True cast is very porous depending on how an what its cast with, but it's that mix of metals that makes it more difficult, there's magnesium, zinc, iron, silicon and a whole list of stuff that's cast with aluminum to make it more structurally sound because for car engines to airplanes aluminum alone just isn't strong enough, not to mention melting points. Knowing what its cast with and how much is good to know, I learned that the first time I tried to weld an alloy wheel with a high magnesium content, you'd have thought I took a torch to it.
Cleanliness is crucial, we always vatted ours in reducer and a one over with wax and grease remover, all that after an 80 grit rol-loc disc on a die grinder to prep the area.
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I've got 24 of the 96 ct lm561c diode strips over half a 4x8 and I'm falling in love with them and its probably the cheapest light I've built along side the eb gen 2's but trust me 600w of these knockoff ebay lm561c strips kick the hell outta the eb gen 2's ass. And I know 600w vs 600w and the eb strips are supposedly more efficient than these ebay strips but I have my doughts. Maybe it's because the bridgelux are all 3500k and the knockoff sammies are 16:8, 16-2700k, 8-6500k. And I'm a bridglux fan. Samsung too, I'm not biased, I like em all.
