furnace you could make that amount of bullets in a session. Double patterns in one ring will not work potato casting, there is not enough pressure from one potato. A single unit work time is about 2 hours. Multiple rings add little time because you invest and burn them out together. Torching and casting the metal itself when you get to that step is less than a minute with a good multi-orifice gas/air torch. Multiple unit dental bridges were centrifugally cast on other lab equipment, but the potato worked best for little stuff with the finest detail. I also made small silver jewelery pieces occasionally. I tried casting with copper pennies a couple of times for fun but castings came out very bubbly.

I am editing in a safety thing - on the bench against the granite tile on the side toward the person casting was a strip of 1 X 4 wood fastened edge down as a shield for metal splatter. I burned a few spots into it but never got hurt. I wore a big leather apron too. I was so little at 5, I worked standing on a stool at the bench. Reaching into the oven with tongs to grab a hot ring with all that heat coming out was scary till I got confident and could get the oven opened and closed really fast. Grampa was never more than a foot away every time and spent long hours explaining and demonstrating every minute detail because I wanted to learn how to cast. I miss him dearly. That all started very innocently one day when Gramma wasn't home and he needed somebody to sprinkle the flux and then grab the torch so he could pick up the potato.

Gary

[KennethF]

Ohhhhhhhhhhh!

Ken

[NoZombies]

The Rings are called flasks.

It's easier to build a tree and use a vacuum table. Even with a relatively small flask, you can build a tree to cast 20-40 bullets at a time.

[onondaga]

By tree I think you mean branching out sprue wax to make a cluster of invested bullet patterns. Sure, that works great in a large investment ring when a centrifugal casting machine is used, Those are very expensive compared to a potato. I have done a lot of centrifugal and lectured, instructed and demonstrated that method to many students and Dental lab technicians new to the trade.

The Potato Casting method is something I learned from My grandfather when I was 5 years old in 1955..

A member pointed out to me that there have been discussions on this board about how impractical it is to cast silver bullets. This method is presented as an alternative method to consider. I don't believe Potato Casting has been presented on the board before. I have no argument that it is a superior high volume technique. It is a simple technique that a five year old can learn and make accurate castings true to a wax pattern.

The steam pressure of Potato Casting can also be produced using various vegetables or fruits also and the method has been around since considerably before the birth of Christ. The method is still used in more primitive and third world cultures. A friend of mine is a dental technician from Syria and he has observed gold crowns for dentistry made by using a wet wad of woven fabric instead of a potato.

If you have any questions about Potato Casting, this is the place to ask.

Gary

[Doby45]

discussions on this board about how impractical it is to cast silver bullets.

I don't think the rather lengthy instructions you included make it any more "practical".

[wingnut49b]

You say impractical now, but wait until the Zombies AND the vampires come!

In all seriousness, I'll likely never do it, but it is cool to hear how. I'm guessing many of us start casting lead like that...

Thanks for writing it up!

[perotter]

The steam pressure of Potato Casting can also be produced using various vegetables or fruits also and the method has been around since considerably before the birth of Christ. The method is still used in more primitive and third world cultures. A friend of mine is a dental technician from Syria and he has observed gold crowns for dentistry made by using a wet wad of woven fabric instead of a potato.

If you have any questions about Potato Casting, this is the place to ask.

Gary

I may have some later. I cast industrial parts, etc. I'm always interest in different casting methods. Even if it is "primitive", this method maybe useful to me for the odd special requests that I currently have to turn down.

Thanks for the info. I'll contact you after the 1st of the year.

[NoZombies]

I didn't mean to poo-poo the method, and I apologize if that's how it sounded. I guess when I start looking at things like this, I want to be able to do it as efficiently as possible.

Using potatoes and wet rags does work, I've seen it done, and the results can't be argued with.

[Dframe]

I remember reading an account of a person casting a silver bullet. Extraordinarily complicated. Seems to me if you really want one it would be much easier to just Lathe turn it.

[Shiloh]

I remember reading an account of a person casting a silver bullet. Extraordinarily complicated. Seems to me if you really want one it would be much easier to just Lathe turn it.

It would.

And it could be turned to the exact size.

Shiloh

[onondaga]

In the commercial Dental Labs I have managed and owned The word "flask" is not used much. You will see it as a label on a storage cabinets that contains flasks for crown and bridge investment, removable partial denture framework investment, even the bronze flasks that are used full denture investment. The technicians generally refer to them by their specific part area such as: ring clip, ring, base, sprue former, ring liner, etc.

At its simplest, pressure casting can be done with a small stone hearth, wax, fire-clay, casting metal and a potato as it was before Christ. Some of the ornate jewelery of the earliest pharaohs of Egypt was pressure cast with a fruit or vegetable or damp rag .

Certainly modern technology has more efficient means to make silver bullets. I have turned a piece of silver on a mandrel with an electric drill and a file. Again, if you have questions on potato casting, I'm here.

Gary

[Markbo]

I have never read anything here about how hard casting silver is, so could you elucidate a bit? Why can't you just melt it and pour it into a bullet mold? The melting point is quite a bit higher than lead but if you could approach that 975°, what are the issues?

[onondaga]

The flow quality of silver is very poor. Silver also conducts heat and cools very differently. Those qualities are so extremely different than bullet casting alloys that pouring into a mold at the most ideal temperature will not even help. Gravity is not sufficient to get silver going fast enough to get the molten silver into a mold before it begins to solidify and the flow quality is so poor that detail will be horrid. This would be worse than pouring pure lead into a bullet mold you have just taken out of the freezer even if the mold was 975 degrees. You'd get something in there but it wouldn't be a usable bullet without a lot of pressure and heat. A highly pressurized bottom pour melter/injector would work with the entire mold at about 100 degrees or fewer than the fluid temperature of silver. That is how modern production silver casting is commonly done.

Gary

[docone31]

It is simpler than that.
I use a Campbells soup can, opened at both ends. I close one end with aluminum foil.
I make my sprue and button directly in the investment.
To make my model, I use either RTV silicone rubber, or I can also vulcanize the mold.
Once the model has been sprued in, and in the mold, I cut the mold to release the model. This gives me repeatability.
I use Kerr Satin cast for investment. I spray the wax, which I pour into the mold with the mold hot, and the wax hot. I can also inject wax, but when I am in primitive mode I play with it that way.
I mix green soap 50/50 with alcohol, and spray it on the wax. This does not completely debubbelize the model in the investment, but sharp tapping on the sides with the investment in place seperates the bubbles from the wax.
I then cut a sprue button in the cured investment. I use a spoon, and center it on the sprue that is showing on top of the mold.
From here, I take a clay flower pot, cover it with aluminum foil, and put the flask upside down in it. I then heat it with a coleman camp stove.
Here is the fun part.
When the wax has melted, and burned out of the flask, I remove the flask.
I then place scrap silver in the button. I use 16ga wax wires to make the sprue. This is just large enough to pass the silver, but small enough that the silver won't enter the mold without pressure.
I melt the scrap into a molten button, heating the top of the mold at the same time. I do not use Borax! That is later. I take my cut potatoe and when the melt is rolling, I use a conventional plumbing torch, held upside down for this. 14$ at the hardware store. I then take the cut potatoe, and shove it down on the mold. It seals the flask, and the steam pressures the melt. There is not much time involved here. Silver freezes fast!
I remove the potatoe, and sprinkle Borax on the button. When the red is now black, I toss it in a bucket. The steam now shocks the investment off the casting.
Shake it around, removeing the investment.
You are now ready to remove the mold warts, flash, bubbles, and polish in stainless steel shot.
Tada!
Gravity can be used rather than a potatoe, but, you have to use a sling and spin it around in a circle. I have done this once. Not fun at all. It takes two people. One for the torch, one to spin it. The same principle of spin casting works here.
Potatoes are easier.
A lathe is much less work.
Take a piece of wood, carve a little hole in the wood like a ball, melt the silver in the depression, pickle it, then lathe turn it. Simple.
Not as exciting as potatoe casting, but the silver does interesting things while melting.
Enjoy.

[docone31]

I forgot to add,
You twist four 16ga wax wires together to make the sprue. The opening will not allow the silver to flow down the sprue without pressure.
Keep the model a short distance from the button. In other words, keep the sprue short.

[DeanWinchester]

I've got a few I have started on. I actually poured mine into a wooden block, then heated them back up by dunking them in my lead pot to get them fairly hot. Then holding them with needle nose vise grip pliers I use a three pound hammer, an anvil and pound them fuggers; Drawing them out into as round a rod as my inept hands can. Quench in water and chuck them up in my lathe. I figure starting out large and heating/pounding them will close any air voids pouring in a wooden block may cause.

I think next I'll make a plaster of Paris cast of a length of round stock and try that.

THis particular aspect of boolits is slow going for the poor (me!)

[Echo]

Gary, you are one lucky devil to have had a Grampa like that...

[Markbo]

Thanx for the edumacation... don't buhleeve I'll add that to my list of things to try soon!

[NoZombies]

Dean Winchester, it sounds like you need a rolling mill.

[jlchucker]

You say impractical now, but wait until the Zombies AND the vampires come!

Don't forget the werewolves. According to the movies on the late shows, you need a silver bullet for them, and nothing else will work. You're safe from vampires if you have a crucifix, or if you can pound a wooden stake through their chests. I haven't seen enough zombie stuff to comment. It's always practical to make up silver boolits if the Lone Ranger is around to buy them from you, too. Just look for a masked guy hanging around with a guy named Tonto.