Todays Project - What did you do today?

[Pete O]

I have way too many projects under way at the moment, this is one that has been waiting for a start for about 18 months, which is when I bought a copy of the Artful Bodger's foundry book (actually it's probably been waiting 10 years since I bought 'The Complete Handbook of Sand Casting'...) anyway I've been waiting for a suitable drum or piece of large pipe to come along, got tired of waiting so a couple of weeks ago I asked a local metalwork business to roll some sheet for me. Today I welded the seams on what are now the inner and outer liners for my furnace and the ring for the lid, plus cut some plywood discs on the saw bench and rolled and taped the inner former.    

I can finally see some progress towards melting some metal. I also ordered 3x25kg bags of pyrocrete 1650 formable refractory. Since I started planning this project, the supplier has moved an extra hour away from me! Serves me right for procrastinating I suppose.