Even if we have never personally been inside a steel mill or a a foundry of any type; we have all seen spectacular film on TV documentaries or even in fictional movies of huge pots of molten steel being moved around and then pouring out a veritable torrent of molten, red to white hot metal – very impressive it is too!
It’s A Question Of Scale
The steel mills, etc only look so impressive because they are so large and their Metal Melting Equipment deals in tons. However, the principles are just the same if the molten metal is only required in ounces at a time. Furthermore, in principle, it matters little what particular type of metal is to be fed into the Metal Melting Equipment. Some sort of “pot” is required to take the cold, solid metal – obviously, the pot has to be in a fire resistant material that has a higher melting point than the metal to be melted.
Heat is then applied to the pot and this is conducted through the pot walls to heat up the metal inside until it reaches the temperature at which it melts and becomes liquid. The pot is then removed from the heat and carried to the next work station where it will be poured out – usually into some sort of mold – a metal casting process. Apart from the size of the operation, another differing factor is that different metals have different melting points so separate; or, variable temperature Metal Melting Equipment may be required for businesses that cast in different metals.
For example:-
- Jewellery manufacturers casting in gold need Metal melting equipment that reaches at least 1,950°F.
- If casting silver, only 1,765°F is needed.
- Someone casting cheap trinkets in tin only needs Metal Melting Equipment that can go to 450°F.
- Whereas someone casting lead bullets or shot needs 625°F
Electric furnaces may be used to heat the “pots”; but, especially for the smaller pot loads, some sort of flame generating burner is more likely to be seen. This could be anything from a ring burner (somewhat similar to those used on the top of your domestic stove) to burners fitted inside quite sophisticated furnaces.
