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. Kansas Brass foundry This guy Steve is doing some really great casting work in brass. The first link is to his site showing his foundry equipment (and nice oil burner setup) and the following link is where he sells his brass castings (and they are nice!).
2. Bronze castings by Olivier Duhamel This New Zealand sculptor casts bronze at home using the lost wax / ceramic shell method and provides all the instructions in a well illustrated booklet. This guy is a great artist, real skill here. Possibly the best source for this information on the internet.
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. 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!
5. Waygat's foundry page Waygat is another popular figure on the Lab's forum and he has also started metalcasting website worth visiting.
6. 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.
7. 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!
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Brian Boorman's foundry site This is a high quality website with very clear photos and documentation on the construction of a propane foundry.
12. Ray-vin foundry A lof of bronze casting is done here. Several good pages of project ideas and general foundry information.
13. The Gizmologist's Lair This guy experiments with a wide variety of things. He has set up a very simple charcoal furnce for experimentation.
14. oupower.com Check out this site where a first time furnace builder documents his work from beginning to end. Plus there are other projects for you electrical, gravity engine and zero point energy enthusiasts!
15. 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!
16. 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.
17. Quick and dirty foundry The webpage details Ron Thompson's "quick and dirty" foundry put together from some bricks and a turkey fryer apparatus.
18. 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.
19. 5 bears foundry This is a short foundry page detailing the casting of a very small rotor.
20. Lost wax with bronze This is a very short explaination of the lost wax casting procedure using bronze.
21. Dan's workshop foundry These are the foundry pages of dan's workshop.
22. Pouring metal This is a Dutch metalcasting site in English and Dutch. Very interesting and simple supplies.
23. 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.
24. myhomefoundry.com Colin Coucher has put together a lot of useful backyard metalcasting information that may be just what you need.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. "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!
28. Rupert Wenig's foundry site Rupert is the designer of the "Monster" propane burner and his website details some small steam engines and the Gingery milling machine.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. John Bumps foundry pages Here's a little stuff that may be usefull to beginners.
32. Handcast Sandcast This guy sells his decorative metalcastings.
33. Al Schoepp's workshop Al is the founder of the hobby foundry web ring. He has a nice well organized website.
34. Lyle Landstrom's page Here is a page where a motorcycle component is being cast.
35. Various cupolette usage photos Here is a gallery of photos of the building and usage of a cupollete furnace for casting iron.
36. Iron smelting article Here's an article about smelting iron from iron ore with hobbyist quality equipment.
37. Casting iron This page give some details to the ironcasting used to cast early Stanly Bailey Plains with a fifty foot tall cupola.
38. Metalcasting for model railroads This page shows a simple crucible furnace and a photo and bit of information about a homemade cupola.
39. Stewart Marshall's page He has written a book on iron melting cupola furnaces and has photos on his website.
40. 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.
41. 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

42. Steel founder's society of America
43. American Metalcasting Consortium This organization is dedicated to improving metalcasting technology and castings for the military and weaponry.
44. The Cast Metals Coalition
45. North American Die Casting Association
46. Texas Cast Metals Association, Inc.
47. California Cast Metals Association
48. American Foudry Society
49. Casting Industry Suppliers Association
50. Foundry Instustry Recycling Starts Today Dedicated to recycling the byproducts of the foundry industry.
51. Foundry Educational Foundration
52. Non-Ferrous Founders Society
53. Cast Metals Institute
54. Foundry Managment and Technology
55. Investment Casting Institute
56. Castings Development center
57. Illinois Cast Metals Association
58. Iron Casting Research Institute
59. Ohio Cast Metals Association
60. Indiana Cast Metals Association

    Personal machining and engine building websites

61. Reprinted machinery manuals This guy produces high quality reprints of many hard to find and vintage machine tool manuals.
62. Antiquemachinery.com This site is LOADED with photos and old prints of antique machines. A great source for identifying and restoring antique machine tools.
63. 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!
64. 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

65. Steve Bedair's projects Steve has a great website detailing some really outstanding projects he's built and machining work he's done.
66. MetalWebNews This is a site with several metalworking topics in the form of "articles" written by individual metal crafts people.

    Blacksmithing

67. Basic brakedrum forge
68. Backyard charcoal making

    Commercial Foundries/Foundry Suppliers

69. Fuel oil burner presentation This is a "powerpoint" type of presentation about fuel oil burners from a South African oil refiner. It give a great overview of the technologies. This is a PDF format document.
70. Legend Mine supply This company sell crucibles and other items related to metalcasting and smelting.
71. 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.
72. Contenti jewelry tools This company sells tools and supplies for making jewelry with the foundry process.
73. Miniature molds A supplier of small molds and casting supplies for lead items.
74. Dimetek This company is a supplier of high temperature resistant clothing and other foundry materials.
75. Purity Alloys This place sells a variety of alloys to hobbyists and others.
76. 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.
77. Hi T.E.Q. furnaces Another manufacturer of large industrial furnaces with 200 to 3,000 pound melting capacities.
78. Home Signs and Address Plaques Custom manufactured cast aluminum address markers, sundials, weathervanes and more.
79. 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!
80. 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.
81. Budget casting supply I ordered parting compound and oil bonded sand from here and the service was very nice. There's a good variety of products but the prices are high.
82. Morganite foundry supplies The Morganite company manufactures foudry supplies such as crucibles and furnaces.
83. Johnson Gas This is another industrial furnace manufacturer.
84. McEnglevan Industrial Furnace Co. This company supplies a variety of industrial furnaces and foundry supplies.
85. Independent foundry supply Co. Another foundry products supplier in California.

    Foundry Industry

86. The copper page Everything you've ever wanted to know about copper but were afraid to ask.
87. Iron metallurgical information Information about iron.

    General Commercial Suppliers

88. Parker Metalworking Products This company performs custom modifications to Asian made plasma cutters and tig welders, turning them into high quality, reliable and affordable machines. I have one of their plasma cutters and I like it!
89. OnlineMetals.com If I need to purchase some cold rolled steel or other small quantities of metal I buy it online from this place.
90. Harbor freight This is a good supplier of fairly low cost tool in a variety of fields; hydraulics, welding, general metalworking, automotive, etc.
91. 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.
92. Wholesale tool company This is a company that sells surplus tools and equipment at wholesale prices. A good variety.
93. Surplus center This is a supplier of various mechanical and some electronic items at good prices.
94. Digital-Calipers.com This is a division of medford tools. They sell a variety or precision high quality metalworking machines and other equipment.
95. McMaster-Carr This place sell almost any piece of metal working or mechanical components you'll need for your projects.
96. 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.
97. Propane regulators
98. More propane regulators Or you can get the regulators to fire your propane fueled furnace here.