Anybody use aluminum cornbread ingot moulds?

[geargnasher]

Went by an antique store in town today and found a variety of nice ironware, along with a whole bunch of the seven-hole ear moulds, several of which were aluminum without the individual kernal demples. One was marked six bucks so I bought it out of curiosity, I need an odd shape to distinguish a certain alloy from all my other ingot moulds. Anyone use the aluminum ones before?

Gear

[aarolar]

Went by an antique store in town today and found a variety of nice ironware, along with a whole bunch of the seven-hole ear moulds, several of which were aluminum without the individual kernal demples. One was marked six bucks so I bought it out of curiosity, I need an odd shape to distinguish a certain alloy from all my other ingot moulds. Anyone use the aluminum ones before?

Gear

Yep no probems so far.

[1Shirt]

No sweat on my end either!
1Shirt!

[VHoward]

My lee ingot mold is aluminum. No problems. I have also been using the small stainless steel condiment cups that are 2.5 fluid ounces in size from Wal Mart. 4 for 97 cents. They cast a 1 and 1/2 Lb ingot.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Condiment-Cups/14964954

[geargnasher]

I have four of Blammer's moulds and several angle-iron moulds I made myself, just wanted another shape. Thanks for the input on the cob moulds, figured I'd better see if anyone had melted any before I tried it.

Gear

[Steel185]

When i smelt it is for several hundred pounds at a time. I'm not sure how many you are doing, so my method may not work for your needs, but I'll tell you anyways. I tried varous size ingot molds, lyman and others but they were so small (1-1.5lbs) that they were difficult to stack and i ended up putting lots in the casting furnace anyways. I tried making my own. Its funny that way, you walk around every where looking at everything decided on if it would make a good ingot mold or not, grocery store, work, in traffic. I found 3inch C-channel steel. the insides are actually curved a bit and its very cheap. I drug out two lengths of 6 feet (12 total) for about $6 at the salvage yard. cut it to length (7-8 inches works for my furnace) you want to shoot for a length that won't overflow your furnace when it melts in. Cut it to length and weld on some angle iron on the ends, to add ends and handles. The bars come out looking great and even "professional" according to my friends, and its cheap. So you can have several lined up for smelting. Yes you will need a welder or a friend that welds, but with a saws-all or chop saw it takes about 3 mins to cut it up and another 5 to weld it. I calculated each inch of lead (if up to the top, or about 7/8s of the way to the top) is about 1 inch=1 lb of lead. so each mold is about 8lbs. cheap, easy, works better than any mold i bought for falling out, and looks good.

Sorry for the awkward angles, not a great photographer.

http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad113/Steel185/Ingot01.jpg

http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad113/Steel185/ingot02.jpg

http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad113/Steel185/ingot03.jpg