New Melting Setup

[IcerUSA]

I picked up one of the Pot/Burner combos from AGI and had to do a little fixing on it, not much, reweld the ring to the feet and added a couple more legs to it to make sure it would hold up for smelting :). Here is a couple picks of the frame.

3538

3539

3540

Hope this helps anyone else that buys one of these, seems to be strong enough now as I did climb on top of it and wiggled it around abit, 240 lbs and no give in it so should be good to go, had about a full 5 gal bucket of WWs in it and had plenty of room for more :)

[buck1]

That sounds like a winner!

[Aaron]

Thanks IcerUSA, I just ordered one thanks to your info

Aaron

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Icer, you may also want to add additional heat shielding to minimize airflow around the venturi and keep your heat going up into you pot. I did this with my turkey cooker and it greatly increased the efficiency, giving me similar results to a plumber's pot. Before I did this, I found I went through a lot of propane for the amount of wheel weights. Afterwards, I went through 5 five-buckets of wheelweights and had enough gas left to carry my BBQ grill through the winter.

Regards,

Dave

[cobbmtmac]

I thought I would share my very stable mould pour system.:castmine:

There are some like myself that due to back problems need to stand while making boolits. Bending over and over is not an option for me. So I went to Horror frieght about 3 years ago and bought a transmission jack, removed the the wheel brackets and casters, mounted my Lee bottom pour to the base. I can raise the bottom of my pot to a little over 63". My bench is 33", a total of 58-59" is just right for me. The sale price of the jack back then was $49.00.

Here are a couple of pictures::-D

3541

3542

[IcerUSA]

Nice setup Mac, thanks for the idea, now to get the new garage built to use all this info in hehe

[Jack Stanley]

Mac , what a neat idea !!:-D

Jack

[IcerUSA]

Just a couple more pics fo the setup, one has my 10qt pot next to the new one ;)

3551

3552

Keith

[IcerUSA]

Hey Mac, I don't think they make that screw type jack any more but I will look at the store to be sure.

[cobbmtmac]

Hey IcerUSA, :drinks:
I just received (Horror) Harbor Frieghts newest ads, they are only showing the hydraulic type. They showed the type I bought for a long time. Maybe it is not made any more, but if you really want one, let everyone know and who knows, maybe one will show up.
Good Luck,:-D

[C A Plater]

Hey IcerUSA, :drinks:
I just received (Horror) Harbor Frieghts newest ads, they are only showing the hydraulic type. They showed the type I bought for a long time. Maybe it is not made any more, but if you really want one, let everyone know and who knows, maybe one will show up.
Good Luck,:-D

Here it is: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=39178

[tding]

Icer, you may also want to add additional heat shielding to minimize airflow around the venturi and keep your heat going up into you pot. I did this with my turkey cooker and it greatly increased the efficiency, giving me similar results to a plumber's pot. Before I did this, I found I went through a lot of propane for the amount of wheel weights. Afterwards, I went through 5 five-buckets of wheelweights and had enough gas left to carry my BBQ grill through the winter.

Regards,

Dave

DIFB,

Are you willing to share anymore detail on your shielding? I too, am using too much propane with the turkey cooker.

[Springfield]

How much is too much? I can do 1000 lbs of ingots on one tank. Does the shielding make this much better?

[Edward429451]

I was using too much propane with my smelting grill. I wanted to add shielding on the cheap so dug around in the garage and came up with an old 10" 90 deg elbow (sheet metal ducting) and used a hammer to dis assemble it at the seam. It slipped loosely around the burner (side burner) and greatly reduced my melt time. Just one section was used. My dutch oven slipped right inside the metal.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

DIFB,

Are you willing to share anymore detail on your shielding? I too, am using too much propane with the turkey cooker.


Sure, I'd be glad to. I don't want to take credit for design, as I did nothing more than look at pictures of modern plumber's propane-based pots and copied the heat sheilding available there. Here are some links to pics that illustrate the main mods:

1st, I locked in the flow of gas and air, minimizing where the heat could go, providing just enough airflow for the burner and causing all the heat to be sent upwards into my pot:

http://www.zjstech.net/~ddixson/TurkeyCookerMods%20001.jpg

This second picture illustrates the amount of air allowed around the venturi. The material used is common steel pipe the welder I had had laying around the shop. I don't know the diameter, but it's commonly available from a steel pipe supplier.

http://www.zjstech.net/~ddixson/TurkeyCookerMods%20004.jpg

2nd, I had a heat shield built to minimize the effect of airflow around the pot carrying away the heat produced by the venturi. In other words, reducing heat loss through convection:

This is a picture of the heat shield. It's nothing more than flat steel rolled into a flat pipe shape, welded, then tabs cut out for restpoints on my particular turkey fryer stand.

http://www.zjstech.net/~ddixson/TurkeyCookerMods%20006.jpg

This final picture is of the heat shield mounted and the pot placed within. There's a couple inches of air to provide insulating effects. This is very effective for holding heat in.

http://www.zjstech.net/~ddixson/TurkeyCookerMods%20007.jpg

A last note: My particular turkey cooker has a pretty simplistic "knob" on the gas valve. I had to mark both the handle stem and the valve to find the starting off point, then the first lightable point and so on, but with some experimentation, I was able to find a spot that with the valve set at that point, the pot would take a while to heat up, but would provide me with 625 - 650 degrees F. This allowed me to prevent melting zinc wheel weights and minimized gas usage, with a reasonable heat up rate of abour 20 minutes.

So my process now is to clean the valve stems, etc., out of the wheel weights, separate out the tape weights for other alloys, then pile the rest into the pot, place a lid on the pot. fire up the heater, set to the mark and go have a cold drink (your choice) and 20 minutes later, come back, check the WW's, stir, dip out the clips, flux, etc. and start pouring ingots. Once heated up, the pot maintains that heat very well and I can "roll" out my ingots in little time after that, going through buckets pretty fast. 3-5 buckets in an afternoon with me going slow as can be.

Safety note: All safety shields, aprons, etc and breather masks advised.

Okay, lunch is over and I've got a class to hit. Talk to you fellers later.

Regards,

Dave

[IcerUSA]

The heat sheild on my setup is just some roof flashing from the lumber yard, when it gets bad I'll cut another one :)

[Texasflyboy]

Just as an FYI, I've noticed a few cast iron pots used as smelters in some of these posts. Which is fine in itself, but be aware that you cannot strike any part of the pot when its hot or at smelting temperature. Cast iron pots are notorious for cracking suddenly if struck by a hammer or some similar object.

I know this from experience...for reasons long forgotten...I did just that...struck a cast iron pot full of lead...and it cracked violently, spilling the hot lead all over the place. The worst thing is...I did it a second time about a year later and realized that you can't hit the pot for any reason when its hot, chances are it will crack. Forged pots won't do this, but cast ones will.

Just a friendly FYI...:castmine:

[medic44]

Nice idea on the transmission jack. My son just locked up his transmission:mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[IcerUSA]

Stoped by HF last week to get a recipicating saw and low and behold in their sale paper is a screw tranny jack for 60 bucks on sale so I guess they still have them.