For a variety of reasons, Patrick and I took it upon ourselves today to build a new aluminum-melting furnace based on some old refractory (insulating) firebricks we had in the shed. I’d watched a few videos on Youtube and sort of dove in. Here’s some photos of the results.
We did eventually replace the ziptie on the lower course of bricks with more plumber’s strap, and build some legs for the burner that aren’t made of clamps. We also need to finish up the lid and finish tidying up a bit, but I’m super happy with how it turned out for 3 or 4 hours of work. The biggest time-suck was recutting all the bricks to make a 6-sided structure (the original kiln was 8-sided, so the angles needed changed). The most entertaining part was learning to use the plasma cutter to cut out the steel base plate.
