AZ-Stew
10-07-2007, 12:06 PM
Well, it finally cooled off enough that I could stand to fire up the smelter and render the WW I had picked up some time back.
The stove is an Explorer model, made by Camp-Chef, that I got at Sportsman's Warehouse. The nice thing about it is that with two burners I can render stink-ons in one pot, while I melt clip-ons in the other to keep the pure lead separate from the WW. It's sturdy enough to easily support both pots full of alloy. The legs slide off after loosening a thumb screw, so I can stand the stove on end in the space between my safe and the end of my loading bench for storage.
I bought the WW from one of the local tire stores for $6/box, @ about 40lb/box. The first box I opened was about 50-50 stink-on and clip-on. The other three boxes were almost all clip-on. They looked like they had already been sorted by someone. I ended up with about a box and a third of waste - WW clips, label trash, valve stems, etc. I also found something that I haven't seen mentioned here. I found some stink-ons that appear to be zinc. I didn't throw them in the pot to see if they would melt, I just set them aside while I was sorting. I run my WW rendering pot between 600-700 degrees to keep from melting any zinc WWs that get past a visual sort. The pure lead stink-on pot I run at full blast to speed up the melt. Since the temperature runs higher in this pot, I have to be careful what I put in it. I didn't take a photo of the possible zinc stick-on for this post, but I'll try to get one posted later.
Photo 1: Stink-ons on the left, clip-ons on the right.
Photo 2: Closer view.
Photo 3: Smeltin' and-a Smokin'.
Photo 4: Yield: 132 WW ingots, 20 pure lead ingots.
Should keep me in bullets for a while.
Regards,
Stew
The stove is an Explorer model, made by Camp-Chef, that I got at Sportsman's Warehouse. The nice thing about it is that with two burners I can render stink-ons in one pot, while I melt clip-ons in the other to keep the pure lead separate from the WW. It's sturdy enough to easily support both pots full of alloy. The legs slide off after loosening a thumb screw, so I can stand the stove on end in the space between my safe and the end of my loading bench for storage.
I bought the WW from one of the local tire stores for $6/box, @ about 40lb/box. The first box I opened was about 50-50 stink-on and clip-on. The other three boxes were almost all clip-on. They looked like they had already been sorted by someone. I ended up with about a box and a third of waste - WW clips, label trash, valve stems, etc. I also found something that I haven't seen mentioned here. I found some stink-ons that appear to be zinc. I didn't throw them in the pot to see if they would melt, I just set them aside while I was sorting. I run my WW rendering pot between 600-700 degrees to keep from melting any zinc WWs that get past a visual sort. The pure lead stink-on pot I run at full blast to speed up the melt. Since the temperature runs higher in this pot, I have to be careful what I put in it. I didn't take a photo of the possible zinc stick-on for this post, but I'll try to get one posted later.
Photo 1: Stink-ons on the left, clip-ons on the right.
Photo 2: Closer view.
Photo 3: Smeltin' and-a Smokin'.
Photo 4: Yield: 132 WW ingots, 20 pure lead ingots.
Should keep me in bullets for a while.
Regards,
Stew