ATTENTION! The operation of a small foundry is inherently dangerous and potentially life threatening. The information on this site is to document what I have done. I am not an expert in this area. In the process are temperatures involved exceeding 700° C. If a crucible breaks, is dropped or tipped over, a flood of liquid metal can be flowing over your feet. And chances are real that you end up in a wheel chair. Even if your not straight attacked by a gulf of liquid metal, the metal will create steam when in contact with the floor in a explosive manner so that you will be hit by drops of metal flying around in the air. (that's what the gloves, leather apron and face protection shield are for)

If you still insist in melting metal don't do anything in a rush and rethink and rehearse every move you are going to make. Rehearse your first sessions an make sure everything is standing stable (the oven, the crucible as well as the other tools involved) Be sure to work in a tidy and cleaned place with no rubbish lying around (metal is heavy and you easily tumble or slip over something). Make sure there's enough room to maneuver with the tongs and the hot crucible from the oven to the mould and ingot mould Make sure all things and tools that will be in contact with the hot metal are dry. Make sure there is no water or flammable liquids in your neighborhood. Make sure there is someone to call the ambulance in case of something going wrong.

I don't want you to blame me for any crap you pull or limbs you lose, and I don't want your family to blame me or anyone if you die. Do not attempt to replicate any of these procedures unless you are willing to accept the inherent RISK.

The above is a collection of warnings found on various foundry sites and in my experience they are found to be very true.

On this photo you can see how the pattern was made for the frontpanel of an audio-amplifier.

A thin panel (3 mm) perspex was glued on an MDF-carrierpanel with bison-kit (contact-glue).

In this perspex toplayer the letterparts are milled with a CNC-mill. The perspex parts can be removed very easy with a sharp woodchisel or screwdriver. Then the parts are glued to the front-panel with ten-seconds-glue.

Before the above amplifier-frontpanel is casted there was a tryout. The testpattern was made in the same way as described above.

The first pour was made in an temperary oven. The oven was made from heatresistand pannels. These are ment to put around steelstructures in buildings to offer protection for an hour in case of fire. The panels were screwed together with ordinary metalscrews. In the inside the corners were chamfered for a few centimers. After four sessions the oven began to desintegrate. So there were only a few ingots and the prototype born form this oven.