Air flow metering valve test parts

After getting caught up on some work around the house I finally got to getting some work done on the furnace. I made up test parts for my idea about varying the air flow my furnace is getting from a shop vac. I could just buy a cheap hair dryer and be done with it, but I already have the shop vac.
I took the pipe that fits into the tuyere and added a small stop so that it would slide in but not protrude all the way into the furnace. Then I cut an opening into the pipe, made a small sheet metal finger that would fit into the opening in the pipe, obstructing a lot of the airflow up and out before it gets to the furnace. It seems to work so far. So far I have only roughed this together. After testing during a firing of the furnace I will clean up the design and construction, if it works as I expect it to.
Here is what I have done so far:

 

Air flow

After spending my 14 days at work I arrived home to a small amount of snow on the ground, which was a bit of a drag since October had just arrived a few days ago. That's a month or so early. Plus it was cold (3 deg. F) which is an even bigger problem as I want to try to start making some ingots while I am home.
I have been thinking of a way to cut down on the airflow I get from using my Shop-Vac as an air supply to my furnace. Since I can't easily reduce the output at the Shop-Vac, the flow needs to be reduced at some point along the connection to the furnace. So what I have come up with is cutting an opening in the supply pipe that slips into the tuyere, as well as fabricating a deflection valve to divert a portion of the air flow up and out of the opening. Since I am trying to use only some basic tools, cutting the opening will take a bit of time. I will put a picture of the modification out when I get the opening cut and the deflection valve fit. Then it will be time to try melting some of my scar pile and making some ingots! If the weather cooperates.

Cope and Drag

Another part that I have been working on is the Cope and Drag, the upper and lower halves of the box in which the mold is made. Gingery's book calls for a few different sizes and so far, I have only gotten around to making the 12"x12". I used clear pine to construct this first one which should be keep it sturdy enough to get the job done. With the Cope making up one half and the Drag making up the other half, they are simply for sided boxes that have no top or bottom and have some way of matching the two halves together, a registration method of some sort to allow the mold to be split and put back together again so that the halves will still line up. For this size I made each half as des cribed in the book. Here is what I came up with:

Stacked on top of each other. You can see how they will fit together.

Sand Box

This is a bit out of order but as I was getting the furnace ready to go I started building some of the other items that I will need to have on order to cast metal. For the most part all of the support items needed are very simple to make there are just a lot of them and it can take some time. As with most of the items mentioned in Dave Gingery's book adapt them as you need according to what you have on hand.
The first two pieces that I made were very simple to make, the molding box for the green sand and a sliding saddle so that I would have a place on which to work. I made the box out of 2x8 pine with a plywood bottom and the saddle was made using 2x4 pine.