Crucible

Finally getting back to work on my furnace project it is time to produce some sort of Crucible so that I can get started melting some metal! Winter will be setting in here in Montan and I am quickly running out of time. The items I need to finish up as quickly as I can are: a crucible, some lifting tongs, something to allow me to pour the metal from the crucible. I figure I will make a crucible first and then figure out the other items as I go along.
Here is my initial design for a crucible:

I found this 4.5 inch square tubing in the scrap pile at the local metal supply shop. It has 3/16 wall thickness so it should be reasonably durable for melting aluminum and pot metal. I also found a 3/16 thick piece of cold rolled flat that fit the width of the tube very nicely so I was able to get a nice bottom plate welded onto the tube. I cheated and strayed from my practice to date of trying to use only basic tools such as  power drill. I used a power hack saw to cut the tube and the bottom plate. There was no way I wanted to cut those pieces by hand using a hand hack saw! I have a buddy that has restored an old power hack saw. It is a piece of history. Over 100 years old and he has restored it to near showroom condition. He was kind enough to offer it's use up to me and saved me a ton of work.

 

Here is the bottom. My idea is to use the longer corners as a point to hook onto to help with pouring the metal from the crucible. I have since rethought this approach.

Next item I needed to come up with was something to lift the crucible. I wanted something that would give me a very positive grip on the crucible and since I am not going to be using a standard shaped crucible I had to rethink

This should give me a positive grip on the crucible. Just spread the lifting tong a bit and slip over the posts welded onto the crucible. These holes are 1/16 oversize so they should fit easily enough.

Nice fit!

The next item I need is something to help control the crucible while pouring. The crucible that I have made will hold well over 1 quart of aluminum. That could be a handful to try to rotate to pour being so heavy. My thought is that controlling each end and just having to lift instead of rotating would be easier as well as safer. The above handle would be used to grab onto the lower post welded to the crucible after the crucible has been removed from the furnace using the lifting tongs.

I saw a problem with my design right after I made this piece.

And here is the problem! With the handle having to reach underneath the crucible it makes the crucible unstable as shown here when all of the parts are put together. Oh well, that is what I get for figuring things out as I go along. Back to the drawing board! Although I think I know of an easy way to fix it that won't take too long.