The Furnace

Believe it or not, when the center of this thing is glowing orange, you can still touch the legs with your bare hands.

So far, just a picture of the outside of the furnace, and a shot or two of the first attempted ingot pour.

I made the first mould for the ingots out of plaster of paris. I did not realize at the time, but at temperatures of 1300 degrees, when aluminum melts, all the water that you mix with the plaster to make it set comes right back out again. It made the aluminum look like it was boiling. Plus, it make it ugly when it cooled.

When I made the mould, I put a little face at the bottom to see how well the detail would come out. Except for the plaster bubbling like crazy, you can still see the impressions for the top half of his face (I just poked it with a pen to draw).

I cut this ingot in half, just to see if there were any bubbles in the aluminum. Not so far.

Here are a couple of pictures looking down into the furnace through the vent hole in the top.

With the flash.

Without the flash. I always love how everything else dissapears.

Another, showing the tube a little further on, having almost completely melted.

I still as yet have not cast anything useful, just a couple of ingots in a muffin tray. Hopefully that will be remedied soon.