Furnace Lid

To convert the 10 gallon can into a working furnace I needed to line it with a refractory mix to be able to withstand the heat required to melt the metal. There are very good, higher temperature resistant refractory mixes available (at a cost), but the Gingery furnace is intended for the lower temperature requirements of melting scrap aluminum and tin so I decided to stick to the book and line my furnace with the mix he describes in his book. It is very economical and easy to make. The recipe calls for a mix of 2 parts silica sand and 1 part fire clay, both of which are readily available and inexpensive. I have read about a few other recipes based on this basic mix, but I decided to stick to what Gingery calls for.
The mix is simple enough and I thoroughly mixed the two ingredients together dry before I began adding water. Once I started adding water, I added it slowly with a garden type sprinkle can to try to avoid separating the sand from the clay. The process of using the refractory requires a curing process so the first item I made was the lid for the furnace.
The lid was straight forward enough. I measured the circumference of the lid, added 2 inches to the resulting diameter and cut a piece of 2 inch wide sheet metal long enough to produce that circumference plus a few inches so that I could rivet it together, not a very critical measurement is needed. Then, needing a handle of some sort to be able to move the lid around I split from the book design. The book calls for drilling some holes around the perimeter of the lid and adding some wire framework to the inside of the lid to help add some structure to the refractory as the lid had no top or bottom structure of it's own. The handle made in the book calls for the handles to made of this wire. I had some 3/8 inc re-bar laying around so I made a rectangular handle and then added some wire for some additional structure as well as using it to hold a 3 inch diameter can in the center, which will form a vent hole in the lid. Here is what I came up with:

The can is close to the center but not perfect by any means and the wire I used was just some wire I had left over from another project, I was going to use .032 safety wire until I found this stuff which is a bit heavier. I think it was used to hang picture frames, etc.