Bad Brass
We had these molds that never got filled from our first bronze casting session , so we bought some brass at Metal Supermarkets , loaded up the crucible... ...and got to work. We started just before 2pm and the fire and charcoal took a little while to catch as usual, but by 2:30 there was lots of flame so we filled the furnace up. Close to 3pm, the brass was softening but not melting. We then covered the whole thing with charcoal, crucible and all, and waited about 10 more minutes. So from starting the fire to having molten brass, it only took an hour (pyrometer reading was 1067). But before we pulled the crucible out for casting we needed to scoop out as much of the charcoal dross as possible. I made a little spoon device which worked more or less; we tried scooping out the dross without also scooping out the metal, but it wasn't so easy. We scooped a bit and then just went ahead and cast: We each cast our own, putting the crucible back in the furnace in between pour...