I managed to get some bronze scales from bony soil. It says in the tooltips that it can be smelted down into 1 bronze ingot. I figure it would be a decent way to get a bronze pickaxe and so try to put it in a crucible. It does not go into the crucible. I figure I would try to put it in the firepit directly but it says it needs to be in a crucible to smelt down.
I also tried the same process with some copper lamellar and ended up with the same result.
I figured this is a bug since I am doing what the game says, and yet am getting no results, but if I am doing something wrong please let me know what it is I am doing wrong.