Wanted bullet jacket soup, got stew instead. Need help.

[bdgackle]

I've built a smelting setup with a Coleman backpacking stove (white gas) and a 5-quart dutch oven. I made a frame out of galvanized steel pipe to support the weight of the oven so that the stove doesn't get squished. The bottom of the dutch oven sits about 1/4" - 1/2" over the stove.

The setup worked for melting down 25# of diving weights (mystery metal, I'm guessing mostly lead), but I'm having trouble with some salvaged indoor-range lead. The range lead started life as a mess of ground tires, brass, and former projectiles. I picked through this to get a 50-50 mix of lead chunks and jacketed lead chunks. I melted a pound or two of the diving weight ingots to get a nice 1/8" of liquid lead in the bottom of the pot, and then added the range lead.

What I got was a small shallow puddle of liquid lead in the center of the pot, surrounded by lead "mud". It looked like wet concrete, or maybe like damp brown-sugar (only, not brown). By slowly mixing the granulated stuff into the liquid part, I as able to get more liquid, but was only able to get about half of the pot to liquefy.

What am I doing wrong? Not enough heat -- is a small liquid fuel stove serviceable? Would propane be hotter? Is something chemically going on here? Maybe batch size is too big? The bullet jackets seem to hold the "concrete" together. I was hoping for a pot of liquid with bullet jackets floating in it, ready to be scooped out.

[docone31]

You do not have enough heat.
You will need to make some kind of heat trap around the pot to help get up to melting temp.

[BeeMan]

Sounds like not enough heat input. Those backpacking stoves are fine for boiling a quart of water but asking for much more is stretching it.

[jonk]

The mush sure sounds like semi molten lead... you need more heat.

[montana_charlie]

The mush sure sounds like semi molten lead... you need more heat.
But, he already said...

The setup worked for melting down 25# of diving weights.

Can it be hot enough for one...but not the other?
CM

[fishhawk]

diveing weights were probley WW and the indoor range lead was probley a lot of .22 stuff which is almost pure so the melt temp would be higher

[AZ-Stew]

Too much alloy for the available heat. Your Dutch oven and alloy are radiating away the heat as fast as you're creating it with the Coleman stove.

Option 1: Reduce the amount of metal you're trying to melt at one time.

Option 2: Get a more powerful heat source. More BTUs. Turkey fryer or LP (propane) gas camp stove.

Regards,

Stew

[Boerrancher]

I melt a great deal of range lead. It has become my primary source for boolits. It takes a lot of heat, because there is a great deal of air spaces between all of those jacketed bullets and lead bullets. I can melt raw WWs in half the time that it takes me to melt range lead. I have a homemade burner stand that was designed as an industrial sized fish cooker. My burner is an 8 inch dia propane burner. It gets real hot real quick, and range lead is still a PITA. One of the things that I have found that helps is to clean all of the dirt off of it as any dirt acts as in insulator. Best of luck in your labours, you just need more heat.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[bdgackle]

Thanks for the input. Sounds like I need more heat.

Next logical question, then, is how to go about getting it. Are there any options that are small, but would be hotter than my Wally World backpacking stove?

I'm trying to keep a low profile with my smelting operation. I'm in a studio apartment, doing this on a balcony. There is officially no BBQ allowed on the balcony, but the landlord DID say a little practice cooking on a backpacking stove was okay. I didn't specify WHAT I was cooking. [smilie=1: That said, giant canisters of propane might best be avoided, though I can go there if I have to.

How does one focus the heat around a pan?

[mooman76]

I'm not sure what the Coleman backpack stove is like but I've used a regular cole stove for years and it worked fine to include a bunch or range lead that had lots of dirt and rocks and junk. Pick up a full size old coleman stove. You could get one from a garage sale for cheap. Another option might be to remelt some of your original lead you melted down and add some of the new scrap to it. I always keep a small amount of lead melted in the pot when making ingots. It melts the scrap quicker that way from the direct contact.

[HeavyMetal]

What do you have for a stove in the apartment?

If you have a natural gas stove ( or even electric) you can adjust the air fuel mix and get it hot enough to melt lead! I melted several 25 pound lots on an open stove back in the pre wife days!

[dominicfortune00]

Back when I was young and stupid, I had a battery cable off of my car that I wanted to remove the broken battery terminal clamp from, but not make it any shorter.

So I turned the burner on the gas stove on high, and held the battery terminal clamp over the flame.

Within a minute or two, the lead melted off leaving a nice clean cable end.

I know that a gas stove would melt lead without modification.

[imashooter2]

I've smelted a fair amount on an old white gas Coleman stove before I stepped up to a turkey fryer and Dutch oven. The largest pot I could ever make work was 3 quart capacity with about 2.5 quarts working. Anything bigger than that and the heat sink was just too large for the stove's heat output.

Get a smaller pot or a bigger heat source.

ETA: If BBQ is not permitted than the smoke and stench off even a small smelting operation is going to bring the neighbors/landlord down on you. Make sure you're on a sheet of plywood or you're going to lose your security deposit for cleaning the lead splatters off the balcony after you're evicted.

[Goatlips]

Early on when my Coleman was too slow I used a propane torch directly on the wheelweights, things went a lot faster. Graduated to a weed burner down the road... :Fire:

Goatlips

[jonk]

Yes, Goatlips has a viable option. Get a small propane torch, like used for soldering pipes, and a standard nozzle for it. As you are melting the lead hold the propane torch to the mass as well and you should be adding 1/3 or 1/2 more BTUs, albeit to a local area.

[bigdog454]

I use one of these.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=35559
works great, melted 2 buckests of 22 range lead fine, about 10-12 ingots per pot.

[dakotashooter2]

Cabela's (and others) have a reasonably compact a cast iron 1-2 or 3 burner propane stoves that should get the job done. or a lot of guys , myself included , use a turkey fryer.

[RogerWatsonfromIdaho]

I melted my bullet fragments from an indoor range in my RCBS pro-melt electric furnace. I remember bullet fragments being faster to melt than wheelweights. I sold the bullet jackets to the scrap yard and cast the lead into ingots. Do you want to melt at night so less smoke will be visible?

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I use my coleman backpacking stove to melt range scrap and to cast boolits.

When using a large pot, wrap some aluminum foil around the outside of it. Bottom of this skirt should be just below the flame. Doesn't need to be real tight as some heat escaping up the sides and out the top is OK. The is setup reduces the heat loss considerably.

PS Works on big cooking pots when making chili and such. You can reduce the fire considerable with just one wrap of foil. I use it on my charcoal smoker in the winter too.

[bdgackle]

Thanks! I'll try the suggestions in order of cost, then. :-D
1) Foil Wrap
2) Smaller Pot
3) Bigger Fire (probably a full size camping stove.)

As to eviction, technically I don't think I'm violating any laws or my lease, so the worst that can happen is they ask me to stop (at which point I'd stop -- trying to avoid that). I cast at night, and am VERY careful about what goes into the pot. Keeps the smell down if you pick only the lead fragments out of the bucket. I also use a fan to get the smoke out away from the building.

The BBQ regulation is because they used vinyl siding both on the outside walls and on the bottom of the balcony above me -- BBQ's melt the "ceiling" of the balcony. So far, I'm not generating nearly enough heat for that to be a problem, but that is the reason I'm keeping the heat source to the minimum that works.

[Firebird]

Other thing to try is some fiberglass or rock wool insulation around and over the top of the pot. The aluminum foil will reflect a lot of the heat back into the sides of the pot, but you are losing the most heat from the top and a little insulation over the lid (or just putting the lid on the pot) will do a lot to increase the temp inside the pot.