Fluxing agents

[Netherwolf]

I've heard eveything from candle wax to sawdust to pine needles to dried leaves so I'm curious to know if axle grease would be a viable fluxing agent? I have a chance to get a 5 gallon bucket of axle/bearing grease for free & thought if I could use it as a fluxing agent, I could save my wax for making bullet lube. Any thoughts? And, if axle grease is useable, what about other types of grease e.g., bacon grease, grease drippings from the George Foreman, lard....

All opinions welcome,
Netherwolf

[357maximum]

I would save the 5gals of grease for something that needs it and use sawdust for fluxing with, but my dad has a wood shop and i have tons of it available. ....burning axle grease would stink up my casting shed even with the oven hood on high.....steeeenky/smokey/fireball situation you are flirting with

[Lloyd Smale]

it would work but like was said theres probably easier things to deal with.

[Bass Ackward]

I love stuff that flames for casting. Candle or canning wax is what I use and I always ignite it. It burns off the oxygen allowing the dross to return to the melt.

Never turn down free stuff. Free to you can be sold cheap to someone else.

[Linstrum]

Typical grease formulations are a petroleum lubricant such as oil or paraffin with a colloidal suspension of a metallic soap in it that gives the grease its lubricity at extremely high pressure, as well as thickens it. The oil in the grease formulation would act as flux no problem, but the soaps that are also present would quickly decompose at the high temperature of the molten boolit alloy and become a nuisance contaminant. The metals typically used in grease soaps are lithium, calcium, and lead, and when the soaps of those metals decompose at high heat they form mostly the carbonate and/or oxide of those metals, which are basically dirt. One other important thing is that when the metallic soaps decompose the fumes they release contain the metals in high concentration and would be an inhalation hazard. The calcium would be a simple alkaline lung irritant but the lithium and lead would be quite toxic with the lithium being a potentially dangerous neurotoxin (lithium carbonate is used to treat mood swing disorders), plus soap molecules themselves break down into several extremely poisonous and carcinogenic materials that include acreolin and benzopyrine; so even a simple calcium soap grease would make toxic fumes despite the calcium component being relatively innocuous. Lead soap when heated releases poisonous fumes at a much lower temperature than molten lead metal itself because of the aerosol-forming behavior of the lead-containing soap molecule when it comes apart. Now, with that said, the grease you have is most likely a lithium or calcium soap grease since the use of lead soap in grease was for the most part abandoned about 1970, with some lead grease still used for special applications. If it were my grease I’d keep it and use it as a lubricant and preservative on my guns and machinery since the amount of flux needed to treat boolit metal is relatively small; in the last twenty-five years I have probably used a pound of pine rosin as my flux of choice. In my 5-pound Lee electric melting pot I use about quarter of a sugar cube size chunk of rosin, or even sugar itself, as flux per five pounds of metal. Yup, it doesn’t take much.

[dragonrider]

Use sawdust, you will like it. Toss a handfull or two on top. let it sit there abit in order to dry completely and start mixing, it is going to smoke so throw match in it and let it burn down. Mix it up some and then leave it on top as a barrier.

[buck1]

If you flux with that grease they will run you out of the state! YUCK!!!
The wood chips at wallyworlds pet section work well if you let them cook a bit ($2.00 for a years worth). Crushed charcoal works nicely.
I like to melt one cheepo candle down with a equil part of cheepo vasoline for outside fluxing (BIG FIRE!).
But my favorite is carnuba wax chips! very little smoke, great for inside!! FWIW>>>>>>>>Buck