Hey Daniel. My wife uses precious metal clay to make stuff. Too expensive to use for your stuff but maybe there's similar for aluminium. What you do is make a shape, sculpt and then burn it with a flame. The clay properties burn away, and the metal component combines and retains the shape. Obviously making your plate out of silver will be over the top but you could maybe investigate whether there's a aluminium clay etc. YouTube has stuff on the precious metal process. The beauty is you can shape this gear and smooth it out and also start again if you stuff up until you're happy.
