Thanks to my sister, who is importing an inexpensive but suitable pressure paint tank, I'll soon be able to pressure cast bubble-free plastic parts!
When combined with vacuum de-gassing, pressure casting will help ensure that castings are bubble-free. This is crucial to producing consistent and predictable results, which reduces wasted time and material.
The pressure paint tank was ordered from Harbor Freight, on sale for $79.99. I received an additional $16 discount with a holiday coupon code, bringing the total down to $76.21.
That's a considerable savings there since I was unable to find a pressure paint tank of that capacity for anything less than double that price when shipping was factored in. And naturally, there'd be duty, taxes and brokerage to top it all off.
If I couldn't get a pressure paint tank for what I paid for on Harbor Freight, then I don't think I would have gotten one. I don't think I'd do enough casting to make spending $200+ on a pressure casting set-up worth it.
Is it worth it?
My local sculpture supply retailer sells hobby sized 1-pint kits of casting plastic for around $26 each. Each kit yields roughly 26.6 cubic inches of plastic, so the cost per cubic inch is roughly $1.02.
That's expensive.
Each bad casting could waste anywhere from a few cents' to a few dollars' worth of casting resin, so investing in a pressure tank that takes out the guess work and helps produce consistently good results is worth the investment.
The following pictures illustrate the effectiveness of pressure casting:
It doesn't take a lot of bubbles to ruin a part. And the smaller and more detailed the part, the more crucial bubble removal becomes.
I'll post more on the subject when I am able.
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