Ingot molds and the little torch

I have a Durston open ingot mold, ancient two piece closed sheet ingot mold and a typical four wire reversible sheet ingot mold. I have used them all and they have their pluses and minuses. I also build odd shaped molds on the top of my anvil using various sized 1/4" square tool steel rods that I hold in place with small magnets. This lets me make an odd shape and get closer to the desired final shape. You should carbon coat the surface of each mold before you pour and pre-heat them. I have also wiped a thin coat of 3 in 1 oil on the surface of my open molds. When I pour into my wire molds and fill up above the button top, as the ingot cools it will develop a crack just below the button. I don’t know if this is just my molds or typical of all of them. While you can vary the width of the sheet molds, you can’t vary the depth. I get my best ingots by using a piece of paint stir stick as the model and make a mold in delft clay or petrobond. My ingots always come out nicely done and rarely do they develop any cracks. I do first sand and then peen all the surfaces hammering in the same direction and then anneal before I do any rolling or drawing. I use a meco torch and it works very well. I am not sure about the Little Torch. If it will do melt that you can cast on charcoal, it will do it using an ingot mold. Good luck…Rob

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