Cast aluminium moon-face necklace (Or I decided I wanted a moon pendant at 2 o'clock in the morning and couldn't wait until tomorrow)

After seeing several amazing moon face necklaces online around 2 in the morning, I decided that I couldn't wait until tomorrow to buy one. I also didn't have all the materials needed to make one, so here's what happened:

The initial design was drawn on to a piece of oak approximately 2cm thick. I chose oak because of the close grain which allowed me to carve in some details. There are some better woods (or even waxes)  for this but the aim was to use scraps to make the pendant.

The design was cut out using a hacksaw, set of files and a Stanley knife. Once it had been sanded down I screwed a picture frame hook in to the top of the moon so that it could be suspended above the moulding tray.

 Plaster of Paris isn't necessarily recommended for casting metals! However as I mentioned before my aim was to do everything without buying anything new. It keeps a fairly good shape and is somewhat heat resistant and wont char much after a single use. The ratio of plaster of Paris to water is 2:1, I normally measure out how much powder I'm going to need by packing the moulding tray for measurement.
With fine jewellery casting using any modern methods, the liquid plaster mix is vibrated mechanically to remove any air bubbles to stop them appearing in the mould. Make sure you wait around an hour for the plaster to cool down and properly dry.

The scrap aluminium was heated in a mini crucible using  Mapp gas and a Worthington spiral flame gas torch. There are much more efficient ways of melting aluminium mainly using insulating materials to speed up the process/save gas. However I'm currently experimenting with different materials with thermal retention values before I  construct a sensible mini foundry. 

Whilst molten the impurities in the aluminium were ladled off the surface and the remaining metal was poured into the plaster mould.

The casting was cleaned up using files and a bench grinder and finally buffed using wire wool and a metal wire drill attachment. A small hold was drilled through the top of the crescent so that it can be attached onto a necklace. The face looks a bit scary so I might file his evil brow down a little. I was really limited with the aluminium as to how I could polish it up. I've ran out of silver/gold scrap and didn't fancy melting down my things at the time. I'll buy some scrap for next time though and will probably cast it using wax and the centripetal spinning method.