Trying my hand at aluminum casting with a budget backyard foundry.

Well I'm broke as hell, but still have a lot of motorcycle parts needed to finish my bike, so I guess I'll just melt down a bunch of random crap and make it my own damn self.

what I need is hand controls and perches, maybe if everything works out good ill try to make the master cylinder for the front breaks too. This is what I hope to eventually end up with:

But of course nastier and cooler looking and whatnot.

But just to practice for now, I think I'll try to see what I can do for the foot pegs.
looking around at different designs online, it looks like aluminum should be fine for the actual footpeg, but that the part that attatches to the bike needs to be much harder, so I'll likely try to see if I can machine some stainless bung type things, and attach whatever foot peg type casting I end up with.

For now, I'll just see what this is all about by making some aluminum ingots which I can use to melt and cast later. A proof of concept/preparation step.

Here's what I started with:

I mixed up roughly half and half sand, and plaster of paris and added water.

Then I poured the mixture into another bucket, and put a smaller bucket within that, to essentially make a thick walled plaster/sand cup type of shape, and worked it until it hardened enough to leave it for a while.

While it was setting up, I made a little lid with a hole in the top for ventilation, I reinforced it with some stainless scrubbers I bought for pretty cheap. I put some pipe clamp things in it for handles.

This beer is awful. I thought it would be refreshing on a hot day. It wasnt.

Then I made a crucible out of an old propane torch I had laying around. PRETTY RISKY huh? I held it underwater and opened the valves with pliers and a screwdriver, and watched it bubble up, and once there was a little bit of water in there I flipped it upside down so the gas would be up top, and water would be at the bottom, and I gouged a hole in the valves with an awl. then I put it back in the bucket until it was almost full of water, and cut it partially with a hacksaw, yadda yadda yadda. it was fun.

I put soap in the bucket so the bubbles could be lit on fire. just for fun

Drilled a 1 inch hole in the side, pointing down, so if the crucible failed, the metal couldn't leak out, then put in a 1 inch pipe, on the outer end I threaded on an adapter to shove on a pvc pipe, then taped a hairdryer on the end and taped down the "cool" button, because I'm a cool fuckin dude. and cooler air theoretically has more oxygen, because hotter air is less dense ya know what I'm sayin? makes it better for the fire, and the tape holding it on.

This is pre-hairdryer tape:

Then I tossed coal in there and set the damn thing on fire!
Here you can see me turning on the hair dryer. the flame gets smaller and hotter:

After it got nice and hot with the lid on it, I took the lid off and started putting all my cans in it. In Michigan, you can get 10 cents per can at the recycle places. I wonder if I could just buy the motorcycle parts I need with can return money.

I also put in a bunch of aluminum tracks for some slat wall I had left over from doing a woodworking job.

Then I poured it into a mini cupcake tray to make the ingots.

This was the end result:

Now I have some good pure-ish aluminum chunks which I can melt down later and pour into a mold.

After I was done the damn thing broke, so I gotta make another one.

Next video will hopefully be of me using a better foundry and making greensand molds.

Things I learned and will do next time:
I will use a metal bucket, because the plastic one got all melty.
I'll reinforce it with metal mesh like I did the with the lid.
I'll buy a carbon graphite crucible, the one I was using was kinda funky. I think the thin walls made the aluminum start solidifying the second I took it out.
I don't know, anybody have advice? I'm totally winging this whole thing again. 100 percent amateur,