An unfinished cast ANRI set


Haha, definitely a fun place to work. There are trades of all sorts there, we can make almost anything! I hope to start finishing these ones soon.

Haha, definitely a fun place to work. There are trades of all sorts there, we can make almost anything! I hope to start finishing these ones soon.
Can you guys cast in aluminium (or ‘aluminum’), in small batches – for say, I don’t know, chess sets…?

Not sure if their crucible is powerful enough to melt Aluminum/Aluminium. It may be, but that metal (however you say it) is an incredibly powerful heat sink, thus it's difficult to heat it up. They typically do brass/bronze. But now I'm curious and will check.
I've been debating creating my own set on the lathe.

Not sure if their crucible is powerful enough to melt Aluminum/Aluminium.
Aluminum has a much lower melting point than brass, so anything that can do brass should be able to do Aluminum. The YouTuber King of Random sand casts Aluminum in a home crucible. Aluminum is such a light metal, though, that unless the chess set was weighted, it would probably tip over easily.
I had almost forgotten about this set. The foundry at work will often cast them for gifts for retirements and I managed to get my hands on an ANRI ES Lowe Renaissance set cast in yellow brass and bronze. They're sand cast so they are full of imperfections, but the uniqueness of the set made it appealing to me. The foundry will typically enamel the yellow brass set as white, and the bronze set as black, and then grind back to clean metal around the bases for an accent colour. I typically provide the board for the retirement sets. This set is a monster for weight, the kings weigh a whopping 500 grams apiece!
I haven't gotten around to painting the set and felting the bases. (A few of the pieces need some serious base correction to level them and they all need touch up sanding/filing) but I'm thinking I'll follow the norm of the foundry and enamel them black and white, perhaps with green accents on the white pieces and red on the black. Though I don't know if they'll see much play at this point, I fear that dropping a piece would result in a damaged table or floor, or worse a broken toe! But perhaps when the kids are older they could see some action.


