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Oh, yeah, another way is to make a wax mold of your branding iron, and take it to a foundry for casting.
I've made one myself out of bronze at a local college machine shop that had a forge furnace. The crucible was for brass, bronze, and other copper alloys, I broke up a Coca Cola bottle to melt over the metal so the tin would not fly out as white smoke.
The mold model pattern was made of wood, sanded, polished, and lacquered. The mold was made of red oil sand, and I dusted talcum powder over the model for releasing agent, riddled sand over the pattern, packed it in with a wedge-like wooden mallet, skimmed the top flat, cut a pouring hole, carefully removed the pattern, troweled out some runner sprues, and cut out a liquid metal riser.
A piece of thin welding rod made gas escape holes in the highest areas of the mold cavity out the top of the sand mold. The bottom half of the cope-and-drag mold was made and the two indexed and bolted together. When the forge was fired up, I used a pyrometer to check that the bronze was indeed 2,000 degrees F so that the tin AND the copper were melted - it looks like liquid at 1500 degrees F, but the copper isn't really liquid yet, which is why I put glass over the bronze chunks - the tin will "boil" - oxides smoking out really - you DON'T want to breathe it!
A short sand-and-cinder brick wall is built around the pouring area in case of a spill. I spread an inch of sand over the concrete floor to prevent damage in case of a spill in the pouring area. Extra people can be at the ready with a hoe to push molten metal back toward the center in case of a spill. One or 2 "fire men" should be ready with extinguishers, and a medical kit on hand. The most experienced hand should be appointed as director of the casting operation.
Casted and machined bronze scrap metal is made into chunks small enough to fit into the crucible, as the forge heats up, a powdered "flux" is added. This combines chemically with impurities in the liquid metal and usually falls to the bottom or floats to the top as slag, which is skimmed off before pouring.
A large, special tongs was used to grab the hot crucible out of the forge furnace and place it into the pouring ring. The pouring ring has two long T-handles for two people to pour it into the red oil sand mold while standing 6 feet away for safety. Wear safety face shields, welding jackets, leather boots, welding gloves, and chaps for this, and the college had arm-length asbestos / canvas gloves for using the tongs. Everyone involved should be suited up, no one else should be near. Make sure the pouring ring fits the crucible before starting - too large or too small a ring and you cannot pour the metal!
Let such a casting cool still in the sand mold over night before attempting to remove it, place the un-burned red sand back into the box, clean the cope and drag, then cut the excess metal off your casting. I hope it goes well - sometimes the metal cools before the entire mold cavity is filled (that's a start-over!). Keep pouring until the metal comes most of the way up the return riser hole. You should see smoke coming out of the gas escape holes.
Lots of planning, setting up, and effort, but a fun project, and you can make several castings at one time if your crucible is large enough and you have several cope-and-drag sets. A high school or a college with a bee program and a forge setup could get together with a local beekeeping club and knock out several dozen bronze branding iron heads in whatever time it takes to make the patterns, cope-and-drags, and sand molds, then pour them all in one afternoon when the forge is hot.
A single casting with a dozen brands could be cast as one, then band-sawn apart, so a whole bee club could save a lot of bucks getting it done in one batch. A pine board can have ready-make 3-D letters attached, filled, sanded, and lacquered over, then attached to a piece of high-grade plywood for the model. A whole club could get their county numbers molded in one swoop for very cheap this way.
If you prefer CNC, private message me - I'll give it to my boss to quote you. A local shop may work out better, so ask around.
I've made one myself out of bronze at a local college machine shop that had a forge furnace. The crucible was for brass, bronze, and other copper alloys, I broke up a Coca Cola bottle to melt over the metal so the tin would not fly out as white smoke.
The mold model pattern was made of wood, sanded, polished, and lacquered. The mold was made of red oil sand, and I dusted talcum powder over the model for releasing agent, riddled sand over the pattern, packed it in with a wedge-like wooden mallet, skimmed the top flat, cut a pouring hole, carefully removed the pattern, troweled out some runner sprues, and cut out a liquid metal riser.
A piece of thin welding rod made gas escape holes in the highest areas of the mold cavity out the top of the sand mold. The bottom half of the cope-and-drag mold was made and the two indexed and bolted together. When the forge was fired up, I used a pyrometer to check that the bronze was indeed 2,000 degrees F so that the tin AND the copper were melted - it looks like liquid at 1500 degrees F, but the copper isn't really liquid yet, which is why I put glass over the bronze chunks - the tin will "boil" - oxides smoking out really - you DON'T want to breathe it!
A short sand-and-cinder brick wall is built around the pouring area in case of a spill. I spread an inch of sand over the concrete floor to prevent damage in case of a spill in the pouring area. Extra people can be at the ready with a hoe to push molten metal back toward the center in case of a spill. One or 2 "fire men" should be ready with extinguishers, and a medical kit on hand. The most experienced hand should be appointed as director of the casting operation.
Casted and machined bronze scrap metal is made into chunks small enough to fit into the crucible, as the forge heats up, a powdered "flux" is added. This combines chemically with impurities in the liquid metal and usually falls to the bottom or floats to the top as slag, which is skimmed off before pouring.
A large, special tongs was used to grab the hot crucible out of the forge furnace and place it into the pouring ring. The pouring ring has two long T-handles for two people to pour it into the red oil sand mold while standing 6 feet away for safety. Wear safety face shields, welding jackets, leather boots, welding gloves, and chaps for this, and the college had arm-length asbestos / canvas gloves for using the tongs. Everyone involved should be suited up, no one else should be near. Make sure the pouring ring fits the crucible before starting - too large or too small a ring and you cannot pour the metal!
Let such a casting cool still in the sand mold over night before attempting to remove it, place the un-burned red sand back into the box, clean the cope and drag, then cut the excess metal off your casting. I hope it goes well - sometimes the metal cools before the entire mold cavity is filled (that's a start-over!). Keep pouring until the metal comes most of the way up the return riser hole. You should see smoke coming out of the gas escape holes.
Lots of planning, setting up, and effort, but a fun project, and you can make several castings at one time if your crucible is large enough and you have several cope-and-drag sets. A high school or a college with a bee program and a forge setup could get together with a local beekeeping club and knock out several dozen bronze branding iron heads in whatever time it takes to make the patterns, cope-and-drags, and sand molds, then pour them all in one afternoon when the forge is hot.
A single casting with a dozen brands could be cast as one, then band-sawn apart, so a whole bee club could save a lot of bucks getting it done in one batch. A pine board can have ready-make 3-D letters attached, filled, sanded, and lacquered over, then attached to a piece of high-grade plywood for the model. A whole club could get their county numbers molded in one swoop for very cheap this way.
If you prefer CNC, private message me - I'll give it to my boss to quote you. A local shop may work out better, so ask around.