Thoughts about making ladles

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vtsteam:
Okay, suppose I did use a piece of pipe, I would have to subtract the thickness of the lining to get the true capacity.

So assuming the lining is 1/2 " thick, then the diameter is really 3" so we get:

34.5/ (2.25 * Pi) = 4.88", say 5"

So you'd want a 6" piece at least.

vtsteam:
I have a couple of A6 crucibles -- not strictly speaking "bilge" type, but shaped better than a straight pipe.

Dimensions are:

6 1/8" tall x 4 5/8" top diameter x 3 3/8" bottom diameter.

This is supposed to handle about 13.2 pounds of brass. Not sure how much iron. Well, I could figure that out. Let's see...

535 lbs/cuft brass, 442 lbs/cuft for grey iron (hey, that's different than what I found online earlier 491 lbs cuft....? Oh well..)

442/535 * 13.2 = 10.9 lbs, okay say 11 lbs, so A6 is about right for my furnace assuming a 10 lb charge.

Okay.

So say an A6 crucible is about 1/2" thick -- that's about what a steel ladle imitation of that shape should be with an allowance for the lining thickness.

So I could use the A6 crucible as a model for making a steel ladle.

vtsteam:
I was trying to find proportions for B4 crucibles -- these are about the same capacity as the a6, but with a true bilge. Unfortunately I can only find the bilge dimensions for larger sizes. The bilge dimension is the widest part.

Well I guess I could interpolate that from the larger sizes. Just get a typical proportion of the top diameter for the bilge.

Okay, a B10 crucible has a top diameter of 6/14" and it has a bilge diameter of 6-5/8".

So the proportion is 1.06. The bilge is 106% of the top diameter.

Okay going back to my A6 dimensions, the top was 4-5/8". That means if I want a "classical" bilge, it should be about:

4.625" * 106% = 4.9", or about 4-7/8"

vtsteam:
Okay, so I've got 4 dimensions for my bilge shaped ladle to handle 10 lbs or so of iron:

Height = 6-1/8"
Top diameter = 4-5/8"
Bilge diameter = 4-7/8"
Bottom diameter = 3-3/8"

Is that right?

vtsteam:
Since it's raining. I'm just playing around with an older free version of Google SketchUp making crucible patterns. Here's a real simple one -- just two rings, but it does give the bilge shape and has a pouring spout. If you made this, it would actually turn out round rather than faceted into an octagon, though you would see the join line as a hard edge between the two rings.

However internally, it would be smooth since you would line it with 1/2" of clay refractory, and could round the corner out.

This is the same size as the A6 (with bilge added) from the dimensions in the last post.

I might actually try making this.

ps. I'm not a SketchUp expert -- this is as much a learning exercise as anything else.

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