I was told that Lionel Oliver II has completely stopped making Hobby melters can anyone confirm that V/r HT1
Post 10 in the following linked thread is the most recent mention of anyone buying one that I can remember (the post mentions someone receiving theirs at some point in 2017): http://www.alloyavenue.com/vb/showthread.php?13449-backyardmetalcasting-smelter-kit-missing Hope Lio is OK, seems like he's been quite hard to reach for a good long while now.
Lio dropped out of the forum years ago (10+) he was always slow to respond to email and messages even back then. I to hope all is OK, life takes a different direction sometimes.
It would be interesting to see what Lio is up to. His website was updated Feb. 25, 2018, so I guess he is still out there in backyard casting land. He has been an active backyard casting guy in the past, and appears to be one of the first to popularize metal casting via a web page. One of the funniest things he posted on his web site was about a plaque he made for a girl he was apparently dating. He said something like "If you really want to impress a girl, cast her name in metal". Edit: Lio was actually active on AA way back in the beginning. I ran across some of his old posts a while back. I guess he got bored with the forum thing. I exchanged a couple of emails with him in 2011, but he did not say very much (he is a man of few words, and obviously a very private individual; which is a good idea in general I think, to some extent). Posting on an open forum can open you up to a lot of criticism, both good and bad criticism. You have to be pretty thick-skinned. "No pain, no gain" is my motto. If you don't talk to others, you probably are not learning any new casting techniques.