M3 Castings
 

Just had some new castings in from the Foundry the other day, the Pistol Port doors for the Turret on the M3 Stuart, quite a reasonably complicated pattern. Cheers Andrew.

Andrew, just found this interesting post. I work at a military museum and I have some questions. :)
Are these one-off castings?
If so, how did you find a foundry that would do one-off castings?
What did they cost? (Perhaps a PM if you'd rather not say on here?)
Do you have the original parts? If so, did they use the original parts as a pattern or did they make new patterns? If not, how did they make the patterns?
Are you sending it out for machining? If so, I'm curious what that would cost.

This isn't idle curiousity! I'm often wondered if this was a feasible (i.e. affordable) option for us for unobtainable parts like this.
Thanks, Malcolm

Foundry Man
 

So many Questions! To start with we only pattern off originals and we are lucky enough to have an old school pattern maker. He makes proper patterns that allows for shrinkage, casting numbers etc , and our Foundry man is really supportive of what we do. I have even cast up Lynx Scout car gearboxes, and that uses a very tricky set of patterns. I am fortunate that all our industry is only within 20 minutes of me...and they have'nt sold out to the Chinese yet!
Cheers Andrew.

So you have a retired pattern maker and a friendly local foundry! That explains why this is feasible for you. My guess would be those castings and the machining would be a few thousand dollars here. That's a sweet setup you have.
Malcolm

Our Pattern Maker is full time working from his place, and the foundry guy charges us accordingly , but at least he gets the job done. Our last casting bill was well over $Ten Thousand , so it is not an exercise for the faint of heart!
Our attitude is, what ever it takes.Cheers Andrew.

Malcolm (and others in Ontario), I have used Precise Castings in Elmira Ontario for small lot casting for automation projects at work. They might be able to accommodate hobby level requests.
http://precisecastings.ca/

Russ, looks like they do nice work but they also look expensive!
What does it cost roughly for the work they do for you? Say for a 10 lb casting of moderate complexity in carbon steel.