Begginer "foundry" help
Hey guys, I wanted to ask some questions and would be glad to gear some tips regarding foundry and metal casting.
First of all, together with a friend we previously attempted casting copper (barely but we got to the melting point). We built our own "foundry" using whatever materials we had -
Paving bricks and mix of; wood coal ash / powder and sand between every brick. (We put this mix also in any gaps to prevent heat from escaping.
A metal pipe with hairdryer blowing from behind at about 20° angle.
And some metal sheet cover leaving only a small gap for air circulation in front.
Then we put it a carbon crucible with metal inside to melt, we tried covering it with tiny metal bucket so its somewhat closed (although it did not matter in my opinion).
Now the problem is, we ran out of ideas how to increase the heat inside, and the temperature is barely enough, so how could we increase it further?
Second, the crucible kept breaking because it was put directly into coals, and we needed to move it around to keep from falling when putting in more coal, are there other more durable ones or is the setup main problem?
I guess those are my main questions, but like i said any tips would be great, also i know its a terrible setup but we used whatever materials we had avaiable for free, we are thinking about putting in some money so what would you recommend getting first? We really want to use coal and not gas nor induction.