Vertical vs Horizontal casting

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Fibonacci

Fibonacci

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Is vertical casting signifantly harder/more prone to failure than horizontal?

I have been looking at making/buying molds, but I have several kinds of pens that I would like to do clear castings on. With horizontal molds, I would need to buy or make a mold for each type. With a vertical mold, I could just put the blank in and fill to the correct depth for that type, saving me several molds.

There would be some learning curve as far as how much resin was necessary for each kind of blank, but I expect to have several learning curves. This method would also be more wasteful because all of the castings would be the same diameter.

I specifically want to be able to do Sierra, Trident, and Zen blanks. I would like flexibility for other things, but those are my immediate interests.

Anyone have thoughts on this subject?
 
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I've switched from horizontal casting to vertical casting myself. I don't do much clear casting (yet) but with the molds I got from Ptownsubbie (Fred) It's not too difficult to build a system of holding the tubes to where they cast properly. The molds he made me have four 3/4" x 5 1/4" cavities and two 7/8" x 5 1/4" cavities. So you can use any size tube for casting. For a sierra blank you just don't put as much resin in the mold. It takes me roughly 2.5oz of resin for a colored blank. With a sealed tube it would take much less. A simple "dry" run with the tube setup and water (in place of resin) will tell you how much resin it will take so it'll be less of an experiment. Fred also makes the horizontal tube in molds based on kit dimensions so maybe give him a PM to see what he can do for you.
 
When I am casting blanks without tubes, I almost always cast them vertically using pvc tubes as my molds. Anytime I cast the tubes, I do it horizontally. The reason is that so far I have mostly cast tubes wrapped in snake skins and it is easier to get rid of bubbles if they have a shorter distance to travel to the top of the resin. So I guess for me it would depend upon what I am casting. My advice to anyone getting started is to have the ability to use both methods because you will run into different problems with each.
 
Craftdiggity said:
When I am casting blanks without tubes, I almost always cast them vertically using pvc tubes as my molds. Anytime I cast the tubes, I do it horizontally. The reason is that so far I have mostly cast tubes wrapped in snake skins and it is easier to get rid of bubbles if they have a shorter distance to travel to the top of the resin. So I guess for me it would depend upon what I am casting. My advice to anyone getting started is to have the ability to use both methods because you will run into different problems with each.
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Chris made a really good point there. Vertically there's lots of resin for bubbles to travel through.
 
The bubbles were my largest concern, along with pouring the resin down along the side of the tube and making sure to have full coverage. My plan is to start with Silmar41 since it seems to be preferred for clear applications.

An idea that occured to me was to get the horizontal square mold, then make disposable inserts for each pen tube type that fill out the ends of the mold, letting me cast horizontally, but reduce the amount of resin I use.

I think it would work and let me adjust the length of the casting to whatever size I needed, but it would add a lot of extra effort to each casting and introduce several places for errors to ruin blanks.

For gears and such, Fred's molds look ideal. For doing feathers, which I (translated: my wife) am really interested in, the method in the library that seems solid involves securing the feathers to the plugs to hold them during the casting. That wouldn't work with the specialized molds, so maybe my plot would be a better idea.

I am still trying to sort all of this out, so I would be open to feedback on anything I have said.

If anyone wants to trade peacock feathers for casting stuff, I have a large stock of them.
 
For me the decision on the type of mold depends more on the type of swirling I'm after, and if I'm trying to reduce the amount of resin used.. If I'm after a "Layered" look, I'll go vertical. If I want more swirling, I'll go horizontal.
 
jason_r said:
For me the decision on the type of mold depends more on the type of swirling I'm after, and if I'm trying to reduce the amount of resin used.. If I'm after a "Layered" look, I'll go vertical. If I want more swirling, I'll go horizontal.
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This.

They're totally different methods and get totally different results.

I find pipe casting much easier for solid colors or when going for that kind of swirl. Flat casting is needed when using a Resin Saver mold or other silicone mold.

When casting cloth I use a flat slab mold. When casting my metal leaf I use the pipes.

Get the stuff to do both. You'll find that each has its uses.
 
Unfortunately, both is not at option at this time. I am still getting started on lathe work/pen turning, and with a toddler wandering around, I don't have much extra money to throw at tools (aka toys).

I need to get my act together and work on actively trying to sell some pens, but I really prefer making them to selling them. Giving them away is lots of fun too.

My plan at this point is to start with a gallon of silmar 41 and a 4 slot horizontal mold from ptownstubbie. I am going to try pigmenting with powdercoating powder like a couple people have recommended, since I have a bunch of colors of that.

If I can get the peacock feather casting down, that will hopefully fund my next gallon and additional supplies.
 
Go get yourself a piece of 3/4" Schedule 40 from Home Depot and cut several 5" pieces. Take those and slice lengthwise on one side of the tube. Only one side, do not cut it in half. Take some blue painter's tape and tape off one end as well as running a piece along the lengthwise slice. Viola!!! Now you have vertical molds! And it only costs a couple of bucks.
 
They've bent on you??? Are you using sched 40? I've never had that happen, but I will keep my eyes open for it. You're right though, PVC is so cheap, might as well make newuns.
 
Try this. I ran my PVC pipe through the bandsaw and sliced off a piece the full length which gave me a quarter to 3/8" opening. Put blue painters tape both ends and lay them down to pour. You end up with a 3/4" blank with 1 small flat spot that turns right off. So cut the PCV to the length you need and pour it through the opening you cut full length and your all taken care of. Cheap too. Easy to pour multi color when you have it horizontal and a toothpick, or popcycle stick, is all you need to mix colors
 
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sgimbel said:
Try this. I ran my PVC pipe through the bandsaw and sliced off a piece the full length which gave me a quarter to 3/8" opening. Put blue painters tape both ends and lay them down to pour. You end up with a 3/4" blank with 1 small flat spot that turns right off. So cut the PCV to the length you need and pour it through the opening you cut full length and your all taken care of. Cheap too. Easy to pour multi color when you have it horizontal and a toothpick, or popcycle stick, is all you need to mix colors
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I really like this idea. I think I will try that before buying a mold.
 
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