Foundry

TinkerMill has a foundry! It can use it to cast aluminum using a sand cast mold system. In the near future, it will be able to used to cast bronze using an investment casting system.

Early next spring, 2019, the Foundry will be moving to a larger location in the back bay, on the south side of the welding area.

Over the winter 2018-2019, we will be holding a few planning meetings to design the new foundry area. Please contact us through the foundry slack channel if you are interested in contributing to the design of the new foundry.

Basic foundry certification classes are offered once per month. To be fully certified, the certification class and four independent pours are required. Often these can happen during the certification class. If not, there are always pour times set up at the end of every certification class for this purpose. It is our intention to also begin to offer mold-making classes.

To use the foundry independently, two people present. Both the person pouring and the person who is the safety backup person must have completed the safety certification course.

Presently there is a charge of $5.00 per pour to cover the cost of the gas. This may change with time as we have more time to assess this. We have had a pile of scrap aluminum tubing, bar, and previously cast parts that we make into ingots for classes and practice pours. We cannot supply this aluminum to you for your projects, however. There are a few places where you can purchase scrap aluminum. This one is known and recommended to the foundry shop, Alreco, 11299 Brighton Rd., Henderson, CO 80640, 303.287.7210. I don't find much web presence for them, though they are known to have great recycled aluminum.

Foundry checklist