[Pricer]

Thanks guy's for the welcome and the advice. I have been thinking about how to put a metal insert into a casting mold to help make the part more durable yet retain the details that casting can offer.

I did get my crawler track shoe in from the 3-D printer to discover I basically drew the part upside down....... LOL. So I made the corrections and will order two tracks in order to make sure they work well together before making the silicon mold.

I am not familiar with any additives to put in the resin to make it stronger. Any direction with that would certainly be appreciated at this stage of it all.

I think I will add metal pins to the silicon mold that can be removed once the part has solidified. This may keep me from having to drill out the holes for the pins I am thinking.

I had even thought about brazing a solid brass wire to 1/8" brass tubing and using the steel pins in the mold to hold them in alignment to set into the mold prior to casting the part.

The double tumbler/dogs sounds like an excellent idea!

I am wondering if that could work on a cast tumbler as well. It would make the part stronger I think but I am not sure. De-lamination of the materials could be possible but if a center hub made from metal could be used in the casing jig/mold I think adding other solid wire structures that extend from the hub outward to the edges of the tumble could be useful if it would work.

I am going to try the idea of the track parts as well as the boom connectors and see where the idea leads me. The biggest fun of all of this to me is in figuring it out. The ends results are fun to see, but I am afraid I would want to begin a new project at that point and in short order too.

Thanks again for all of the responses. I will try to get some pictures posted of some of my projects very soon. I have made various parts for an American HC230, American 11320 and one crawler track side frame for a Manitowoc 21000 as well as some test pieces for experimentation.