Aluminum Foundry

[Josh Hess]

Since I was 14, I wanted to build a foundry and cast my own parts. It was the cheapest and most viable way for me to make metal parts. I recently just put together a very simple and inexpensive foundry from bricks around my yard and a propane weed burner. It works surprisingly well and I have been able to melt down a lot of scrap I had laying around.

Initially, I used soup cans as the crucible. I understand this is not ideal, but they worked for two pours each before breaking down and they were also free. I then switched over to a steel fire extinguisher that I had made into a crucible a few years ago in preparation for a foundry. This has worked very well and I should be able to get about 20 pours out of it. I am going to pick up a nice graphite ceramic one from Amazon eventually, but this seems to work alright for now.

Here are some pictures of the setup:

Here is a video of me pouring from the exstiguisher:

youtu.be/w6ki9nGptTU

That's it for now. I will be making greensand and casting some cool parts next!