A self-consistent model for electrode temperature gradients in an ESR process has been tested against experimental results. The results indicate that when melting steels in the electrode and mold sizes studied, the electrode material spends approximately 30 sec in the temperature gradient 1000‡C to the melting point. It is suggested that this would lead to a significant nonequilibrium retention of second-phase precipitates in a melting alloy which contained these precipitates at a lower temperature in the solid.