Thanks Rob!! I'll keep going. But I'm starting to lean toward oil, just to see some liquid iron without doing another week of work. Feel like that's cheating, but I can always make the charcoal cupola extension, too.
It has also been threatening rain off and on all day -- rained last night. So out of a mixture of curiosity mixed with frustration at the weather, I thought I'd try a quick crucible run with my remaining charcoal and about 2 lbs of iron pieces. It seemed to me that I had more crucible side clearance than I'd remembered. So maybe it would work.
I made a top for the crucible out of sand/fire clay mix -- a patty. I put the iron pieces in the crucible, sprinkled in a small amount of sodium carbonate (aka soda ash, aka washing soda) and filled the crucible to the rim with charcoal pieces and covered with the top.
Then I lit the furnace with about 1/4 full charcoal, applied light blast to get it going, added more charcoal, more blast, etc until almost full. Then added the crucible and surrounded and covered that with charcoal.
Then I put the furnace cover down, applied blast, and after about ten minutes the crucible had dropped to the plinth. I then re-filled with charcoal, applied blast. When that burned down, I then re-filled with charcoal and applied blast. So charcoal three times total. Time was about 30 minutes from start.
The crucible was glowing orange in the furnace. I maneuvered the top off, and the internal charcoal was also bright orange. Couldn't see past that. I pulled the crucible out of the furnace and simply poured the contents out into the ingot mold.
Unfortunately it was just bright orange pieces of iron. No melting, but close, I think. If I hadn't run out of charcoal, a 4th or 5th round might have done it. The furnace did have to start from cold, and it does take an hour to heat the walls up. This was only a half hour, and the walls above the halfway mark weren't glowing. Normally with more time I pre-heat with a wood fire.
I'm pretty sure if it had been bronze it would have been molten even now, so I guess the crucible side of things still has possibilities.