Showerthought: I've been ramming my risers wrong for a decade

I was watching a new guy pour a simple gear blank mold last week, and he just let the metal flow into the riser. I always used to jam the ladle spout right into it, forcing it full. He said his old foreman in Toledo taught him that my way traps gas and causes shrinkage. Sure enough, I tried his method on a repeat job yesterday, and the X-ray came back clean. How many other 'this is how we've always done it' things are actually making our castings worse?

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ivan_perez5mo ago

My buddy in Dayton cracked three patterns before learning their venting trick.

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cameron7245mo ago

Seriously @ivan_perez? Cracking three patterns sounds like a skill issue, not some big secret. People act like venting is rocket science. It's just letting air out so stuff doesn't pop. Your buddy probably just needed to slow down and pay attention.

3