I second the emotion for lindsay books, have quite a library of their titles. Get Castain's two casting books and the reprinted US Navy foundry manual.
I have a small foundry setup, can melt bronze and brass and have made belt buckles, 3" long anvil paperweights and brass bobeches for a chandelier I built and other similar sized items. Great fun, you could cast the hotter metals easily now that you understand the complexities of mould and pattern making. I started out with pewter, then moved on to brass & bronxe. My source of metal is scrap valves and other plumbing stuff and I usually throw in a handful of copper wire to deepen the color.
My next project is to whittle some patterns for some double and triple barrell lugs because the local supply houses only carry aluminum units. I still have little experience in making cores and cored patterns and the lug project is a good place to start.
I have a friend who recently cast a bronze 11 foot diameter sphere, fabricated of 24 x 30 inch plates that were welded together. As patterns he used rubber stamp technology to produce a prayer for peace in about 22 languages. The whole unit is assembled as a fountain, the sphere will turn by hand. It is a pretty awesome sight to behold, took tons of silicon bronze and a small crew of smoke crazed metal heads.
[This message has been edited by Almost Fried (edited 10-24-2006).]
