What size & buy vs build for first foundry?

[Fallon]

I’m looking to buy or build a starter foundry.

I have an old brake drum coal forge & have mostly finished a propane forge in an old propane can (fired up nicely with just 2” of Kaowoll, Kast-O-lite is curing & will see if it still runs nicely this weekend I hope). I’ve got a decent bit of Kast-O-Lite 30 & Kaowoll left over. I do a bit of welding as well. I’m well aware of the risks of hot metal, zinc fumes, steam explosions, silica from refractory & insulation & what not. I did some aluminum casting back in high school shop 25 odd years ago.

I’ve got about 600 gallons of crushed aluminum cans I’ve collected over the years. (Perfect for spending a lot on fuel to make lots of dross & an alloy that doesn’t cast well) as well as some other aluminum scrap. I could take them into the scrap yard for cash, but spending money to melt them down & reuse them myself sounds more entertaining. I also have some copper, brass (yay zinc fumes) & bronze I would likely use for stuff at some point after I have a handle on aluminum. I don’t have any plans to tackle iron or steel & their higher temps, but who knows I could get there some day after I get comfortable with easier metals & build a new foundry. Not super likely at this point though.

My initial plans mostly revolve in messing around with melting stuff & making some stock to machine into other components. Later if I’m having fun & what not I’d look at getting setup for casting with all the green sand stuff & other gear.

Questions:

• What size crucible should I be looking at to start with ? 5-6kg crucible? 10-12kg? I always want to go bigger, but am aware that is much slower & costlier to heat, not to mention harder to move that much heavy. I’m envisioning making things vaguely water bottle sized.

Should I be looking at buying or building?

• Buy a cheap foundry off Amazon or what not. Assume it will need some work to seal up the ceramic blanket (I have the Kast-O-Lite, but would there be room?) & a bit of tuning. I’m guessing the starter crucible & implements won’t be great, but enough to get me started & see what I would need it I keep with the hobby long term. It would be cheap enough that I’m not out a lot in $$$ or effort if I don’t stick with the hobby.
  • I can afford to dump $200 on one of the cheap 5 or 10 KG foundries knowing that it might not last too long due to cheap build quality of me just not using it like expected
  • Any recommendations for a cheap store bought one?
• Build a foundry using leftover forge materials.
  • What size crucible should I target to build the forge around? 5-6kg crucible? 10-12kg? I always want to go bigger, but am aware that is much slower & costlier to heat, not to mention harder to move that much heavy
  • Would a beer keg based one be to big for efficient melting on my target use cases?

• With my forge I found & am still finding design flaws because I don’t know what I don’t know. I ended up over engineering a number of things that have no value & not putting enough effort into things I should have. Avoiding this has me some what eyeing up a cheap store bought one to start with.