Rambling thoughts on smelting

[Ohio Rusty]

I finally had a chance to melt down some of the wheel weights I've been collecting. This is the first time I've used/melted wheel weights so I went out to the garage,, set up my coleman propane stove, a 2 quart cast iron pot and modified myself a cast area next to the open garage door as shown in the pic. Advice to anyone who wants to begin smelting WW's and any future archive readers looking for smelting advice: DO NOT even think about doing this in the house !!! Man o'man do they stink !! All that melting and burning paint, tar, grease, opposum parts, and anything else that stuck to the wheel weights made me keep my distance until the smoke and smell cleared out. It took a long time for the lead to melt but when it did, all the clips and gunk scooped off easily. After fluxing with sawdust, I ended up with some very nice molten silver. I set about to casting right from the pot using a ladle. I made many excellent bullets using straight WW's, no tin added. The rejects I found usually came from metal that wasn't hot enough, or my casting fault of not pouring fast enough or at a correct distance between the ladle and the mould. After the first session I needed to change a couple of things. A coleman stove is great for bacon and eggs, but the grate sets too high for fast, efficient lead melting. I removed the coleman grate and put a smaller grate in that sets your pot closer to the fire. That stopped alot of the heat energy loss as more heat is applied upward to the bottom of the pot and less heat loss out the sides. I'm going to find a stainless metal pot at a thrift store and use it. The Cast iron takes a long time to heat up, using alot of my propane fuel just to get the pot up to temperature. Cast iron is also porous, and I find alot of lead sticking to the walls of the pot. A stainless pot is smooth walled so less should stick, and being thinner, it should heat the lead faster giving me more efficiency from my little propane bottles. The second casting session went better with the pot closer to the flame, and I'll tweak my smelting set up this weekend to get the most from my little set up to make lots and lots of nice shiny boolets !! I can't wait to to shoot 'em !!
Ohio Rusty
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v372/OhioRusty/100_0682.jpg

[sundog]

Rusty, Hooah! But there's a problem here. It's guys like you who jump into this game, compete for WWs, and just drive up the price by creating WW shortages. Y'all just need to forget it, leave things well enough alone. Ship the rest your WWs to me, and I'll take care of them. No more stink, no more screwing around with grates on coleman stoves, no more fuss, no more muss.

Figurin' yer not listening to me about now, have fun with it!

I used gas stoves for years and they're great. I recently hooked up a propane model that my folks had for backup during power outages (they had electric range). That propane model sure is handy!!! It still can't beat a good electric pot for casting though. Rendering large amounts of WW or range scrap really needs a bigger pot. One of these days try a turkey fryer and a 6 or 8 quart cast iron pot - or something equivalent. sundog

[mooman76]

I used the coleman gas stove, it works real well in fact the grate is warped from all the heavey use. A cast iron pot takes longer to heat up but because of it's heavyness it retains more heat for continued use. I now use a turkey propane set up. I think it works the best because of less fuss. And I think Subdog is right except for one thing. You should send you WW to me!

[**oneshot**]

For my small pot I cut out a large coffee cans and wrapped it around the pot, leaving the flat lip on top to trap the heat on the sides of the pot. It keeps the pot at a constant temp even if a breeze is blowing. I did the same for my Dutch oven pot but had to use 2 cans and cut outs in the lip to keep the contour of the pot. It still works great.

[imashooter2]

I've used both stainless and iron on my Coleman, and iron actually melts the lead faster. I believe it's because the thicker iron conducts heat up the sides.