Almost forgot!

I almost forgot a step in getting the furnace ready for use. It requires an air source of some sort to be able to crank up the heat necessary to melt metal. The temperature required to melt aluminum and tin or pot metal is relatively low so it shouldn't take much air to do the job. Gingery's book mentions a few methods one of which is to use a hair dryer. Being that I have plans to build a different furnace capable of melting cast iron I decided to try out a larger air source and design a method of controlling how much air is sent to the furnace. Either way a method of connecting an air source is needed and that is where the tuyere comes in. For the furnace this means that a pipe is added through one side of the furnace and into the inner chamber. The pipe will accept a slightly smaller pipe that will be inserted into the tuyere to provide the air. Dave's book calls for a 1 inch diameter thin wall pipe that can be split and opened up a bit to accept a length of the same 1 inch diameter pipe. I bought a few feet each of a thicker walled 1-1/4 o.d pipe and another piece of pipe that was roughly 1-3/8 i.d not perfect but more than adequate.

I located the tuyere roughly 3 inches on center from the bottom to allow for a decent depth of refractory to line the bottom of the can.