For my metal lathe I built a nice oak table for it, with four drawers. You guessed it, I have to cast handles for 'em. 'Cuz, with all this foundry here, why would I waste money? I only have a buck on me anyway...
Yeah, I could do this in aluminum, but what's the fun in that? Thought I'd try some bronze for once... And no the furnace isn't yellow/white hot inside, that's the camera. It's only yellow, around 2,100°F tops. The firebrick on the mold is to prevent splashing in case I go a little too far.
About a half hour or so after starting, it's a liquid pool. Don't know if you'll be able to spot it, but there's a line where the flat metal pool ends and turns into the sloping end of the hearth. A pretty small melt, maybe 3 pounds, equivalent to 1 pound aluminum.
Gamma correction cranked, you can see my hand holding the lid open for the shot...
The mess after pouring. It splashed a bit(!) and I let out an enthusiastic WOOO!!!, heheh... Melted plenty, and little doubt in my mind that it didn't fill.
Forgot a pic after shakeout so here's the product afterwards. Shakeout wasn't much anyway, the sand was pretty sticky and needed a good wirebrushing to clean things up. Then I chopped the handles off the gates (boy, that really sucks with a hacksaw blade as dull as mine!) and filed the heck out of one, as you can see. Looks pretty good! I think there was some steam in the sand though, I got some bumps in around the gates. Probably plenty of gas in the metal too, there was a hole in the middle of the gate to the unfinished handle, which also didn't completely fill in one end.