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Trying to assist a jukebox friend. He is trying to get this potmetal part fabricated or cast. I believe there have been some discussion on who does this these days. Looks fairly simple. Thanks Todd

Trying to up load a picture but on my wife's computer and cannot figure it out just now. The flat piece is about three inches by six inches.

Might want to try

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwFspzVGUF4

Depends on the cost
Good Luck
W

Problem with the 3D printing is someone will need to scan or draw a cad program of the piece that can then be converted into a numerical program to drive the laser printer. Not cheap for the draftsman's time and unless you are going to do a run of more than one or two pieces most places don't want to talk to you because it is not worth their time.

Another issue is not a lot of places seem to want to mess with pot metal. You can find aluminum casting but there are restrictions in the type mold and want you to have a mold made to strict specifications to fit their equipment. Also most of the casting places prefer to work in some bronze alloy. The best bet for finding someone willing to do a one or two off casting -- maybe in pot metal -- would be foundries that work with sculptors. Perhaps an art school would have some names or some advertise in various places.

Depending on the shape of the piece you want to cast it can get involved. For just a flat piece you might be able to get by with a sand mold and make a new mold each time -- unless there are some undercuts in which case it might need to go to an investment process and lost wax.

When I did my knobs and AC vent for the 47 I looked into the commercial options and found none I could use for the reasons stated above. Finally put together a Rube Goldberg setup in the garage that would make Goldberg himself proud and was fairly successful. Looking back it was not the safest endeavor or something I would want to do on a full time basis but the results were presentable.

Fortunately for the pieces I was making accurate size was not a big issue but there is shrinkage involved. For your friends piece if he is doing casting and needs a copy to be perfectly sized a wooden or other type copy would need to be made oversize so that by the time the process was complete the shrinkage at each step would be taken into account. Materials shrink differently so a mold perfectly sized for pot metal might not be accurate for aluminum or bronze.

Because of the shape of the vent and knobs I had to do the lost wax process which meant making a mold of the original using silicone, then use casting wax in that mold to make a copy of the needed piece. After that copy was ready then used investment plaster to make another mold over the wax, Pour spots and air entrapment also needs to be taken into consideration and planned for. When that mold is ready the wax is burned out. I used an old toaster oven which barely got hot enough to burn the wax out and then poured the pot metal alloy into that hot plaster mold. Used a melting pot designed for making lead bullets for the pot metal and that too was just barely hot enough. Like I said, Rube Goldberg to the Nth degree.

There is a place in Oregon that will do bronze casting using your wax but IIRC, their minimum is 3 pieces. Joe had some 42 AC vents made in bronze using waxes I did for him. Even that is problematic because the waxes are very vulnerable when you try to ship them. First batch arrived broken and second batch was exposed to heat and deformed somewhat but the foundry was able to straighten and use them. In the commercial foundries the wax is coated with a many layered ceramic substance and then placed in a high temp oven to burn the wax and harden the ceramic. Metal is poured directly into the ceramic.

You'll probably have better luck finding a replacement. There's jukebox restoration places, not this forum.

Thanks all for the replies, passed along to friend. Unfortunately it is a very rare one year only Mills jukebox from the 1930's, have tried all the usual places.
Thanks again.