Hey ray, be glad it didn’t work I tried it with oxy/acetylene. No problem with heat. No problem with the mercury vaporizing and condensing. Problem was that cast fitting being so porous, absorbed all my gold😂 I realize that this may be the most expensive tinning process. I’ve thought about inserting a graphite crucible into the cap. Best of luck down there
Just put your amalgamated materials in a chamois and ring it out in a bowl of water....and that’s it. Scoop up your merc and re use later. For this application you should be heating up raw material to produce mercury .
The issue is your space between your burner (plumping cap) and the entrance to your vapor collector. The pipe nipple is too long or too tall in your case. What's going on is you're creating vapor but it's dripping back down into your burning cap. So the majority of it is just recirculating inside. Also your probably leaking vapor past your threads. Seal it with a bead of plumbers putty or clay. Hope this helps!
In other words change the plumbing nipple to one 1/2 that length and seal it on the outside every use with plumbers putty. Do not seal the threads inside it will contaminate your amalgam. Map gas is plenty hot enough! A camp stove will do the job. It's just your set up.
I set this retort as per the instructions witch by the way was very crummy but in my opion the steel casing is just to heavy duty and requires WAY to much heat , I am officially looking for a different one .