Go to a local machine shop, tool and die shop, welder shop and pay upfront. They have drops of fresh stock metal and sometimes they have dead stock.

I built a few of these with cement shoes, and I started doing it when someone insisted to buy the one I used at the time. Its not a business, its more likely a conversation topic.

If you weld this is a must, but I also cast aluminum and do other perilous stuff that's hot and or noisy.