The news turned out to be bad-ish. After another trial where I severely limited the available oxygen, it appears the core forge temperature was only getting up to 1000-1050C: not *quite* enough to smelt the copper. I've got two ideas for dealing with this:
- Improve (radically) the airflow, and use more fuel. More combustion in less time == higher temp. Maybe a hair dryer or something to keep the air full-blast full-time.
- Build a smaller, "forge" within the chiminea. Perhaps something more historically accurate will keep more heat in a smaller volume and raise the working temperature.
Not sure which way I'll go yet. I think #2 would be more satisfying, but I can probably implement #1 in a single day.
-Jeff
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