[modeleng] Re: Another one bites the dust

I don't know about now days, but originally ST used baked sand mould shells
made similar to sand cores instead of copes and drags as is normal.  They
were  formed and then baked much like the hopper/forms Terry and I have used
to weld railroad rails with Thermite®.  This is/was the secret of their
exceptionally smooth castings plus it has an upside in that there are no
loose pieces of sand that can cause blow holes in the castings.  Personally,
I think the present owners have just gotten a bit greedy and trying to get
their investment back too fast.  Lost wax casting would be even more
expensive than the process of using the fused sand shells as I see it.

Jesse

> Since "Investment casting" is such a part of our
> modern technology, "why" couldn't the entire line of
> Stuart-Turner castings be made by this method and sold
> at a price the average modeler can afford?  The price
> of good quality cast Iron has not increased that much
> in the past 30 years has it?  I mean, I bought my
> Stuart V-10 back in about 1973 from Coles' Power
> Models for something like $20.00US.  And with modern
> CNC machining stations, could not the machined kits be
> produced as well?
>
> Al Messer

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