I've been the turkey burner route, and I think it is a terrible waste of heat/propane. It is just made for something different. Got one, anybody wants to come it get it is welcome to it. No, I will not ship it. You got to come and get it.
Even had an old school plumber's smelter. It served me well for a couple of years, but one of the leathers in it sprung a leak and caught it on fire. With the liquid fuel, it was a hell of a fire and made quite a mess.
![Image](http://ranchdogoutdoors.com/Casting/smelters/plumbing.jpg)
I bought this little smelter and am happy with it. It is a homemade unit, old, and of small capacity. The latter causes me to be unsatisfied with it but a pound of propane for a pound of lead, it is miles ahead of a turkey fryer. Hmmm, I thought I had an image of it and will correct that soon.
I've thought about a HotPot for years for small batch smelting. It is probably not a good idea as it would not be very stable but it seems like it would be a great method of preheating alloys during a casting session. You can find them for around $50 to $55.
![Image](http://ranchdogoutdoors.com/Casting/smelters/hotpot.jpg)
I've also been looking at commercial, large capacity melters for several years as I have the quantity of lead that could supply it. They are very expensive. Stepping down to furnaces that heat pots like the Goss units do a significantly better job of containing and directing the heat to were its needed than a frier, they become more reasonable. A seller on eBay, kan_pat, has occupied my attention. This is probably a Chinese clone of the Goss 540 as far as I can tell but you get it and all the added components for less. This morning and with my casting month upon me, I decided to do something about it.
![Image](http://ranchdogoutdoors.com/Casting/smelters/kan_pat.jpg)
In the spirit of product testing, I bought a HotPot too.