I became interested in metal casting with I was  a kid. Camping beside the Tennesse river on a fishing trip back in Alabama.  After the dinner of fried catfish and corn fritters my dad made, he had a beer and I finished my soda. We tossed the cans in the fire and planned our strategy for the next day as the fire slowly burned out.

The next morning as I was getting the fire pit ready to cook breakfast I found blobs of silvery metal.  My first castings!

Fast forward 20 years.

I Live in San Diego now. I am involved with lapidary, which got me started with gem faceting, which got me interested in making rings and pendants to set the faceted gems. That got me to Lost Wax Casting....

My lapidary club hasn't done very much casting mainly becuse the first time they tried to burn the wax from the casting the fumes and smoke filled the shop and everyone had to evacuate.  Since I joined the club, about a year ago,  they have talked about casting silver but mentioned the evacuation so I volunteered to build an exhaust hood over the kiln. I finished it last week.

That made ME the "casting guy" so with all the research on metal casting, I became more and more interested in casting aluminum pulleys. Mainly because I have a metal lathe that requires a special (Costly) motor pulley. Right now I have something rigged together to make it work but nothing substitutes for the proper parts...

Currently I have a furnace kit on order, I should receive it within the next few weeks. I comes with everything EXCEPT the castable refractory, gas tank and regulator.  When I get it and begin construction, I'll start gathering the other things I'll need.

until then I'm reading everything I can.