[General] Cheers from C7 space in Atlanta

[ryan martin]

As for our foundry:

We have a Johnson Gas 900SS (
http://www.johnsongas.com/industrial/manuals/pdfs/900SSDirectSparkUVSafety.pdf)
with 2 control boxes. One uses LP gas, the other uses natural gas.

This includes having 6 different crucibles in various sizes, up to and
including a gallon. We also scored the tongs, casting boxes (dozens of..),
and other steel implements for dealing with red hot graphite and liquid
metal.

We've been working with various techniques for making molds.  We started
with making our own green sand and pressing patterns, then upgraded to
petrobond (http://www.budgetcastingsupply.com/Jupiter_Blend_Foundry_Sand.php)
and are pretty happy with it.

We have also been playing with lost wax and lost foam casting.
The surprising secret to lost foam seems to be dipping the foam pieces into
drywall texturizer before casting. This stuff hardens into a thin shell of
limestone which has been giving us some pretty spectacular results. We've
also tried casting foam that is painted with wax to create a smoother
texture, which worked out but needs more testing.

We are eager to try investment casting ABS parts from a 3d printer, if
possible. We don't have access to a printer so we're on hold on that little
experiment.

Our entire foundry operation is mounted onto carts and is mobile, so we hope
to be able to take this little operation on the road sometime.

Another neat tool we've been using is a wood block with a steel plate
attached as a bit in a palm nailer. This is our ghetto-rigged attempt to
create an alternative to a pneumatic shake/jolt machine.

Lots of pics on the FB page of our tools and tests.

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 12:54 AM, ryan martin <ryan.jason.martin at gmail.com>wrote:

> Ooops, I forgot the goods!  We have a facebook group here (
> http://www.facebook.com/c7atlanta) with tons of pictures. Take a look.
>
> One of our operating principles is to provide semi-daily meals for members.
> We announce what/when on the FB group. It's been pretty interesting trying
> to feed our entire membership as part of our space, and our croc pots have
> become pretty sophisticated.  It's definitely one of the biggest draws from
> the folks that operate out of the commercial space we are in.
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 12:12 AM, strages <strages at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> First off, congrats on starting a new hackerspace!  Despite the
>> growing numbers, there just aren't enough in the world yet.  I'm
>> interested to hear more about your sand casting station and the hot
>> air balloons!  We just moved into a new space that's about ~1000sqft
>> more than the one you visited us in.  We're still working to get it
>> back into a usable configuration, but making good progress.  We'll
>> likely do an open house style event when it's done, which you're all
>> welcome to.  July 2nd we're doing our annual Retro Gaming & Computing
>> Night which you're also welcome to attend.  We'll certainly do our
>> best to be hospitable .
>>
>> Raymond
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 10:52 PM, ryan martin
>> <ryan.jason.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Howdy Makers!
>> > My name is Ryan and I came through Makers Local 256 some year and a half
>> > ago. I was with Freddy, Justin, and Bethany and we where at the time
>> > travelling and speaking about the Pirate Party. Freddy and Justin spent
>> some
>> > time hanging the sign at the old space, and in general we still speak of
>> > your community there as being one of the most open and awesome spaces we
>> > ever saw.
>> > After nearly a year travelling we decided we wanted to plant roots and
>> start
>> > a space up on our own. We discovered during the tour that most
>> hackerspaces
>> > aren't as politically interested as we are as individuals, so we decided
>> the
>> > best bet was to start a new space around us rather than try to join an
>> > existing space. We scraped and recruited and found enough members for a
>> > pretty good sized space in Atlanta.
>> > We've been in our space a year now and we really want to 'step up our
>> game'
>> > a bit. We have talked about it and we are looking for a sister space to
>> work
>> > with. We'd like to find a space that would like to do some
>> > remote conferencing with us; to let us remotely participate in talks and
>> > classes, and maybe even to do the same back.
>> > We have an operational foundry and sand casting station, about 200
>> > firebricks, 2 hot air balloons, and about 14 members. The trip between
>> the
>> > spaces is only about 3 hours long, so it's totally reasonable that
>> sometimes
>> > we might even be able to bring most of our membership that-a-ways for
>> > events.
>> > Either way, there is a bit of an update to anyone who wondered what
>> happened
>> > to 'those pirate guys'. Hope to hear back sometime :)
>> > Ryan Martin
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > General mailing list
>> > General at lists.makerslocal.org
>> > http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general
>> >
>>
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