Kick Ass 51 Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Where is the go to place for casting a bulb at a reasonable price now Mike Rees castings has sold up? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tmouse 3 Posted January 21, 2021 Share Posted January 21, 2021 Kawerau Engineering Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kick Ass 51 Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 Kawerau only do TP52 bulbs or bigger... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TCat 3 Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 Mike is now at Skellerns engineering - ask for Arthur. They did my new one a couple of months back. I also found an option in Tauranga that looked very good - but being auckland based we used Skellerns. Let me know if you need the Tauranga company and i will look it up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kick Ass 51 Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 5 hours ago, TCat said: Mike is now at Skellerns engineering - ask for Arthur. They did my new one a couple of months back. I also found an option in Tauranga that looked very good - but being auckland based we used Skellerns. Let me know if you need the Tauranga company and i will look it up. Yes, have emailed them but no reply. May call them Monday. Were they priced ok? Greg Elliott said they are now eye watering expensive to what they used to charge. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ex Machina 390 Posted January 22, 2021 Share Posted January 22, 2021 9 hours ago, Kick Ass said: Yes, have emailed them but no reply. May call them Monday. Were they priced ok? Greg Elliott said they are now eye watering expensive to what they used to charge. A boat at our club just got a bulb done at skellerns . $5.50 per kg if you supply lead or $10.50 kg if they supply lead Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kick Ass 51 Posted January 22, 2021 Author Share Posted January 22, 2021 4 hours ago, 44forty said: A boat at our club just got a bulb done at skellerns . $5.50 per kg if you supply lead or $10.50 kg if they supply lead Well that is a big hand brake then, $7500 to re cast lead..... Last Bulb we did must have been about $1.50 per kg when supplying lead. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Steve Pope 255 Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 you can always do it yourself, lots of folk did their own back in the day. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TCat 3 Posted January 23, 2021 Share Posted January 23, 2021 My understanding is the price has increased quite significantly - there are health and safely issues working with lead so that may be part of it - as well as general supply and demand. The tauranga option was cheaper from memory but then you have to factor in transport. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Quattro 15 Posted January 24, 2021 Share Posted January 24, 2021 There's a spare keel somewhere near Billy Goat Point if your keen Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kick Ass 51 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 On 23/01/2021 at 3:43 PM, Steve Pope said: you can always do it yourself, lots of folk did their own back in the day. Would be keen on this if I could get my hands on some gear to handle 1300-1400 kg of lead Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kick Ass 51 Posted January 24, 2021 Author Share Posted January 24, 2021 On 23/01/2021 at 6:02 PM, TCat said: My understanding is the price has increased quite significantly - there are health and safely issues working with lead so that may be part of it - as well as general supply and demand. The tauranga option was cheaper from memory but then you have to factor in transport. A trip to Tauranga to pickup wouldn't be an issue if the price was right. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Frank 185 Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 On 24/01/2021 at 7:35 PM, Kick Ass said: A trip to Tauranga to pickup wouldn't be an issue if the price was right. 1.3 Tonnes is not that heavy you should be able to move that with a half decent trailer and your mates ute. A few years back I had a 1000 kg keel cast to replace an old concrete and steel punchings one which was useless but weighed the same when out of the water. I took the old one to the tip with my dodgy garden trailer and a 1300 cc car with no problem. later I considered casting a Carpenter 29 keel myself but after hearing all the horror stories of DIY casting gone wrong I paid Terry Bailey to cast it. Yes it was expensive (even then) but it was worth it. For DIY I was told to use an old steel or cast iron bath tub to hold the lead and just firewood underneath for heat. The plug trim was to be removed and replaced with an all metal valve of some sort. Any plastic or solder in the assembly would melt with possibly disastrous results .There should be a steel pipe leading to the mould. The C29 mould was made of reinforced plaster (like plaster of paris) and I was told to bury it in a slit trench with lots of sand packed around it and two coats of house paint on the outside as a moisture barrier. Any moisture in the mould results in some sort of steam eruption, .... not good !. If you are using a steel mould it must be preheated or it will buckle but it does not need to be buried. To make a plaster mould you first need to make a wooden plug. I'm sure these days there are lots of you Tube videos on this but my mate tried to cast a 3000 kg keel in an old bath tub where unbeknown to him the plug trim was soldered in. When the lead melted the trim came free and floated to the top, resulting in all the lead roaring off into the farmers paddock mixing with grass and cow sh*t. Two weeks of chopping it up with an axe and a chain saw and they had another go and all was well. The owner of the outfit that cast my 1000 kg keel said guys used to turn up with a trailer load of chopped lead mixed with grass, cowshit, gravel and/or dirt , saying "please can you cast my keel" Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Frank 185 Posted January 25, 2021 Share Posted January 25, 2021 You also need to have a decent butane torch and some unmelted lead to use as the lead cools. This is due to shrinkage causing a cavity at the top, you keep that bit ,melted with the torch and fill it with the remaining lead until you have a level top surface. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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