About S Chastain book. Despite my comments I sat down and read it again cover to cover and wouldnt you know I learned a couple of things I didnt know before. Like making a boring tool for my tailstock on my lathe. I never thought of that before. His approach is different than mine but he goes on to say he has never had one he made fail to date. I found that interesting too. He is an engineer and I grew up with an engineer for a father. Sometimes they drive me nuts. Other times I need their info. Tis a bad day when you dont learn something. Don
I didn't build this, by the way, I think it's a Benedetto: <TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=0 width=100><TBODY><TR><TD>Knotty Pine Guitar</TD><TD align=right>01-01-1993</TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>Guitar serial #29293, made from inferior tonewoods (deliberately!) Two-piece top carved from flatsawn construction grade 2″ X 10″ pine. Back carved from two-piece flatsawn unmatched maple, riddled with small knots, weather checking and discoloration. Despite the obvious, this guitar plays and sounds as good as one made from expensive tonewoods…Scott Chinery agreed; he purchased it!</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Don, I like seeing you are going for it. I've done wax masters and using them to investment cast silver. What you are doing is very intriguing. I wonder if you would get more consitancy making one wax master then investment casting it. Then making a rubber mould of that casting to make more wax masters. Then investment casting those.
Yeah i saw him. He was singing some Lenord Cohen song. I dont know where he finds the stuff but he is his own man too. I never said anything about the pistons to him. I didnt know if it would interest him. Next time I may take it and show him then. Don Still smiling from your Flatout Weekend btw. Best auto event of the year for me!
Nice guitar. Here is my last one. I cut down the trees for this one myself. Anyway making pistons is a lot easier and quicker than making one of these . However probably if I hadnt done this first i wouldnt be so adventuresome now. I firmly believe if someone else can make it then there is absolutely no good reason why I cant 'cept I am either chicken or lazy. Don
You have to allow for shrinkage, the wax would need to be larger than the finished part. And the type of wax is important, some wax shrinks as it cools. So the size of a rubber mold would have to allow for this. I've got Canadian sources for mold rubber and investment plaster, if you are interested.
He would be really interested in it. It's kind of funy actually, last year I saw a post of a guy casting his own lic plate toppers. Somewhere in that posting was a link to another guy who had cast his own intake, I thought that was really interesting, and started looking into how it was done. Dad got right into it, told me about some casting he had done many moons ago. I learned a lot that day!!! Still haven't come up with the nerve to try my own, but I did design the furnace. I used a cut down oil furnace heat exchanger with the burner mounted to it, inside I kept the ceramic firepot and welded a set of rods around the heatexchnger to hold the melting pot. I fired it (ofcourse, knew that part would work...) but haven't tried anything eles with it yet. Now it's buried in the dark corner of the shop, under the storage racking..... As for the Flat out, I am really glad you had a good time, next year dates are set already, so stay tuned!!!
That's cool, I really like to listen to the fiddle with lots of double stops , and I really wish I could play one and maybe I could if I tried, but I don't play or build anymore, too busy doing other (shop related) things. Wanna learn how to cast and machine stuff, hence my interest in this thread, sorry about the OT stuff. Don't wanna go too far in that direction!
I had thought about pouring a wax one too. I have made rubber molds before but for resin casts like the flow plate I built for this carb. I made a styro foam one then covered it in RTV then cast this plate from it. (greenish flow plate in secondary section. )Really though I already know I am making my pistons from the steel mold with my baked cores but I am not opposed to trying these ideas while I have the furnace roaring.
Mine is pretty simple. Three legs (bent by my cattle in another lifetime) a length of large diameter pipe and a $39 dollar propane burner from Princess Auto. Not very efficient but melts in about 15 minutes so for just fooling around it is fine. Brilliant idea using an old furnace pot. I never thought of that. Hold that thought Unk ian. I have a tin of foul smelling mold rubber and two tubs of plaster. If i go that route I will be back to you. Don
Straddling the fine line between p***ion and insanity. I too thought of the worlds fastest Indian as soon as i saw the thread ***le. Cant wait to hear the that six roar!
It was the movie that inspired me in the first place . Then i got discouraged and didnt work on it for several years. After casting some adapter plates about 3 weeks ago i realized I probably could do it. I spent a day finding my permanent steel mold. Now i am commited. Others think i should be. Don
Its not the destination but the journey to quote a metaphor. Its all about sharing what you have learned along the way and it is very interesting to see people that ask what if. Thanks Don, Rob.
I think you hit the nail on the head Woody. Now as far as injected nitro pistons...well, , but I do applaud what is happening here. Lippy
What an awesome thread and an amazing read! i bet there's a tonne of aussies eagerly awaiting the outcome of this as there are a tonne of slant 6 nerds over there! (and over here I'm sure) My daily back home was a 62 AP5 Valiant slant 6, btw. Good luck and all the best.
where are the youtubes of you playing the fiddle? Maple Sugar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIYRYZHZYJc
http://www.dropshots.com/Dolmetsch#date/2005-03-27/16:05:28 This is from almost 6 years ago when I was first learning to play and the fiddle is one I made from local trees. (Ontario Red cedar and Black cherry. ) I have gotten a lot smoother since then and oc***ionally get asked to play in public (4 times last week) Maple Sugar i dont not know well enough yet. Red Wing I am pretty strong at. I prefer Country and Gospel to fiddle tunes but out of self defense I have had to learn a few. Now back to the pistons. I have an idea as my clay mold air dries. What if I air dry it ,cook it at 250 to 300 F for 30 minutes , Then pour it. It will stand the heat and still be soft enough to have a bit of give but not lose its shape. Am i nuts or might that work? Don
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RrGDPXOQtI&feature=related For all you slant six guys then here is a blast from this years combo. This was taken at Pistinbroke's Flatout Weekend which is by the way just Awesome! Don
I echo yours sentiment Dolmetsch. I am only 39 and have been turning wrenches and building engines as "the local guy who likes to do it" for about 22 years. I too experiment with my own stuff but not with other's stuff. For my own stuff I will try just about anything if it p***es my "backyard engieneering test" . A block that needs to be decked .100 to clean up? no problem,lets try some of those .100" thick headgaskets,if those dont work then I will buy cheap pistons with low set rings and lill them down then run stacked up intake manifold gaskets. I am a huge fan of old school pro stockers,particualrly of the mid 70's early backhalf/tube cars(I know its not a tradtional rod) and I think I am the only guy out there who is seriously trying to run the dragster dominated electonics cl*** with a door car,a real 427 bigblock with a flat tappet cam,and maybe soon a backyard customized tunnel ram with 2 660's. Years of tuning tells me what I am going to need to do to make this stuff work so I wont be flying blind,and dont listen to the guys who say "drop a 572 and dominator in it" because thats what a racer does when they dont know how to tune an engine. Anybody can make power and win with a lumbering 572,it takes smarts to run hard,stay together for years ,and actually win races on a regular basis with an 8000 rpm 427 and 2 carbs. In my world of racing a 427 with a tunnel ram is about as home brewed and odd as a slant 6 is in the hot rod world. To racers and rodders who cut their own path there is more fun getting to the end of the road then there is once you get there. Of course that doesnt mean that I dont want to get to the end of the road. I race to win,and I have gone thru large potions of my racing seasons at the payout window EVERY weekend. If I thought I was going in the wrong direction I wouldnt be doing it. Thats our self imposed pat on the back,actually DOING what others said cant be dont,not just trying.At least for me it is.
Might work, but I think it will be very fragile, since it is not Vitrified. Plus, the larger the temperature difference, the more likely you will have a problem with thermal shock. Drop an ice cube in warm water; usually, the ice cube will crack. The outside of the ice wants to expand, the inside doesn't. That is with less than 100 F temperature difference.
Good luck with your 427 projects. Despite "doing it all wrong" up untill last year I had a engine in the top 5 for 8 years at the local track. Often i have seen someone buy a car with one of my engines. Not long after some upstart along with his expert friend will appear in my shop to inform me I did it all wrong.A month or so later when they have exhausted all of their wisdom they will phone and ask what to do. I always answer the same. "Remember how you changed everything I had wrong? Make it all wrong again and it will go fast again." I cant quite remeber what they said but it didnt sound good . Some guys have taken a car I had going low 11s and improved it to the point they go it to run in the 13s. Not a skill i would want but since my set up was all wrong obviously they know stuff I never will. I thought you were supposed to make the car faster fixing things. i guess I missed something. Now I dont care about that. I am into experimenting with my own stuff. I dont go to race per say. I just go to see if it went faster than last time. I am really enjoying it now. More than I ever did when it was serious. I warn the Experts to be careful what they say or that slant six will pop their doors off. Last race I was about the middle of the pack in Pro cl***. Some were a bit muffed over that. Anyway. I applaud you efforts as well and wish you all the best. Before the sr dragster I did a lot of 440 work and we took home gold with a engine costing less than most guys spend on slicks and wheels. Got there this same way . Trying this and trying that (23 cams in all for BB Mopars. ) Discovered that the MP engine book while a good source of some info was not doing the job but making us buy parts that were not paying us back in reduced ET. (So i wrote my own book and sold it on the internet for about 13 years. )That was how that started. This is at a much more relaxed pace and is a private journey. I am having a blast. Don
Don, how fast is your slant-six car, it sounds neat, but still sounds a little like a slant-six, I'm impressed, thanks for sharing this with us. Mike.
7.60s in 1/8th so far. It will always sound like a slant six I hope. For a $2900 dollar investment and four years of running I am happy. That day I had a EDDY carb on it. It would not respond to further jetting and the plugs were snowwhite all the time. Next time out I had a Holley 600 on the car. Large improvement in power and sound. Was able to get some decent plug colour. Carb is close but still about 1 jet size lean. Headers are the next big project . I want to make a complete new set. Longer as these are reworked street headers. Also I have the tunnel ram which should be done soon. At first after about 8 years not racing I just wanted a ride and to play with the six and the snowmobile carb set up. Once i satisfied that I wanted to go a bit harder. Had a cam custom ground and installed the 4 barrel set up with a good rework. Then I bought a custom made converter (8 inch)from Frank Lupo my long time supplier. From that moment on my world changed. First p*** on the converter the front wheels left the ground. In a flash the old racer in me was revived and I became a man on a mission as per the old days. I want to see some 6s in the 1/8th. So now you know the rest of the story. Don
Wow, that's fantastic, low-buck, max-fun, don't take me wrong it sounds good, you have inspired me to lay the ground work for a period track roadster. (6 banger powered)!! I am going to try your musical instrument guideline too, thanks Don!!
Also reading your advice about "God given ideas", I realize I have had an idea or thought in the back of my head since I witnessed this particular experiment in 1973, it pops up every now and then, I will start the groundwork, thanks for your wisdom, Mike.
The Jalopy Journal
