Found Dreaming

I have not YET built a furnace but am gathering all that is needed. I make a regular trip to the local landfill and almost always walk away with something cast. (aluminum and/or iron) I found a 10" steel pipe about 1/2" thick. It seems that a lot of folks have had problems with the "hotface" failing after extended use. Could I use this as a liner inside the hotface to extend its life?
Thanks for your thoughts.....

Welcome to the forum!
You could use the pipe as the furnace for a while, just shoot a burner in at the bottom. It should melt Aluminum fine for a while. It will oxidize pretty bad and may get ugly. It won't be very effiecient but could be OK for starting out. Nothing beats a good insulated furnace with a 3000 F hotface.

Depends on your furnace/burner design. I built a nice furnace with 4" castable refratory out of a hot water heater shell. Used a nice 1" thick ships mast steel ring (with castable refractory inside it) as a crucible base. During the maiden burn out to test the furnace for output it wasn't long before I noticed the port where the fuel/air mixture went into the side was glowing red, then yellow then scary white. I shut down the blower/gas then pulled out the blower tube and out poured white hot steel. All but a few inches of the ring had melted and began backfilling the burner tube. End result... a lot of clean up inside my furnace... however, the performance of my furnace was AWESOME!!