Life Cycle of a Stainless Steel Crucible

But with anything, too much heat...

 

Looks good! Did you get much thinning of the pouring lip?

Edit: Tough luck! Is that the crucible melted?

If so, what grade was it and how did you melt it? The charge inside should keep the crucible cool until the charge is melted.

304 and 316 are rated for 1,500F but can be heated to 1,800F without excessive scaling. That makes SS suitable only for aluminum melting.

 

The last one I built was for a buddy J. Vibert. It had two ears and a lower ring for to assist in pouring.






This one I built for myself. It was 10 inches tall and I cut an inch off the top. Drilled 8 1/2” holes and welded the band through the half-inch holes back on to the pipe. I added a little pour-spout.



The band is going to be my catch for my grab & pour.
I haven’t used it yet. It’s still hot from welding. When it cools down I’ll probably clean up the pour-spout.

 

Them wheels is proper Deads. They needs Fire.

 

Andy, your a bleeding Hoarder, there are people in white coats that can help with your problem
Oops, sorry, I didn’t realise that this was an old thread.

 

Or, he knows of Scarcity.

 

Not really a hoarder. I've used up all the muffins but have about double the ingots.

I keep finding more wheels than I cut up.

Four nice 20" Dodge wheels:



Chevy pickups


And everything else


Not aluminum, but a nice pile of water meter casings


This is not hoarding, I just have too much waste motor oil so this 80 gallons is going into storage:


By the way, my second stainless steel crucible did not last long. While it was still a bit new I was trying to separate glass and aluminum (I somehow had a bunch of broken glass get into molten aluminum) and in my exuberance to heat to separate the glass and aluminum I exceeded the service temperature of 304SS. The side collapsed on the way to the pouring shank. It was exciting but I wasn't burned:


I went with salamanders since then but it was my fault for overheating it.