One of my bronze chariot planes

[george wilson]

I cast several of these planes years ago when I had an out door casting outfit that I made.

Now I cannot find a decent picture,and for some reason cannot delete this post. So,I'm stuck with this picture.

The engraving was done with the hammer and chisel method,but the reflected light makes it difficult to see it.

The casting was made of 90% old copper pipe fittings,and 10% pure tin. The wedge is rosewood.

The front sole of these type planes is always steel,attached with 2 steel screws,as seen. It helped to make the mouth very small.

[Brian Holcombe]

That is incredibly gorgeous.

[george wilson]

Thank's Brian. I reported my own post,asking it be deleted. I did not see how bad the picture was until it got enlarged. What happened to the "delete" function?

[Judson Green]

Nice work, George!

What's the size of it?

[Steve Voigt]

Very nice George! I'd love to know more about how you did the casting.

[Mike Henderson]

Wow, that's beautiful, George. You are a master.

Mike

[george wilson]

The casting was done from a wooden pattern I made. I used Petrobond sand. It relies upon a little motor oil instead of water to hold it together. It is much easier than
green",or water based casting sand,and is pretty fine in texture. It makes a little smoke when hot metal is poured into it,but that is not a problem especially when used out doors.

I got tired of trying to work out doors,and after a few Summers stopped casting. While I still have my shop made casting flasks,sand,and other tools,I left the furnace when I moved years ago.

The furnace was made by taking a 5 gallon container,and making a tapered plug that looked like a bucket for the inner form. I bought rather expensive high temp refactory clay and poured it into the space between the form and the 5 gallon can. The heat was gas. I even managed to get enough heat to melt cast iron,but only as an experiment. It's a bother to break up small engines to get iron for making castings.

[David Weaver]

I sure hope the original post doesn't get deleted. We'll take whatever picture we can get.

[george wilson]

Looks like it's too late to delete it now.

[Jim Matthews]

Exquisite work.

Care to guess how many hours invested
in the engraving, alone?

Kudos

[Kent A Bathurst]

George -

You slay me. Seriously.

Every so often, you just pick out any-old amazing thing you have done, out of what must thousands, and drop them on us so casually......... Almost like a shrug and - "Oh yeah - there was also this one."

Keep 'em coming, Kemo Sabe.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Now that is incredible. I really need to learn to engrave metal.

[george wilson]

I only have a few hours in the engraving,IIRC. But now it would take me 3 years.

[Mel Fulks]

A guy who could make that would have no trouble carving a couple of horses ,a Roman charioteer ,...then making a stop
motion Ben Hur film!

[Jim Koepke]

Wow!

Wow!

jtk

Had to say wow twice to have enough letters to post.