If you could cast aluminum?

Chris Pierce

Chris Pierce

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Nov 15, 2006
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Well my brother and I went a built a blast furnace a while back with the idea that we'd be able to build things out of aluminum and other easily melted metals. We have built some things, expensive and very specialized machine parts (saving ourselves hundreds of dollars), a "sword" and a beer stein for a friends step son, and a lot of aluminum muffins. Yes, we've mostly turned aluminum scrap (read beer cans) into muffin shapes using a muffin tin.

It may be that our imaginations just need a better work out but we just can't figure out what else we should do with our new-ishly found aluminum casting skills.

So the question I ask you is, what would YOU do if you had the ability to cast aluminum?

Is there a market for sculpted aluminum handles? :)
 
Don't you have deposits on beer cans ?

Here they are ten cents a piece- I'd just cash them in.


As I understand it, beer cans are extruded and not cast, the cast scrap like bbq, lawnmower motors, that sort of thing casts better.



The old marbles knives have aluminum but caps, maybe some repros of those.

There was one maker that did integral cast on handles over blades, but I don't know you you do that and HT



I would make some castings for grinder drive wheels = no problem with them being half hollow
Porosity would be bad, you want them to machine nicely and balance well.



What was it that you cast ?
 
No, porosity has not been bad at all. The ingots that we get are clean and strong. If you cut one in half they are just about prefect. For example, if you take a 1" chisel and a 4lb sledge and wail on the little muffin ingots for a hour or so, you cannot break them. I know because I tried it. We've also used the ingots for driving out busted or frozen pins in heavy equipment, a 12 lb sledge will crack them eventually but it takes a lot of doing. We do know how to pour clean aluminum and cool it correctly :)
Mostly we melt beer cans (I know :( but the aluminum that we end up with is awesome :D ) But I think we melted some old angle and channel as well. My brother has a pile of it on his property a good friend and fellow contractor/hill billy dumped off there.

You reminded me, Jess also cast a really nice sanding wheel for his shop smith. It's about 8 or 10 inches across. Perfectly flat, perfectly balanced. He's got it in his head that he can do anything with one of those wheels that a guy could do with a belt sander. I don't agree, but I haven't seen him use it either.
The first thing that we cast was a specialized nut for a lathe that I broke. It's been working great for a couple of years now.

Yes we have a deposit here in Oregon, but my brother lives across the river in Washington and I did too until recently.



I guess I should say that Jess (big brother) has a real nice shop at home (30x60 I believe) with a good metal lathe, welders, a shop smith hand tools etc etc. SO the sky's the limit.
What would YOU do?

I have considered a home belt sander build from scratch.
 
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Chris Pierce said:
Yes we have a deposit here in Oregon, but my brother lives across the river in Washington and I did too until recently.

I guess I should say that Jess (big brother) has a real nice shop at home (30x60 I believe) with a good metal lathe, welders, a shop smith hand tools etc etc. SO the sky's the limit.
What would YOU do?

I have considered a home belt sander build from scratch.
Click to expand...

A solid six inch wheel blank is thirty five dollarsish, so I"d do some of those for projects I have

If you're using propane, fuel costs have to be reasonable, consider a used oil burner.




I'd keep the good bits of aluminium angle and channel to use it as is, it's expensive stuff new.


I've seen others do a fancy cast slingshot






What kind of flux does it take to deal with all that paint ?
 
I don't have a good way to weld aluminum so it's about useless to me unless I melt it. Flux? Don't need it, don't use it. All you need to do is clean off the slag while it's molten. Anyway, I don't think that beer cans are actually painted any more, there is a lot of slag though.

We did look at using waste oil, but propane was just much easier.

Anyway... so what would you do if you could cast aluminum or brass? Besides wheels.
 
I've had a hankering to make a bronze axe head, a bronze knife, and a bronze sword. Cast them, then work harden the edges.
 
You might want to check out the motorcycle guys. I know my brother was making castings for some old Indians some years ago when he was into that.
 
Dennis Smith, who used to and maybe still does run the knife section of the blacksmith shop at Silver Dollar City in Branson, makes cast aluminum handled knives. He took finished blades, put a bit of heat blocking compound around the guard area and cast the handle. It didn't affect the HT of the blade past the blocking compound. Of course, I'd think you could just clamp a couple big pieces of copper to the blade at the guard and accomplish the same.

I can't find much info about Dennis directly, but I think Ray Johnson and Dennis Mulkey both know him. They might be able to give more info.
 
I would cast guards and but caps in bronze. I would start casting rings and fantasy pieces like dragons.
 
Willie71 said:
I would cast guards and but caps in bronze
Click to expand...

I did that in brass on these 3 knives, looking back I probably could have bought a piece of brass for less, After factoring in the propane to run the forge, The fun factor was high though, Cant put a price on that ;0)

IMG_1206.jpg


IMG_1159.jpg
 
Like The Count said, skulls, all kinds of skulls. Beads, candle holders, paper weights, belt buckles, pendants, etc. I'd love a 3"-ish skull paper weight and a ton of beads. Alien heads would be cool too, hybrid alien skulls.
 
Well ,I can and do cast aluminum.
Belt buckles
Badges and nameplates for motorcycles.
parts for model steam engines .
Sacrificial faceplates for the lathe .
Statues .
Sand castings of all sorts .
What would be really cool is to use the lost wax method to create individual guards and pommels
by molding the wax around the tang and slipping it off ,leaving a perfect impression of the tang ,
etc...
 
Google Rudy Ruana. He was a first gen knifemaker from Montana. His knives are now collectors pieces but he cast his hilts and pommels from aluminum. The photos will give you some ideas.
 
If I could cast aluminum I'd probably make things like tips and lips to go onto sheaths.
 
I've wanted to cast a solid aluminum beer can out of recycled beer cans. Maybe toss it in an ice chest after people have gotten drunk and watch for reactions.
 
I worked in the tooling department of a motorcycle accessory manufacturer and we made our vacuum molds of recycled aluminum literally. we melted down blown motorcycle engines to make our molds. We had to make them so we could pull a vacuum to draw the ABS into the molds..
 
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