Updates coming soon...

With all that is going on I have to say that it is time to include you in on my failures. I have done several melts with lots of disapointment except one. I was able to succeed on melting a batch of aluminum cans and pouring a small ingot. Then I upgraded to copper and wasn't able to get the furnace hot enough to melt it. I was probably 3-500 'F off because I managed to get the copper pipes to bend. What went wrong?? I think part of the reason I feel this oven won't get hot is that I have too much space in the oven itself. I can't contain the heat around the crucible because of too much dead space in the oven. I am going to try again only this time I have to bring up the heat closer to the crucible. We live near all kinds of lava fields so I picked up some big chunks of lava rocks to put in my oven hoping I won't melt them in the process of my melt. I am going to use a combination of briquettes, coal and wood and keep it burning hopefully for an hour. In the past I only done melts between 30 to 45 minutes and I think I may need to run it longer?? The piece of metal I want to melt is a combination of copper, gold, and possible some other metals which I don't know and it is all blended together. If you have any thoughts don't hesitate to fill in the blanks, I'm always open to other suggestions.