Lionel Oliver has put together a great resource for this kind of thing for others who are interested [1]. When I was in high school I built a foundry (basically

Lionel Oliver has put together a great resource for this kind of thing for others who are interested [1]. When I was in high school I built a foundry (basically a stack of bricks with a draft hole and a place to put a small cast iron pot). I used it to melt aluminum and make castings in sand, and it was tons of fun. Looking back, I had no concept of safety at all but amazingly I didn't burn down our chicken coop, which is where it was built. The fuel I used to melt the aluminum was leftover lumber from our house remodel that I cut into cubes, and I had an old double squirrel cage blower set up to provide the draft. 1. backyardmetalcasting.com