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• After letting the refractory set up for about a day, I removed the forms. That was an adventure in of itself. It took me three hours to get the forms completely out of the lid and body. Remember on the last page I said that I made a mistake with the bottom centering dowel.

• The top of the form came out pretty easy, but that is where easy stopped. I could not pound the dowel out with the hammer. I tried using a 1/2" rod and the hammer, but merely beat a 1/2" hole down the center of the 3/4" dowel. I ended up drilling the dowel out with a 3/4" drill bit from the bottom.

• The next part was that the bottom forms would not release. I had planned ahead a little and painted the particle board circles with several coats of spray paint to seal them from absorbing the cement. However that did not seem to help at all. They would not budge. I ended up using a 24" long 1/2" drill bit to drill dozens of holes in the particle board. I then used a 5/16" allen wrench in the holes and pryed the particle board into small pieces. Since the forms where 3 layers thick, I had to repeat this three times.

• Upon removing the side forms which were made with tin flashing material nailed to the top and bottom circles, I found voids in the cement all the way around about two-thirds of the way up the side. Apparently when I dumped in a new batch, I did not get the air pockets out. A consequence of starting this at 10:00 at night and finishing up after midnight.

• Here is a shot looking down into the furnace. In the bottom are concave channels that lead to the center drain hole. This is in case of crucible failure (hopefully) the metal will drain out instead of freezing up in the bottom of the furnace. The wood is that last piece of the form I could not get out. It will burn away.

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