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Sawed off cupola

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vtsteam:
I've been asked for pics of my new furnace in Rob Wilson's cupola thread, so I figured I better open a new thread for this one which has more of a Depression era aesthetic than his fine workmanship!

It's actually not new now -- I built it last fall from a discarded industrial vacuum cleaner barrel. The main body was stainless steel. The intent was to make a short single charge cupola, that might double as a small crucible furnace. It already has had a trial by fire melting a couple of aluminum pours (as a crucible furnace). But has yet to be used for iron.

The cupola's single tuyere is blocked up presently and the tap hole has been used for blast.

I haven't had a lot to spend on it, so I used materials I had on hand to line it -- hard firebrick and sand and fire clay (Hawthorn). The lining is 4" thick and the bore is 7".

I bent up a 4" wide ring for a lid -- but haven't lined that yet or made a lift mechanism for it. For the aluminum melts I used an older 2" thick lid I salvaged from my old popcorn tin melter. But for Iron, I want to have the bigger lid.

This is the furnace I want to try hardwood charcoal with -- there is no source for coke locally that I can find. Though just this weekend I did find a source for blacksmith coal -- don't know if that could be converted to coke or not for an occasional melt.

The capacity of the furnace I hope, will be about 10 lbs of iron, but that remains to be seen. I'll post pics of it here as I can.

First, the salvaged vacuum cleaner can. I took the wire basket and hose outlet off, after this pic.

vtsteam:
First course of fire brick set in place. An aluminum tube was set in the bottom to act as a form for the tap hole area.

vtsteam:
The lid form. Some steel reinforcing mesh was welded into it for support of the lining.

vtsteam:
First course of firebrick completed. You can see a piece of steel pipe on the right, which would be the tuyere for the furnace as a cupola.  The hole above that will be closed in -- it was where the vacuum hose fitting was removed.

vtsteam:
Second course of brick in and the top screeded off. Some wood chips are in the bottom on top of sand, getting ready to fire the lining.

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