Induction gold melting furnaces for workshops and bullion desks

A melting furnace is judged on three things: how fast it reaches pouring temperature, how little metal it costs you per melt, and how long it runs before something needs replacing.

Start with capacity, and size it to your busiest day rather than your average one. A retail shop that melts customer buy-backs and casts small items is well served by a 1 kg class furnace; it heats quickly, uses a small crucible, and wastes very little metal on a part-full charge. A workshop supplying several counters, or a dealer consolidating scrap into bars, will find 1 kg becomes the bottleneck and should look at 2–3 kg. Going larger than you need is not free: a big crucible run half empty holds more heat, takes longer, and leaves more metal in the lining. Two smaller melts often beat one oversized one.

Induction is now the default, and for good reason. The coil heats the charge itself rather than a chamber around it, so a melt that took twenty minutes in a resistance furnace takes a few, and the metal spends less time hot and oxidising. The field also stirs the melt, mixing an alloy far more evenly than a static one — which matters if you are adding copper and silver to hit a karat.

Power supply is where most installations go wrong. Settle three things before you order: the voltage and frequency at your premises, whether you have single-phase or three-phase available, and the peak draw rather than the rated draw. Machines are built for a supply — 110–120 V at 60 Hz, or 220–240 V at 50 Hz — and one configured for the wrong one is not a small fix. Check the voltage you see under load, not the figure on the meter: a supply that sags makes a furnace slow and works its electronics harder. If you run on a generator, say so before you buy.

Cooling is not an accessory. Induction power supplies dump heat, and a water-cooled unit will hold temperature and last longer under back-to-back melts than an air-cooled one, but it introduces a chiller or a water circuit you have to actually maintain. Air-cooled units are simpler and fine for intermittent shop use. Match this to your duty cycle honestly.

Then look at the parts you will keep buying. Graphite crucibles are consumables, and over three years their cost and availability matter more than the furnace's sticker price. Confirm the crucible is a standard size you can source locally, wherever you are. The same goes for the coil, the thermocouple, tongs and moulds.

Finally, temperature control. A basic furnace gives you a power dial and asks you to judge the melt by eye. A controlled unit lets you set a target and hold it, which protects you from overheating a charge, burning off zinc from a karat alloy, and quietly shifting the composition of metal you are about to sell by weight. If you melt anything other than fine gold, this pays for itself.