Casting with Fire and Ladle

[jmort]

Want to start casting and would like to use Rowell bottom pour ladle for melting and pouring and wood fire as opposed to electric furnace. Is this reasonable or do I need better temperture control? Would like to do it as I have lots of wood and live in the middle of no-where. What would be a good size ladle for "hardball" from Roto Metals 4 to 5 pound ingots. Was thinking about the Rowell # 5 http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/casting_ladle_bottom5.htm Thanks

[MGySgt]

While it is doable - your production is going to be slow.
How are you going to get your base metal? WW? They realy need to be rendered into ignots.

I have seen the Civil Ware Re-enactors pour their muzzle loader balls and boolits that way - and they seemed to do fine. But they started out with clean alloy (close to pure lead).

You could use a 2 or 3 quart cast iron pot on your open fire and cast from it. the long handle rothwell handles will keep your hands out of the fire!

A lot of us here started casting over a coleman stove with a cast iron pot and a ladle - not too much temp control there4 either!

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Doby45]

What is the motivation behind doing your casting this way?

Money, nostalgia?

If it is money you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. Why would you scrimp on your heat source and controllability and in the same token spend money on hardball alloy and a ladle? If you are going at it on the cheap use straight wheel weights and a spoon.

If it is for nostalgia purposes, rock on.

[376Steyr]

Get a cast iron/steel pot and a Rowell #1 ladle for pouring bullets, a bigger cast iron/steel pot and a suitable dipper for smelting ingots. I now use a small cast iron sauce pan that I picked up at the thrift store for dipping, but for years I used a beat up aluminum pan with a set of vise-grips for a handle for a dipper. Do not try to use an aluminum pan for melting lead, as the melt point of aluminum is too close to lead.

[mroliver77]

I am in the planning stage of building a wood fired smelter.Planning in this case means thinking it over and seeing what I have available as a basis to build on. I have a small wood fired cast iron airtight stove that has been idle for years. I think I can cut the top out with a grinder and thin cutting wheel. I use a cut down propane bottle with propane but it will not work with this stove. A rectangle pot would be best. It looks like I will weld one up.
With the pot set into the fire box it will get plenty of heat on all sides but the top. A lid will help a lot and mebbe have an opening in lid to dip out of while still helping hold heat in.? Being air tight temperature is very controllable. Experience will help one anticipate the the adjustments of air, damper, fuel addition etc.
I think a small air tight stove could be built to cast with and could even be fired with waste oil.
My wood stove in the kitchen has a catalytic combusor in the top that will burn the smoke for fuel when the fire is smoldering. The combustor burns at over 1100 degree F. When burning properly and would really work well if one were incorporated into the design of a dedicated casting wood stove.I guess this would be a good time to get on it!! :)
Jay

[jmort]

Thanks for all the responses. Not doing it for historical reasons but there is no power in my barn other than a generator - noisy - and solar panel/inverter which is inadequate. I am buying 5 pound "hardball" ingots from Roto Metals and I thought it might work with a Rowell bottom pour ladle like the one I linked above. Would like to do all the casting in/around my barn. The stove project sounds interesting would like to see pictures when finished. Thanks for the replies.

[deepwater]

A friend of mine has a small bullet trap. He cleans it out and puts the spent bullets in a cast iron pot and places it IN his wood stove. The contents melt and upon cooling the new ingot (the shape of the bottom of the pot) is dump out and reused in his 35 year old Lyman 10# bottom pour furnace. I am sure that his alloy, even with new additions, contains some very old material that he has reused for 35 years,

[Freightman]

"Fire" will work but can be very hot, I have a old 18 wheeler brake drum that is attached to a stand . Cast Iron that I fill with wood and burn until it turns to coals. I then have a large cast iron pot I sit in the coals and smelt with the coals. I do not cast from it I pour ingots and stire them until needed. Lyman has a 10# kit that is very reasonable like $70 that has the melting pot, ladle ingot mold and some lube. IMHO you will be a lot better off saving up for the kit. Look a Graff and Sons or Midsouth or Midway.

[stubert]

With no electric, I would do a propane set-up. they are relativly inexpensive and easily controlable.

[Firebricker]

With no electric, I would do a propane set-up. they are relativly inexpensive and easily controlable.

I agree one of the burners from a turkey fryer would work good. I smelted down WWs into ingots over the fire when I ran out of propane. It worked but it was not comfortable at all way too hot for me. FB

[Shooter6br]

i like the scene from "The Patriot' when Mel's sons toy soldiers are melted down to take care of the officer who killed his son. That and "Freedom!!!"

[trk]

I have taken a 16" diameter pipe 5' long and put disks on both ends with 4" holes. Standing it up putting a 4" sheetmetal pipe in the top with a fan (blowing into the top) the flames shoot out the bottom. I've used it to burn stumps.

Next step is to take 4" gas pipe and weld up a retort to direct the flames to around a LARGE pot (old gas cylinder opened on one end) to melt 50 to 100 lbs of wheel weights at a time,

Why - it will cost only one or two pallets to smelt the WW. (FREE) vs a LOT of propane.

[Alchemist]

trk,

Could you post a pic of your set-up? Sounds like something I need to replicate.

[onondaga]

I enjoyed a lot of casting as a boy with a ladle over charcoal briquettes. You will get warm being close to all that heat. I cleaned and fluxed the metal in the ladle and then poured. I did not alloy as a boy and only used the softest plumbers lead I could get for casting round balls for my flintlock rifle. It is very slow compared to my Lee 4-20 bottom pour of today but it was a fine way to pass the time as a boy. I recall never casting more than 50 at a sitting. I mean sitting on the ground in front of a short ventilated pail of hot charcoal.

I clicked the link you provided to the ladle. That is a beautiful ladle. it is designed for large pouring like into ingot molds. It will certainly work for pouring bullets but I'd expect it to be pretty unwieldy at that size. A 24 inch handle and a 5 inch bowl diameter with a spout hole on top that looks a good inch across. That may be difficult to get an accurate molten stream into a 1/8 inch sprue gate hole on a bullet mold. A broad pour from a large ladle will be bigger than the sprue gate hole and block air from exiting the mold as the metal goes in. That is very problematic and will cause voids in bullets. That big ladle is for pouring into open molds like ingot molds or large molds with sprue gates an inch or more in diameter. It actually looks terrific for pouring into a 6 pound cannon ball mold.

A much smaller more maneuverable ladle or a spoon used with a cast iron fry pan or cast pot full of lead over charcoal fire would be safer and easier to control while being very simple.

Gary

[Bret4207]

All you need is a steel pot and a ladle to cast. The Rowell ladles are very nice, but also rather expensive and a 5lb ladle would almost require 2 hands to use. I use a 1 lb Rowell for 6 and 10 cavity moulds and I had to shorten the handle by at least half to make it controllable. Wood fires would work fine if you can judge your temp, but a Coleman stove or propane unit is a lot more convenient.

Ladle casting is just as good and fast as BP IME and I usually make better boolits with a a ladle.

[beagle]

I once cast in front of a fireplace one winter and it worked but wasn't the best setup. You need a good pot, a good support for the pot and a couple of firebrick to shield your hands from the heat and for sure gloves.

The biggest drawback is keeping the heat fairly consistent.

But, if there's no other way, it works./beagle

[alamogunr]

I have a Rowell #5 that I use when rendering WW. It holds 7-8 lbs of metal and weighs about 5#+ itself. I usually wait until I have 3-4 buckets of WW to have a clean-up session. A couple of hours of using that ladle will leave your back aching.

Consider that you are lifting 12-14 lbs each time and holding it out in front of your body(somewhat of a strain). It does allow you to make use of multiple ingot molds though. I use 5 cast iron muffin pans that produce ≈1#+ ingots and each ladle full will fill all 6 cavities, at least until I get toward the bottom of the pot. Then you will be lucky to get a couple of lbs each dip.

If I had it to do over, I would get the #4 for cleaning WW and a #1 or #2 for casting.
John
W.TN

[jmort]

Now that it is clear to me that my ladle would be too big, what would be the best way to "cut up" a five pound ingot to use with a one or two pound ladle? Would a hammer and chisel work? I may end up just moving closer to a source of electricty but I really would like to work in the barn. Thanks once again.

[MGySgt]

You could always buy s roll of 12-2 UF, a circut breaker and a receptical and single box and run a 20 amp 120 service to the barn to do your casting - it would even be able to give you light too! That is a good thing - light that is.

[KYCaster]

Here's my current set up for rendering scrap on a wood fire:

29200



Just a 20 lb propane tank with the top cut out (leave the handle) sitting on grill from a turkey frier, supported by a cinder block fire box. I can render 100 lbs in a little over an hour.

Like TRK, I find old pallets free. One will easily melt 200 lbs. of WW.

Keep the fire box as small as possible and learn to control the heat. (the smaller your pieces of wood, the easier it is)

Jerry

[Wayne Smith]

Ladle casting is usually done over a gas or propane burner. That is very doable for you. Old Coleman two burner stoves are usually quite available - I'm using a propane version. It is adequate for a 10-20 lb pot and that is more than enough to cast from.

What you are talking about is adequate to melt your larger pieces down to pour into ingot molds. Those ingots will easily fit into a smaller pot. Think 1/2 -1 qt. SS kitchen cooking pots. I melted the alunimum heat spreader off one of mine and still use the pot. They work fine for casting from as long as you don't try to move them around a lot when full - the handles won't stand that much weight very long.

A casting ladle is the Lyman or RCBS ladle - even the #1 Rowell is large and akward. You need something you can manipulate easily with one hand while you manipulate the mold with the other.

A Coleman stove or burner and a kitchen pan and a ladle and you are in business. Easy and cheap. No electricity needed, although I do warm my molds with an electric heat spot. Save the big stuff and wood fires for cleaning and mixing alloy.

[songdog53]

First smelting i did was on open fire and was kinda fun except when wind blew smoke in my face, it worked fine and still shooting some the ingots i made way back then. I use propane set up now and is lot easier but fire works fine. Worked for many years for our fore fathers. Course little hard to control heat but if it works use it.

[WILCO]

but there is no power in my barn

Have you thought of using an extension cord from the house? You don't need much to cast outside. My set up for smelting is based off a small rolling tool box, hot plate, chinese cast iron skillet and I use a LEE self tapping melter with an old ladle for casting my boolits.

[firefly1957]

I can cast a lot of bullet with a little gasoline in a Coleman stove....Never use it for food again though. After Y2K did not happen I picked up several new stoves for 5 or ten bucks each. Coleman fuel is going for over $9 a gallon gas works fine it may leave more soot in some older stove but the newer ones are designed to use it.

[NHlever]

Now even our hero Skeeter Skelton had to get on his horse with his melting pot, and Lyman 310 tool in the saddle bags, and cast bullets in the desert once in a while. I can remember those articles well, and there is something to be said for remembering tradition once in a while at least. I've seen folks at reenactments casting for their muzzleloaders over a wood fire too. I did it as a teen with no money, and may just have to do it again for old times sake if nothing else.