The Lab's links page

If you have a metalcasting related website you'd like added to this list you can e-mail me to let me know. The links are numbered but the numbering changes as new links are added and defective links are removed.

NOTE TO COMPANIES --- I only add links relevant to this website's content and I rarely add a company link unless I have experience with the product(s) or service(s) provided.

General personal metalcasting websites

1. Doug's Metalcasting Doug has put together a site with some interesting waste oil burner experiments and general metalcasting. Even a section on some nice non-metalcasting related projects. Worth checking out.
2. Melting metal in a microwave oven One of the most bizarre methods of melting metal is using a powersource in most kitchens.
3. DaveTech's personal foundry Once again a fellow metalcaster has built a low cost foundry with stuff that was available locally and the results are very usable!
4. Homemade turbine oil burner This is a clever oil burner design using a homemade turbine to spray the oil into the furnace.
5. Oil fired foundry Here is an interesting page about a unique oil fired foundry and it's construction.
6. Ken's metalmelting site A nice website detailing a couple furnaces and metalcasting project. Worth viewing.
7. Dave's metal shop For those interested in lost foam casting here is a page that details a lot of it. Very easy method of making castings!
8. Dale Hallmarks foundry site Dale has set up a nice website detailing his work building his first foundry. He has also taken it upon himself to host the first (as far as I know) hobbyist metalcasting contest on the internet (in July of 2005).
9. Bob's Metalcasting Bob has designed and built an very nice natural gas burner and makes decorative castings with his CNC foam cutter for the patterns. He is willing to work for hire if you'd like him to make a casting for you.
10. Jason's foundry page Jason has proven that experimentation can lead to beneficial results. He has successfully built his own version of waste oil burner and a simple ball mill for grinding kitty litter (made of bentonite clay) into a powder for foundry usage.
11. Waygat's foundry page Waygat is another popular figure on the Lab's forum and he has also started metalcasting website worth visiting.
12. The Association of Backyard Metalcasters Here is a "group" website that more than welcomes photos, text and other informative contributions from the hobby metalcasting community.
13. Tom's Casting Gallery Here is a metalcasting website with more than just photos, it has video!
14. Martin and Burge's website These guys offer another valuable resource for the low budget metalcasting hobby. This page is worth viewing (gotta give the large pics time to load).
15. Tim's casting pages Tim (a regular poster on the forum) has put together some nice metalcasting pages. He even has an oil burner of his own design!
16. Ron's Pocket change foundry Ron was a machinist for years and has started this site to detail his construction of the Gingery machine series.
17. David Hurns' Metal shop David Hearns is a trained professional from the steel industry and has a site on metalcasting/working and electricity.
18. Frank's Workshop Frank G. has a very nice website detailing his "lost foam" casting. He has also built a large lathe and CNC foam cutting mill for his metalcasting patterns and an oil fired foundry.
19. Duwayne's Place Duwayne has set up his foundry to build a multi purpose machine tool. Its coming a long well and his tilting furnace is clever.
20. The Artful Bodger's foundry work Colin Peck is a British chap who melts iron as easily and most hobby casters melt aluminum. He has set up a website about his waste oil burning foundry which he reguarly (and easily) melts iron with. He also sells an instruction book so you can build a similar foundry yourself.
21. Viking Age Metal-casting This website discusses some of the methods of casting bronze in the "viking age."
22. Smelting iron the old way This website is from a goup of historical reinactors who smelt iron from iron ore using middle ages type equipment and methods.
23. The "heap" This is a website with a ridiculously neat page layout. But most importantly there is information on building foundry equipment like a furnace and related tooling. Other things as well.
24. Richard Spelling's foundry This guy has built a rather large furnace from what look like washtubs and has also built a nice modified Gingery milling machine.
25. Marcus Loignon's foundry and machine shop Marcus uses his foundry and mini machine shop to produce some nice projects. Check out the rotary table he built using lost foam castings!
26. The hermit's machine shop This guy does a variety of metalworking. His foundry is simple and effective.
27. Home die casting This guy has built his own rig to pour gravity die castings (permanent mold castings).
28. Simple foundry page This is a simpls low cost foundry set up by a hobbyiest at low cost.
29. Leatherwood foundry Here's a webpage with a flowerpot furnace converted to run on propane. Nice and simple.
30. Brian Boorman's foundry site This is a high quality website with very clear photos and documentation on the construction of a propane foundry.
31. Bronze casting studio info. This site offers plans for a furnace used to melt bronze and the commercially bought propane torch used to fire it.
32. Ray-vin foundry A lof of bronze casting is done here. Several good pages of project ideas and general foundry information.
33. Foundry Fopars This May well be England's most extensive hobby foundry! He melts cast iron regularly!
34. The Gizmologist's Lair This guy experiments with a wide variety of things. He has set up a very simple charcoal furnce for experimentation.
35. oupower.com Check out this site where a first time furnace builder documents his work from beginning to end, Nice page! Plus there are other projects for you electrical, gravity engine and zero point energy enthusiasts!
36. A simple homemade foundry This metalcaster built a basic furnace mounted on a lawnmower body. He started with charcoal and moves to gaseous fuel. He melts braas and aluminum. Plenty of detail and other information there.
37. Duncan's metalworking pages Duncan Monro started out wanting to merely convert his milling machine to CNC, but he found this site and the "metalcasting addiction" claimed another victim!
38. Bill's home foundry Here is a small website detailing a nicely built backyard foundry. There are some nice photos of castings and patterns as well.
39. Freon tank foundry This is a well organized website about a small propane fueled furnace built in a discarded freon canister.
40. Fun with molten metal A nice site with details and great photos of a furnace built with commercial castable refractory and a cooking pot. There's also a really nice section with photos of the Gingery lathe building process.
41. Quick and dirty foundry The webpage details Ron Thompson's "quick and dirty" foundry put together from some bricks and a turkey fryer apparatus.
42. Dave Sipe's Foundry page Dave Sipe (a.k.a. Old F) is a frequent poster on the Hobbicast e-mail group and he's built a nice site with some interesting info on a mini sand muller built around a plastic 5 gallon bucket. Also learn how to build a hotwire foam cutting contraption!
43. Charoal furnace in freon tank Here is a page with a nice small furnace fueled by charcoal and built into a freon tank and used to cast medallions.
44. Walter Anderson's foundry and machining Walter has built a small foundry and is casting and machining parts for a model engine.
45. Andre's foundry This fellow has put together a webpage with some interesting homemade foundry equipment.
46. Wes's foundry This is another basic webpage with interesting homemade foundry equipment.
47. 5 bears foundry This is a short foundry page detailing the casting of a very small rotor.
48. Lost wax with bronze This is a very short explaination of the lost wax casting procedure using bronze.
49. Harlan's Hideout I visited this website more than anyother back when I was preparing to start my own first foundry in 1998/'99.
50. Dan's workshop foundry These are the foundry pages of dan's workshop.
51. Robert's foundry pages Here is another example of how simple and basic a homemade foundry can be.
52. Pouring metal This is a Dutch metalcasting site in English and Dutch. Very interesting and simple supplies.
53. Practical aluminum casting Here is a site in Dutch and English from a metalcasting in Holland. He has excellent photos toward the bottom of the page.
54. Enigmetallic Here is a website with a very neat layout and detailed descriptions of building a furnace.
55. Casting an automobile engine block These guys have built patterns and cast several aluminum alloy engine blocks to replace the iron blocks for Austin Healy cars.
56. myhomefoundry.com Colin Coucher has put together a lot of useful backyard metalcasting information that may be just what you need.
57. The Shed Terry Brown has a very nice website about metalcasting and machining aluminum on a lathe. Great photos, especially of his furnace and propane burners.
58. Steve Redmond's site Steve is a wooden boat builder (and nice boats they are!) but he's also built a Gingery lathe and a milling attachment for it.
59. Dr. David B. Doman's site This website has photos of a nice Gingery lathe and milling machine. Also take a look at his patented bevel grinder built from aluminum castings! Plus other projects!
60. Brass and gold melting Here is a very interesting website with plenty of great pictures and videoclips of brass and gold melts using a propane burner derived from my "upwind" design.
61. A nice square furnace Here a guy has built a very nice square furnace. Something like this just might work well as a lost wax burnout oven as well.
62. "King of Gingery machines!" This guy has built the Gingery lathe, shaper, milling machine and drill press! Take a look at his foundry and machine shop!
63. Coffee can foundry No doubt the cheapest furnace you can build. And the improved version.
64. White River Foundry This place casts bronze sculptures and such.
65. Bronze casting Here is a web page with some pictures of some very large bronze pours.
66. A nice propane foundry Here is a guy from the UK who has set up a very nice propane foundry and very neat web page for it.
67. A homebuilt cupola Here's a page with pictures of a homebuilt cupola furnace. Pretty nice especially if you plan to build your own.
68. Melting wheel weights This is a fairly detailed page on melting lead to make boat ballasts. I added it 'cause I like the picture of the 4,000 pound mountain of lead ingots!
69. Scott Hite's foundry This guy has built what may be the largest propane fueled foundry every constructed for hobby use!
70. Ron Reil's forge/foundry website This page is somewhat hard to navigate through but there's a huge mount of information on propane burners and blacksmith forges.
71. Rupert Wenig's foundry website The fellow is from Canada and has setup what seems to be a pretty good ironcasting system. He also builds model engines and the Gingery milling machine.
72. Auto Artisans Here is a website detailing a fairly complex looking gas burning foundry. He also details a homemade wood lathe, and the Gingery power hacksaw and slip rolls machines.
73. Rod Mcbeath's site There's a little bit of information here for a quick read.
74. Jan-Eric Nyström's website This guy builds model stem locomotives and has detailed an amazing amount of it. Check out his pages on casting the iron wheels (you'll have to search for the pages though).
75. Cameron Mckeown's foundry site This is aAustralia based website and has pages on a variety of interesting topics, including and iron melting cupola and oil burner.
76. John Bumps foundry pages Here's a little stuff that may be usefull to beginners.
77. Rick's Foundry pages Another site on building a basic furnace. Good information for a beginner.
78. Tom's Astropage This guy is based in Australia and has built the Gingery lathe from bronze and converted a drill press to a mini milling machine with homemade aluminum castings.
79. Handcast Sandcast This guy sells his decorative metalcastings.
80. Al Schoepp's workshop Al is the founder of the hobby foundry web ring. He has a nice well organized website.
81. Mike's home foundry This guy has built a nice gas fired furnace based on the Gingery design.
82. An oil fueled foundry This guy has built a foundry based on a home oil burning heater.
83. Lyle Landstrom's page Here is a page where a motorcycle component is being cast.
84. Dan's workshop A nice website with foundry information (using an electric furnace), electronics (a homemade arc welder) and more.
85. Radnor forge Here's a website with some low cost metalcasting information and more.
86. Homemade diecaster plans Here is a webpage with plans for building a machine to make pressure die castings
87. Various cupolette usage photos Here is a gallery of photos of the building and usage of a cupollete furnace for casting iron.
88. Iron smelting article Here's an article about smelting iron from iron ore with hobbyist quality equipment.
89. Casting iron This page give some details to the ironcasting used to cast early Stanly Bailey Plains with a fifty foot tall cupola.
90. Metalcasting for model railroads This page shows a simple crucible furnace and a photo and bit of information about a homemade cupola.
91. Stewart Marshall's page He has written a book on iron melting cupola furnaces and has photos on his website.
92. A square electric furnace This guy has built a very large electric furnace.
93. Using a commercial furnace Here are some backyard metalcasters using a somewhat large commercially built furnace to melt aluminum. They have a really nice antique ingot mold also.
94. BackyardMetalcasting.com (a.k.a. Lionel's Lab a.k.a. Lionel's Laboratory, a.k.a. The Lab) This site runeth over with original metalcasting ideas and projects. Hundreds of photos. Hey wait... this is MY site!

    Foundry organizations

95. Steel founder's society of America
96. American Metalcasting Consortium This organization is dedicated to improving metalcasting technology and castings for the military and weaponry.
97. The Cast Metals Coalition
98. North American Die Casting Association
99. Texas Cast Metals Association, Inc.
100. California Cast Metals Association
101. American Foudry Society
102. Casting Industry Suppliers Association
103. Foundry Instustry Recycling Starts Today Dedicated to recycling the byproducts of the foundry industry.
104. Foundry Educational Foundration
105. Non-Ferrous Founders Society
106. Cast Metals Institute
107. Foundry Managment and Technology
108. Investment Casting Institute
109. Castings Development center
110. Die Castings Development Center
111. Illinois Cast Metals Association
112. Iron Casting Research Institute
113. Ohio Cast Metals Association
114. Indiana Cast Metals Association

     Personal machining and engine building websites

115. Antiquemachinery.com This site is LOADED with photos and old prints of antique machines. A great source for identifying and restoring antique machine tools.
116. Glen's machine shop If you plan to build engines I think you should check this page out. Excellent photos of engines and parts that Glen designed and built/cast himself. This is what I plan to do with my homemade lathe!
117. Skip's place This is the metalworking section of Skip's place, he has some nice machines, and if you look at his projects section you'll see that he knows how to use them!
118. Jerry Howell's model projects A great page with plenty of pics of model engines and even mini drill presses! Plans and kits are available for sale.

     General metalworking

119. Steve Bedair's projects Steve has a great website detailing some really outstanding projects he's built and machining work he's done.
120. MetalWebNews This is a site with several metalworking topics in the form of "articles" written by individual metal crafts people.
121. A lot of brass This is an interesting website with some plans for a metal shaper and a few other projects.

     Blacksmithing

122. Basic brakedrum forge
123. Another basic brakedrum forge
124. Backyard charcoal making

     Commercial Foundries/Foundry Suppliers

125. TEKCAST Industries Inc. TEKCAST produces spin casting machinery, furnaces and vulcanziers but they also have other foundry supplies (including various alloys) in their catalog. Spin casting may be for you if you need to mass produce items with little to no finishing required.
126. Krueger Pottery This place sell various types of clay in several sizes. If you can't find clay locally this place may be what you need.
127. Contenti jewelry tools This company sells tools and supplies for making jewelry with the foundry process.
128. Miniature molds A supplier of small molds and casting supplies for lead items.
129. Dimetek This company is a supplier of high temperature resistant clothing and other foundry materials.
130. Purity Alloys This place sells a variety of alloys to hobbyists and others.
131. Plough Book Sales This is an Australia based Publishing company that sells books on a multitude of metalworking topics. If you live outside the U.S.A (or even in the U.S.A.) they may be the place for you.
132. Home Signs and Address Plaques Custom manufactured cast aluminum address markers, sundials, weathervanes and more.
133. Lindsay Publications This is a book publisher/seller that specializes in metalworking and "mad science"! Wanna build a Tesla coil? its there. Need plans for a car that's fueled by wood? Yup that too, melt metal, electrical projects, conspiracies, log cabins, All the Gingery books, embalming dead humans (yes really!), homemade engines galore, homemade radios... you get the idea! Order their catalog You won't regret it!
134. Baker Furnaces Inc. If you're rich and don't want to build your own foundry, you can spend a few thousend on one of these rigs.
135. Budget casting supply I ordered parting compound and oil bonded sand from here and the service was very nice and there's a good variety of products.
136. Dy-Kast Here is a supplier of die casting and other foundry and forging equipment.
137. Morganite foundry supplies The Morganite company manufactures foudry supplies such as crucibles and furnaces.
138. Johnson Gas This is another industrial furnace manufacturer.
139. McEnglevan Industrial Furnace Co. This company supplies a variety of industrial furnaces and foundry supplies.

     Foundry Industry

140. Details on aluminum alloys This is a nice page giving specific details (such as strength, usage, and casting charactoristics) about many different aluminum alloys.
141. The copper page Everything you've ever wanted to know about copper but were afraid to ask.
142. Iron metallurgical information Information about iron.
143. Cast iron information Here is a web page with information on the various types of cast iron.

     General Commercial Suppliers

144. Cummins industial tools This is a tool supplier similar to Harbor Freight and Northern tool. Same general items and prices. They often have truck or tent sales around the USA.
145. Wholesale tool company This is a company that sells surplus tools and equipment at wholesale prices. A good variety.
146. Surplus center This is a supplier of various mechanical and some electronic items at good prices.
147. Digital-Calipers.com This is a division of medford tools. They sell a variety or precision high quality metalworking machines and other equipment.
148. McMaster-Carr This place sell almost any piece of metal working or mechanical components you'll need for your projects.
149. Numbered drill bits Here is a source that sells drill bits sizes #1 (.2280) to #80 (.0135) individually. Both U.S.A. made and imports are available. I buy mine from here for making my propane burners.
150. Propane regulators Get the regulators and other parts neccesary to build your propane fired furnace here.
151. More propane regulators Or you can get the regulators to fire your propane fueled furnace here.
152. NorthernTool.com I know first hand that this is a quality retailer of low cost high quality tools ranging from automotive shop to machine shop to welding equipment and everything in between. I suggest the free paper catalog.
153. Harbor freight This is a good supplier of fairly low cost tool in a variety of fields; hydraulics, welding, general metalworking, automotive, etc.