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Host Tim Coppage
November 17th, 2007
The following guys attended our furnace build meeting
Tom Davis
Tim Coppage Furnace builder
Brian Campanella Furnace builder
Larry Carter
Doug Endrud Furnace builder
Glen Lynch Furnace builder
David Butterfield
Rick Sparber
David Rabenius
Kris Anderson
David Littleton Furnace builder
Gene Neigoff
Jeff Lynch
Neil Butterfield
Kelly Cambern Furnace builder
Gene Lucas
We completed all the furnaces we shad started. The refractory calculations
Tim did came out right on the money. We owe a big thanks to Tim
Coppage for all his research, scrounging, and physical prep work for the
meeting.
At the start of the meeting, Tim had:
Cleaned all the buckets to be used
Searched the internet and found a website that had a calculating model for
the amount of refractory needed. This was a great way to insure we had the
proper amount of this expensive stuff with no waste.
Developed the total cost of a furnace body so we could advertise what a signup meant in dollars.
Diligently cut cost to allow a last minute price reduction from $100 to $70 per furnace. Thanks for the great present Tim.
Researched and found a local source of refractory & fronted the money to purchase the refractory
Using donated materials and scrounged stuff, fabricated the frames for the lids
Secured the loan of a mixer for the refractory
Poured the bottom layer of refractory in every bucket so it could dry in advance
Furnished the tube for burner hole forms
Fabricated the burner hole tube to be cast into each furnace
Located and purchased the cardboard tubes to form the inside walls of the furnaces
Located and proved the use of the proper size hole saws for cutting the burner tube hole in the bucket side and inner tube form
Set up an air vibrator system to use to shake and settle the refractory as it was cast
Located and cut to size the spacer and ramming sticks to be used as the furnace body was cast He also provided a supply of latex gloves and face masks
Fabricated a set of gripping tongs to remove a crucible from the furnace. These were used to insure the proper size inner form was used
Researched and fronted the cost of purchasing the right size crucible for the
furnace design we were building.
With all these things done, the furnace and lid casting session went very
smooth. We started right at 9:00 a.m. and were done with all casting by noon.
The pictures will show many participants working together to make this happen.
Each guy building a furnace had help getting all the steps complete and we sure
had a fun and intense busy 3 hours of activity.
Thanks again to Tim Coppage for his advance work
that made this meeting so successful.
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