Yellow Crust Covered Pot of Alloy

[PoorlyCast]

Tonight was my first night to cast boolits as I am brand new to the casting hobby. I am using a Lee Production Pot and Lee C457-405-F mold. My alloy is Lyman #2 made out of 9lb of WW and 1lb 50/50 solder. I spent most of my time finding the correct temp. Lots of wrinkled bullets and a range of frosted with good fill out. At the beginning I wasn't paying enough attention to my heat setting after initial melt of alloy and it was set to max. The alloy was glowing red and had lots of sandy looking crust on top of it. This never went away. I turned the heat down to the setting of four; which means nothing, and it still stayed on top. Although the flow through the valve was smooth and filled the mold. After finishing I left the pot half full and let it cool. It is still on top and is the color of mustard seed. All of my equipment is new and my Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook (3rd edition) doesn't mention this color of crud. What is this and what do I do to remedy this?

[stubshaft]

Did you try to flux it and see if it would assimilate back into the melt?

[PoorlyCast]

Stubshaft, yes I did once using gulf wax ball after initial melt and then after all this started to come to the surface, but it stayed on top. I was leery to remove it as I felt it may be alloy that needed to be in the mix and was possibly what I paid $9 a pound for in my 50/50 solder.

[PoorlyCast]

When I was cleaning the bucket of WW I used a stainless steel pot and single burner in the garage. That set up gave me the ability to melt the WW down and flux them until clean enough to pour into ingots. But this setup was incapable of the heat that I saw my Production Pot generate this evening.

[geargnasher]

I don't know what that is exactly, but I've encountered it when smelting near-pure lead shower pan liners into ingots. It looks like small flowers of sulfur. Sawdust or wood shavings tend to take care of it, but it still produces lots of ash and junk that needs to be skimmed off. It might simply be lead oxide tinged with a hint of rust.

Gear

[PoorlyCast]

Geargnasher, do I simply apply sawdust as I would Gulf Wax for fluxing?

[ku4hx]

The alloy was glowing red ...

Holee Molee! I don't suppose you took a picture of that you could post did you? That I'd like to see.

The yellow stuff may be Tin oxide; common lead oxides are yellow.
http://books.google.com/books?id=DyrohYlFCiYC&pg=PA213&lpg=PA213&dq=yellow+residue+on+lead+alloy&source=bl&ots=J_SnAPvP-V&sig=GgL4kJgHiodTk-i54R1FBxnJwVo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lpg7T4ODNsTqtgecyMDnCg&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=yellow%20residue%20on%20lead%20alloy&f=false

[madsenshooter]

I've had my little pot glowing red too. The contacts on the temperature control were stuck together. Below is a pic of what formed with an alloy that was mostly WW. Next time they stuck it was with a babbitt I often use and there was very little formed. I don't know what it is, but it causes my bullets to pull away from the mold as they cool. Some of the long multigroove bullets I cast look like bananas and would be good for shooting around corners. You can see the alloy was once against the mold, but pulled away as it cooled.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_12364ea22831e3a59.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2468)

[PoorlyCast]

Madsenshooter, thats it! That is exactly what it looks like. So do I simply skim it off the top and discard with no worries about removing vital alloy components?

[cbrick]

First, you want your pot (alloy) temp in the range of 700 degrees.

Next, wax will not, cannot remove any possible impurities. It will reduce (put back into the melt) tin but not remove any impurities.

Here is a link to a free book, read chapter 4 on fluxing, the difference between waxes and saw dust as flux is explained very clearly. Read the whole book but chapter 4 will make fluxing your alloy clear and simple. I suggest downloading and printing this book, it is a tremendous resource.

From Ingot To Target (http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_textonly2.pdf)

Rick

[PoorlyCast]

cbrick, thank you for the link. I can see that I will not be lacking in help with this website. Thanks guys.

[41 mag fan]

For my .02 on this, I've had that same thing happen when I was smelting battery straps from work.
Working in an underground coal mine, we have battery coal haulers, 124 cells /battery, weighing 150lbs /cell. But by MSHA regs we have to keep the batterys clean, free of oil, dirt, coal, ect ect.
So we have battery barn workers who weekly clean these batteries, using a pretty heavy duty cleaner.
Plus it's not uncommon to burn a battery up and change several cells weekly. Which we're talking 30-40 batteries/barn.
So my friend, throws the old strap in a miner bit box for me, and I take them out when full.
But I've had this same crud, always thought maybe it was the cleaner that soaked into the lead straps.

Could it possibly be that the WW and geargnashers pan liner had chemicals cleaning compounds that soaked into the lead, and this is the outcome when melted down???
I might be wrong, but maybe between the cleaning compounds and dirt the crud would be the end result.

[Goatwhiskers]

That pic looks like the stuff I had posted about a while back. Temp was probably involved, but I solved my problem by fluxing the heck out of the melt and the junk went away. I really think the stuff was dirt and junk that I had not removed on the initial melt of the WW. Goat

[Sasquatch-1]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_12364ea22831e3a59.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=2468)

I too have had something similar to this, although not near as much, in my pot. I skim it and put in a mini loaf pan. I then take a propane torch and heat the heck (replace the "ck" with "ll" :-D) out of it. I seem to find that some metal (lead) melts and sinks to the bottom. The best I have been able to do with the rest is get it to glow a nice pretty orange. So when it cools it goes in the trash.

Never been able to get my pot to glow just being plug in. Might want to contact Lee about that.

[3006guns]

I had virtually the same results with a batch of lino I was melting, except the "crud" was a bright yellow. I asked about it on here and was told simply to flux, skim and continue on. I did and it resulted in some very nice alloy. It might have been the remnants of some sort of colored ink.

I think the material is simply an impurity that separates from the lead when the proper temperature is reached. Just use the lead and enjoy!

[Reload3006]

Just skim it off there isn't any telling what it is you said wheel weights .... The alloy of wheel weights is pretty well known ... but what that tire sloshed around in there is absolutely no telling trips through the car wash. mud puddles washing detergent oil grime grit you name it. We call that Slag or Dross for a reason. It is normal and nothing to worry about
.02

[41 mag fan]

Just skim it off there isn't any telling what it is you said wheel weights .... The alloy of wheel weights is pretty well known ... but what that tire sloshed around in there is absolutely no telling trips through the car wash. mud puddles washing detergent oil grime grit you name it. We call that Slag or Dross for a reason. It is normal and nothing to worry about
.02

Exactly.....that pic madsenshooter posted is what I get off the battery straps. The cleaner we use is heavy duty. You can spray it on and see it lift the dirt and grime off the batteries.
Says right on the barrel to wear gloves, long sleeve shirt and face shield, due to chemicals involved.

[sgabel1]

Too much heat! That is Lead Oxide. Very hazardous stuff as it can get into your lungs as dust particles. As mentioned above skim it off and put it in a sealed bag and discard. This happened to me once when I was smelting some pure lead which melts at a higher temperature than I was use to.

[runfiverun]

lead oxide is yellow.
pure lead oxide [made in a factory] is orange with a tinge of yellow in it.
wait till you get a ton of black powder on top of your alloy and you wanna take it out but you keep on squeezing bright silver alloy out of it.

[sgabel1]

Lead(II) oxide is the inorganic compound with the formula PbO. Lead(II) oxide occurs in two polymorphs, red, having a tetragonal crystal structure and yellow, having an orthorhombic crystal structure. Both forms occur naturally as rare minerals: the red form is known as litharge and the yellow form is known as massicot.

Lead oxide may be fatal if swallowed or inhaled. It causes irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. It affects gum tissue, central nervous system, kidneys, blood, and reproductive system. It can bioaccumulate in plants and in mammals.[8]

[Reload3006]

So what is that white powdery stuff on lead? I was told all my life that it was lead oxide?

[41 mag fan]

So what is that white powdery stuff on lead? I was told all my life that it was lead oxide?

Powdered sugar??? [smilie=1:

I was told the same thing many yrs ago, about the white powdery stuff myself.

[mpmarty]

Must be from the doughnuts.