Well, after finding the bits needed to get this beast going, I tentatively claim initial success, but I still have a couple of questions.
Here's the setup; a couple of pards at the office gave me the hose with valve and regulator (which mated up with the threads after I took off the the valve from the first set of photos) and an empty propane bottle, which I promptly exchanged.
After the weights were melted and skimmed (and I recovered from being mesmerized by watching the foul goo bubble, smoke, and burn on the top surface) I checked the temperature. The hottest I remember seeing was about 750 degrees F (more on that in a minute).
After just a few minutes, the ingots started to accumulate.
The ingot moulds used were an old Lee and a huge cast iron one that I found in a junk shop. From one of the posts here, I added a bit of motor oil as a flux and stirred vigorously to bring the crap to the top, and convert the oxides.
After roughly an hour, I had 60 pounds of rendered wheel weights. This also included the initial step of taking a sand blaster and cleaning up the pot and ladle. I was surprised at how quickly it went, and my concern and questions as mentioned above are:
Did I go too fast?
I seem to remember that the melting temperature of zinc is somewhere around 800 degrees F. I didn't really worry about contamination from zinc, because I thought I'd done a pretty thorough job of culling the trash from my weights. Then, when I examined the the pile of dross and clips, I found this:
So my questions are: what is the likelihood that I've contaminated the mix, given that the max temp I know I reached is 750, but could have been higher as I poured the ingots? Is there visible evidence that molten zinc is present? Does it stick to the sides of the pot as one pours ingots?
Thanks!
Oh yeah....this thing
does sound like a jet!