Crucible Modification

Seeing a problem with my design I realized that I needed to rethink my method of pouring. As you can see from what I came up with the first time around, aside from wishing I had noticed the upcoming issue before I completed all of the work, I knew that I had to figure out how to come up with a method of poring that maintained stability of the crucible as it was set aside after removal from the furnace while I attached a handle to the bottom of the crucible. The original design gave good control of the crucible while being poured but had lousy stability for the crucible while setting. Plus it was not the best or safest stab ility while installing the handle.

Notice how the assembly sits. Not stable at all.

The first thing I did was to trim the posts that I had extending from the lower corners. Then I added the posts shown above. I really only need to have one of the posts but I figured, while I am at it, put two on, one on each opposite corner so that I might have quicker access to hooking up the pouring handle. As I only used re-bar for the posts and had just cut through the re-bar a little over 3/4 of the way through to bend the re-bar, I welded the posts at the bent corner to add some material and strengthen the posts.

My next step was to redesign the handle itself because the change in post position changed the angles I needed to have at the pouring handle. Here is what I came up with:

 

An easy fix! I just cut the re-bar at the base of the plate, bent it to the angle I needed and welded it up to add some strength.

Here is the new assembly all put together:

That ought to work alright, at least to get started. You can see how the stability of the crucible is much better which will be important when the crucible is filled with molten metal! There is one more modification that I will be making to the crucible in the near future and that will be to cut off the re-bar that I have running across the bottom. The same re-bar that I had extending from the corners for the first pouring handle design, it is no longer needed and will add even more stability to the crucible, and may even shorten melt times by removing the additional surface area of the crucible that needs to be heated.

All of this re-bar should come off. Hopefully it won't be to difficult. But that will come after I try melting some scrap! It is time to refine some scrap aluminum into ingots.