Guess What?

[Whitespider]

Guess what happens when you stack too many ingots in your lead pot, turn on the heat and walk in the house for what was supposed to be a minute or two?

[trickyasafox]

im guessing happy puppies don't start leaping from a magic rainbow.

[targetshootr]

I bet it melts over the top of the furnace onto everything, maybe melts the cord and maybe ruins the furnace. Does this game involve prizes? [smilie=1:

[buck1]

I bet your right!!

im guessing happy puppies don't start leaping from a magic rainbow.

[TedH]

I can guess what might happen. Thinking prolly not a good thing, and some cleanup work involved.:(

[Goatlips]

If it's a Lee pot like my old one, it dripped into the ingot mold below and made ya some nice lead bars marked 'LYMAN'.

Goatlips

[Whitespider]

Well, I use an old electric stove/range in my garage for a heat source. I have several pieces of cast iron cookware to melt metal in. My small pan holds about 15 lbs. with about ½ inch to spare. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I stacked 25 lbs. in it and went in the house to get the mold. Daughter and wife sidetrack me.
Molten metal runs down the side of the pot and onto the burner that is slightly larger in diameter. Metal drips into the reflector pan, filling it. Next it flows onto the top of the stove. Some metal also travels along the burner feeds until it reaches the wire connection. At this point it somehow blows the breaker, which turns off the heat.
Wife says she’s not surprised, because I always boil everything over when I try to “cook”. Daughter thinks it looks cool.
I now have about an 18 lb. ingot that will be about right for my next larger pan, and a few odd shaped ingots that total about 5½ lbs. I haven’t figured out where the other 1½ lbs. are yet. But I’m guessing that if I take the top off the range I’ll find it.

[jonk]

Ah, given that I use a Lee bottom pour pot, and the spigot rod (or whatever you call it) is kind of in the way for stacking ingots......it is pretty hard for me to stack more in than the pot will hold. In fact I pack as many in as I can, let them melt, then add more.

As to what happened to you.... well a mess, I agree with that. Charred bench if on a workbench. But nothing hideous, I don't think it would set fire to anything.

[targetshootr]

How long does it take to melt 15 or so pounds on the stove? My RCBS Pro Melt takes 45 minutes or thereabouts to melt 20 lbs. Might be a good idea to have a second batch melting on a stove.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I was casting some .324 boolits for my Czech Mauser in the back yard. I had put my Lee 4-20 on a 2 x 6 board across a plastic milk crate. Another milk crate was under this one. The whole sheebang was on top of a patio table. I had just filled the pot with a few ingots and some sprues. I get a call to go help a guy with a flat tire. I turned down to temp control to about 5 and left. Imagine my surprise when I returned to find that the bottom pour valve has magically opened and I had a fountain of sorts. The molton lead had spilled across the wooden board and melted the plastic milk crate enough to cause it to give way and allow the Lee pot to lean over. This about emptied the 20 # of lead all over the milk crates onto the glass table top. Now there was no problem in picking up the lead from the glass. However the mess in the milk crates was a problem. I had to saw apart the milk crates into pieces that fit into my smelter and I just remelted the whole mess into ingots again. The plastic stunk and fouled the air real bad but it works as a flux. I'll have to keep that in mind in case I run out of wax. Anybody have an easy removal method to get the spatters off the concrete?:confused:

[shooter575]

Sharp putty or drywall knife if it is smooth.If it ain't,no easy way I found

[Whitespider]

How long does it take to melt 15 or so pounds on the stove? My RCBS Pro Melt takes 45 minutes or thereabouts to melt 20 lbs. Might be a good idea to have a second batch melting on a stove.

15 lbs. take less than 20 minutes on my stove.
A cast iron dutch oven, heaping full of wheel weights, take about half an hour.
The main burner has a setting that allows me to set how many coils heat, 4,6 or 8. When that one is set on 8 it puts out a ton of heat. That’s the burner I use for “smeltin’”.

[targetshootr]

The stovetop probably gets a lot hotter than the paltry 120 volt furnace. For smelting I use a big cast iron pot that holds 80 lbs or so on top of a propane burner. Smelting is an all day job but it's the fun kind.

:castmine: