I accidently erased all the pictures in this post. So I'll try again
Here is the smelter mounted on the stand
The top of the pot and the upper linkage
The foot pedal and lower linkage
The bottom of the pot, spout body and spout. The spout has different inserts of varying diameters.
This shows the two valve rod guides.Directly below them is the valve seat, it is a 3/8" radius machined into the spout body.
This is the tip of the valve rod, I turned a 3/8" radius on it using a lathe.
I used HotGuns' design, I merely added a foot pedal and linkage to his design. Like he said in his post this valve design will hold water. Once in a while it will drip if I bump the stand pretty hard. I left a shoulder on the top of the valve rod so I could add a weight to help put a little more pressure on the valve seat. This has worked pretty well for me, I have smelted 800-900 pounds so far. I can't say that it is better or worse than the turkey fryer/ dutch oven set up because this is all I've used other than a hotplate. I am currently building a dutch oven/ industrial water heater set up just to see the difference. jmsj