Smelting day

[targetshootr]

Actually smelting weekend but got a lot done. Filled up 75 muffin pans 10 times and each weighs about 2 lbs. I bet these old bones won't be feeling up to doing much tomorrow. Anyhow, I took a pic of the scene of the crime before it got dark.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/targetshootr/IM005135.jpg

:castmine:

[pumpguy]

Nice work. Keep the Advil handy for tomorrow.

[medic44]

Thanks for the pic. Now I'll make my own heat shield

[targetshootr]

I've been eating Advil like M&Ms this weekend. The heat shield is a piece of sheet metal from Lowes in the heat/ac dept.

[imashooter2]

1500 pounds is a heck of a weekend's work.

[cohutt]

Yeah, but it hurts good doesn't it....

[armoredman]

1500 pounds? That would keep me going a loooooong time. I'm still working on the 15 pounds a kind member here gave me! I am willing to bet my loving wife might get a little perturbed if I had that much in the garage.

[cohutt]

1500 pounds? That would keep me going a loooooong time. I'm still working on the 15 pounds a kind member here gave me! I am willing to bet my loving wife might get a little perturbed if I had that much in the garage.

remember 1500 lbs is only about 3-4 cubic feet of ingots. Sturdy too- she could keep the recycling bin on top of them, would forget they were there..

[targetshootr]

Yeah, but it hurts good doesn't it....Yep, it's a good hurt. Gets the endorphins flowing but sometimes it's hard to get to sleep when the muscles are screaming. The idea was to make room in the garage but it didn't have much of an effect and there's at least as many ww still waiting for the same treatment.
:drinks:

[imashooter2]

1500 pounds? That would keep me going a loooooong time. I'm still working on the 15 pounds a kind member here gave me! I am willing to bet my loving wife might get a little perturbed if I had that much in the garage.


Are you kidding? She should be giving you a big sloppy kiss for getting all those ugly buckets out of there and replacing them with a nice, compact, clean, silver pile. It's all in how you sell it...[smilie=1:

If you want to keep casting a loooooong time, you better put the lead away now. Changes are coming, and not for the better.:(

[targetshootr]

Here's some of the ingots.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/targetshootr/IM005145.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b233/targetshootr/IM005146.jpg

[BruceB]

Over the last couple of days, I made right around 300 pounds of WW ingots (three .50-caliber cans full to the brim with 3-pound triangular-section ingots 10" long). The smelting was done while also carrying-out odd-jobs around the loading bench.

In the course of this exercise, and closely inspecting everything that went into the smelting pot, I found just one small weight marked "Fe" (iron) and one marked"Al" (aluminum).....and exactly NONE marked "Zn" (zinc).

These WW were picked-up last week from my favorite source, a tire shop on Winnemucca Boulevard that gets most of its trade from Interstate-80, just a few hundred yards away. They'd been accumulated by the shop in the last two months. This means that whatever is going on in the world of WW metals, it's not having much of an effect on the day-to-day trade..... YET. an Interstate highway has to represent a very accurate cross-section of whatever wheelweights are in common use out there.

It was kinda nice to find several big-truck weights in the mixture, each of them weighing almost a full pound!

[targetshootr]

The odd kind of ww seems to float without melting. Yesterday I tried beeswax for flux but it turned dark and greasy so I went back to corn cob. Also tried some lube I have no use for but it caught fire. [smilie=1:
Today I didn't feel bad at all so I went to the range and picked up lead in between shooting.

[Bob Jones]

Last weekend I turned 1000 pounds of range scrap into 650 pounds of muffins. First time with a new setup, bought a turkey cooker and surrounded the burner with firebricks to make kind of a mini-forge, worked real well.

I have an old, bone-dry stick about 4' long and an inch thick, I just use that to stir the mix with and don't seem to need any other flux to get it real clean, just gotta be sure that stick is dry, dry, dry.

BTW, ended up with a couple hundred pounds of jacket material from the scrap. Does anybody sell this to their local scrap yards, and if so, what are you getting for it. It's basically copper, seems like it ought to have some value.

Got another 1000 pounds of range scrap and 1000 of WW, so going to have a few busy weekends before the rains start, but it is nice to get it melted down.

[imashooter2]

I have read on here of guys selling jacket scrap and even steel clips back to the yard, but the yards around here weren't interested in it.

[2 dogs]

I loves casting bullets but smelting is for the BIRDS!

[targetshootr]

Ferm, send those birds my way. None around here have offered to help!

:drinks:

[randyrat]

Last weekend I turned 1000 pounds of range scrap into 650 pounds of muffins. First time with a new setup, bought a turkey cooker and surrounded the burner with firebricks to make kind of a mini-forge, worked real well.

I have an old, bone-dry stick about 4' long and an inch thick, I just use that to stir the mix with and don't seem to need any other flux to get it real clean, just gotta be sure that stick is dry, dry, dry.

BTW, ended up with a couple hundred pounds of jacket material from the scrap. Does anybody sell this to their local scrap yards, and if so, what are you getting for it. It's basically copper, seems like it ought to have some value.

Got another 1000 pounds of range scrap and 1000 of WW, so going to have a few busy weekends before the rains start, but it is nice to get it melted down.
FIRE BRICKS briliant idea. Thats one way to save gas and keep the heat up. Thanks

[randyrat]

Bob Jones, That scrap is/should be Brass and thats worth it's wieght in gold

[targetshootr]

Exactly how does something like a stick or any kind of flux material clean the lead? I use sawdust or corn cob but it never seems to get as clean as I'd like. After scooping out several ladles full into molds, the top is dirty again so I stir and skim till it looks better.