[mark.a]

does anyone know were i can buy some petrobond.
i live in the uk south east.

[DMF_TomB]

in the USA
BCS - Budget Casting Supply
for small quantities
.
in the UK try telephone book or Internet for foundry suppliers.
.
or try magazine like
Model Engineer
.
often hobby magazines i find are more interest to the advertisers and learning where to buy supplies than in the articles.
.
your problem may not be where to buy so much as who sells in small quantities. often foundry supplies are sold by the ton.

[Rocco85]

See if you can contact the guy who made [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5xQ4xhe_8Q"]YouTube - Coolant flange core insertion, Brian.G[/nomedia], he's in Ireland, he got his petrobond sand from a supplier in the U.K for the unbelievable price of 11 euros for 25 kgs.

[rowbare]

There are a couple of guys from the UK who do casting on MadModder - Index
You might want to check there.

bob

[metalworkz]

Hello,
A google search for petrobond in the UK produced a lot of results and there is the one at the top of the list:

MUTR Teaching Resources - Petrobond Oilbonded Sand - Casting/Moulding Materials

Mindsets (UK) Ltd
Unit 10
The IO Centre
Lea Road
Waltham Cross
Herts EN9 1AS

Tel: 01992 716052
Fax: 01992 719474

There are other places on the google list so you may want to check them out:
Petrobond sand in the UK - Google Search

[adprinter]

After several attempts at mixing my own sand, I finally stumbled on one that worked. I used common sand such as play sand, and sifted it using a window screen. This yielded an almost powder-fine sand (that passed through the window screen). The rest (which did NOT pass through the screen) was discarded. The next step, was more complex because I actually constructed a machine to process the kitty litter with. After much searching for the right kind of kitty litter, I found some which specified "Clumping Action" and bought a 25 lb. bag of the stuff. The machine I constructed, was just a motor with a flat belt drive, which drives a 1" diameter shaft. I installed two more flat belts around this shaft, into which I inserted a 5 gallon plastic bucket which rests cradled between the two belts. At first, I mounted a spring-loaded lever against the bucket with small ball bearings mounted on the end of the lever to tension the two flat belts. This worked fine, for driving the bucket at the full speed of the motor. However, the centrifugal force the full speed caused the kitty litter to simply spin to the outer sides of the bucket and remain there. So I removed the spring-loaded lever, and just allowed the bucket to slip under it's own weight. This slowed things down enough for the rocks I put inside the bucket with the kitty litter to fall with each revolution of the bucket (and therefore CRUSH) the kitty litter into a fine powder, after about 1.5 hours of run time. I then mixed the kitty litter powder with the sand, in approximately 6 parts sand, 4 parts kitty litter. And moistened the mixture, after thouroughly mixing. I tried clumping the sand into a cake, to see if it would be suitable for use as a sand mold. It STILL crumbled. So, I added about a shovel full of charcoal ash to the mix, and again mixed thouroughly. This WORKED! Except for the expense of building the tumbler for crushing the kitty litter (and the expense of the kitty litter itself) this turned out to be a much cheaper option than buying the petrobond stuff. And I have gotten some good results with my aluminum castings using this sand/kitty litter/ash mix. Hope this helps!

[rocketflier]

I found a local dealer in the phone book, 'foundry casting supplies'.

I've also heard of people going to foundries and talking to the foreman and getting some from there.

Receipt No 1 - 4 parts loam sand, 1 or 2 parts sharp sand, 1 part dried horse manure. Wet with medium thick clay wash.

Receipt No 2 - 4 parts molding sand, 5 parts sharp sand, 1-1/2 parts dried horse manure. 1/2 part dried and sifted fire clay, 1/2 part sea coal. Wet with fair clay wash.

Receipt No 3 - 3 parts fire sand, 2 parts molding sand, 1 to 10 parts horse manure. Wet with thick clay wash.

Receipt No 4 - 4 parts fire sand, 1 part molding sand, 1 part dry riddled fire clay, 1 part white pine sawdust. Wet with thin clay wash.

Receipt No 5 - 2 parts loam sand, 2 parts sharp sand, 1 part old burned loam sand. 1 part horse manure. Wet with thin clay wash.
(from Foundry practice: a treatise on moulding and casting in their various details
By James Murray Tate, Melvin Oscar Stone)

[Rocco85]

I didn't think loam casting was used anymore except for specialty stuff like large bronze church bells.

My casting sand consists of the finest builder sand I could find which I ran through a very fine screen, it's mixed about 8:1 with 325 mesh bentonite clay and which I got from a local pottery supply place and just enough water to create a bond, the mixing needs to be very thorough so that each grain of sand has coating of clay.

BTW, I believe bentonite is what's used to make kitty litter.