cylinder head print?

[arb]

Building the inner molds will be the hard part, especially when taking into account the shrinkage of the casting- other than that, the casting itself will probably be very inexpensive.  The final machining on the other hand, will be quite expensive and that's something you would probably want done in an English-speaking country. 
Brendan

A funny thing happens when you pour a mold - the vast majority of the shrinkage does not happen uniformly as you'd expect. You cast a large funnel shaped spire where you fill the mold. When you pour the melt, you fill that funnel too and cover it with "hot top" - a sort of high temp insulation stuff that hold the heat in for a slower freeze. As it cools, the shrinkage pulls in most if not all the funnel material into the part !! Yes, the inner plugs must take into account about 7% shrinkage (metal dependant), but most is from the cone.

Can you tell I've had a lot of fun casting high tech stuff ?

well, I think this is far beyond my skillset or timeframe, but... I planned on putting a small machine shop in the barn, might as well add a smelter to the list of things to buy/build/have.

I hope if you want precision output you climate control to 72 degrees winter / summer. That is the one biggest mistake new shops make. Otherwise you'll only machine things to China's standards ;-)

My noggin tells me that a beast of a diesel would be a 24 valve V6 tdi alluminum top & bottom all cast as a single piece - with water jackets...
you would have to install the valves with a grippy arm tool from the bottom of each of the cylinder sleeves.

There was a recent SAE paper published on the design of the new Ford PowerStroke... basically they said up front the best design was a straight 6 with 24 valves (like the Cummins) but due to packaging concerns with current vehicles they would go with the V-8 design. You might find it with Google but I suspect its for member of SAE.

[theman53]

Yeah I have casted beryllium copper and aluminum and of coarse lead sinkers lol.
There is tons of shrinkage in everything I have heard of except boron and it will actually grow when cast. I haven't cast boron to know for sure, but that is what I have been told.

[tSoG-84bit]

I hope if you want precision output you climate control to 72 degrees winter / summer. That is the one biggest mistake new shops make. Otherwise you'll only machine things to China's standards ;-)

if it has to be 72, we could have trouble, it'll be easier to insulate the loft, and control temperature, but getting my machineshop up there will be difficult, and i'm pretty sure the load rating isn't capable of heavy equipment.  I'll probably have to settle for finishing a room on the corner of the barn, and insulating/heating/cooling that.

I'm not too worried, thats gonna be a couple years down the road yet. for now, tolerances will be "does the bolt/hose/bracket/etc fit?"

[Rabbit on Roids]

That would be nice, very nice...
  But I think ill have a hard enough time paying for the iron head for now.

 Speaking of which,  what kind of figures do you think we are looking at. 1K, 1500, 2K each?

If all goes well maybe 500 USD per, possibly less if plain jane cast is used.

holy crap, then put me down for 6!

[RadoTD]

holy crap, then put me down for 6!

uhh yeah! I was expecting far more than that so I didn't bother saying anything, but at $500 it sounds far more interesting. Just one for me though

[NintendoKD]

I def want like 2, I think that at this point for more accurate no's we should start an interest thread to get sure footed numbers

[ShoulderMan]

If this happens, and it works, and you can keep the price below $1000, I will take at least 1
  How many heads do you think you would you have to sell to get to that targeted price?
Also wondering, would that be the price of a fresh cast, meaning we the end user would still need to touch up (grind down) all the extra rough casting points, or will it be a, Just add your valve train and bolt it to your block and run it hard kind of head?
 

[arb]

I hope if you want precision output you climate control to 72 degrees winter / summer. That is the one biggest mistake new shops make. Otherwise you'll only machine things to China's standards ;-)

if it has to be 72, we could have trouble, it'll be easier to insulate the loft, and control temperature, but getting my machineshop up there will be difficult, and i'm pretty sure the load rating isn't capable of heavy equipment.  I'll probably have to settle for finishing a room on the corner of the barn, and insulating/heating/cooling that.

I'm not too worried, thats gonna be a couple years down the road yet. for now, tolerances will be "does the bolt/hose/bracket/etc fit?"

If you are going to make precision parts, yeah, 72... if your market is going to be less so, go for it with what you have - I had a business parter who got a contract with Cadillac making bumper brackets in a corner of his warehouse - no a/c but heated in summer. Worked great and he had one machinist punching them out with a small press.

[tSoG-84bit]

If you are going to make precision parts, yeah, 72... if your market is going to be less so, go for it with what you have - I had a business parter who got a contract with Cadillac making bumper brackets in a corner of his warehouse - no a/c but heated in summer. Worked great and he had one machinist punching them out with a small press.

well, shamus is a grinder by trade, but more than capable of running anything but a lathe (he had a bad experience) and he can machine anything I need, up to 5 millions of an inch tolerance, until I get my shop built. I don't plan on marketing anything, unless things are much easier, and cheaper than I expect.  I can do temp/humidity control, but until my wvo genny is built it's not gonna be cheap enough to justify. geothermal heat/cooling, with additional as needed. it doesn't get stupid hot here all that often, and I don't plan on working in a machineshop when it's sunny and 90.

stupid question. am i gonna ruin any of those tight tolerance machining tools with temp fluctuations? it seems like it'd only be important to keep climate controlled while working. Am I wrong?

[arb]

If you are going to make precision parts, yeah, 72... if your market is going to be less so, go for it with what you have - I had a business parter who got a contract with Cadillac making bumper brackets in a corner of his warehouse - no a/c but heated in summer. Worked great and he had one machinist punching them out with a small press.

well, shamus is a grinder by trade, but more than capable of running anything but a lathe (he had a bad experience) and he can machine anything I need, up to 5 millions of an inch tolerance, until I get my shop built. I don't plan on marketing anything, unless things are much easier, and cheaper than I expect.  I can do temp/humidity control, but until my wvo genny is built it's not gonna be cheap enough to justify. geothermal heat/cooling, with additional as needed. it doesn't get stupid hot here all that often, and I don't plan on working in a machineshop when it's sunny and 90.

stupid question. am i gonna ruin any of those tight tolerance machining tools with temp fluctuations? it seems like it'd only be important to keep climate controlled while working. Am I wrong?

Friend, you are correct, you will harm nothing  by working off temp beyond your parts, and then it will only be by some small % of tolerance based upon how far off 72 degrees your machines and stock was. Day to day this is important, but not for every day within a few degrees of standard. :-(