I'm looking to build a foundry for casting aluminum. As it will be my first attempt at any form of metalworking, please can I have some feedback on the design I'm going to use?

http://a360.co/2rVRQyT. I will be using grade 23 insulation fire brick.

what are the pros and cons of such as a design?

 

casting is not something for a beginner, get some training from experienced people first before you have an accident.

get the right safety gear.

what do you want to make?

never rely on you tube, 99% of stuff on there is dumb and a lot of it is dangerous and dumb

there are some on there who seem to want people to get an award, are you sure you want to be the next darwin award winner

13 minutes ago, frazzgrun said:

As it will be my first attempt at any form of metalworking

Before you go out and get materials for the build, buy the personal protective equipment that is needed. If you can not afford the PPE then do not even consider starting the project. Have you formulated or researched a plan B in case anything might go wrong? 

What is the source for the aluminum you want to melt? You do know that some of the aluminum you can find IS NOT suitable for you purpose. If not find out which ones they are,  how to tell the difference, and how to avoid them.

There are many foundry designs. Which design is best for what you want to do? What type crucial did you decide to use, and why? There are a bunch of questions you need to answer and a lot of reading to do before you start getting things hot. 

There are good foundry and casting books available through the public library, ILL them if necessary. If you're going to teach yourself casting using Youtube and other internet sources without having a decent basic knowledge first you need to start with casting wax. Molten metal is ALWAYS dangerous, a couple lbs. of molten aluminum, say a coffee mug size crucible can put you in the hospital for weeks, therapy for months+, scar you for life, cripple even kill you.  

This is not a craft to start out learning by drawing pictures of equipment you don't know anything about. The drawing is kind of fun to play with in 3D but is so flawed as to be a non-starter.

I took casting in high school metal shop classes many times and the instructor wouldn't even look at my drawings for a melter. I took more drafting classes than metal shop classes so my drawings were blue print quality. AND I'd been using metal melters since starting jr. high, knew how to use the and helped reline one after an idiot student tried melting something he shouldn't have.

Please, take some casting classes, it's just too dangerous to wing it.

Frosty The Lucky.

I'm no expert, but there are quite a few details you need to address - like a lid for your design. What size exhaust vent in the lid? How will the lid be set up to open/remove to get the crucible out? What size burner will fire it? What fuel? How resilient the 2300 degree soft fire brick will be? What you back the brick with? Is soft fire brick the best way to go? Size of crucible you'll be using? What will you be casting? How big will the castings be? Sand or investment? The list goes on through basic metallurgy, safety equipment, environments, etc. Research and research and take a class or two or three from experienced foundry operators. Bottom line - stay safe.

Sorry that link didn't seem to be usable on my system running KUBUNTU, is it a windows only tool?

Anyway may I commend to your attention alloyavenue.com which is a series of forums specifically about casting---(used to be BackyardMetalCasting.com).  While we do include some foundry expertise, most of us are blacksmiths and not casters.