Waage melting pot

[Blanco]

I have happened into 3 Waage melting pots.
These were originally for a wax/cellulose tool protection,
The thermostat claims 500 deg ? the pot is a heavy aluminum, about 1/2" thick
I am thinking of using one for lead but I know someone will tell me something bad will happen if i do.
Have even thought of doing away with the thermostat and adding a PID control to get a bit more temperature out of it?
Looks to be extremely well made.

[R.M.]

Been there, tried that. Just barely melted a small amount of alloy. It was a freebee, so I wasn't out anything but time.

[376Steyr]

Aluminum pots and molten lead are a bad combination. Aluminum melts at about 1220 F, which doesn't leave much margin for error if you are thinking about modifying the melter to use it with lead.

[Mk42gunner]

Waage has a website; you can research the wattage of the pots you have, then go from there.

IIRC the ten pound Lee has 500 watts, the 4-20 is 700 and the RCBS Promelt is 800.

Robert

I missed the aluminum in the original post. Why take chances?

R

[M-Tecs]

Ebay them and purchase what you want.

[GLL]

The WAAGE Model K4757-1 is the unit most often used for ladle casting but it is not a cataloged item.
It is a well constructed heavy duty unit rated at 800 Watts.

http://www.fototime.com/DF1271887CEBA67/large.jpg

Jerry

[carbine]

I ladle cast a lot of Minie balls. 240 Lbs this year, about 3,300. The K-4557 is the best I have found in 30+ years. I have 3 Lyman and 2 Saeco pots and one Lee.

[el34]

Blanco, I think your idea is good- defeat the thermoswitch and confirm it'll melt lead and get up to typical casting temps, then pull the plug. If so, let's talk PID. It's hard to imagine accidentally getting a pot of lead hot enough to melt aluminum so if that's the only downside of aluminum I'd give it a shot.

[country gent]

The downside of aluminum is it "weakens" alot more than steels cast irons do at lead melting temperatures. It may start to deform or flow slightly at those temps eventually failing. Aluminum alloies melting temps vary with what has been added to them tremendously same as lead alloys do. Our pot for cosmoline coating of tooling and cutters at work very seldom was over 200 degrees in actual temperature. Lead is 650 or so casting.

[Blanco]

I have been eyeballing the new Lyman Mag 25
To be honest if it is anything close to it's predecessor it will be worth the price.