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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Desertau, post: 9843234, member: 86775&quot;]I’m doing this outdoors in the fresh air, 50 years firing big gas ceramic kilns and my training in the fire department I guess I’m fairly comfortable doing this.</p><p><br /></p><p>if I were trying to melt the brass with just the torch it wouldn’t work, but the insulating properties of a couple inches of fiber make all the difference. It takes about 10 minutes for this brass alloy to begin melting. The torch tip makes a difference too and the one I’m using is very hot, there is another version with three nozzles but it puts out too much heat and they are difficult to use less than wide open they need maximum flow through the tips or the nozzles will overheat, you go through a 1# bottle pretty fast but If I need more heat these will also burn MAP gas but at double the cost of propane.</p><p><br /></p><p>im not sure what alloy in the brass reacted to the heat but it was kind of a pretty purplish flair as it found oxygen opening the furnace the reaction stopped as the molten metal cooled hitting the mold.</p><p><br /></p><p>maybe I don’t know enough to consider it could be difficult melting brass so it wasn’t, ignorance is bliss but we used brass and nickel silver in the Jewelry class I just never considered it would be a problem.</p><p><br /></p><p>if I can see the melting take place it’s easy to tell when it’s ready but the little furnace was built around a 2oz cupel and the crucible I was using was too tall to see the puddle and flux swirling, I could only see it as the melt began.</p><p><br /></p><p>sitting behind the furnace mostly out of the picture is a small (inside 18”X18”) computer controlled ceramic kiln I have complete control over the heat, I can program complex firing schedules with multiple ramps but the off gassing refining is hard on the elements, so the little inexpensive furnace is better and easier to pull from</p><p><br /></p><p>My recent experience has been trying to refine gold and silver, so for the flux I use it the same way putting enough borax to reduce slag and maybe get a more fluid pour, but not so much it bubbles up overflowing the crucible,&nbsp; about a table spoon.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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