Muffin Madness

[Jumping Frog]

OK, so I am trying to get into this hobby. Started by getting my hand on two 5 gal buckets of wheel weights. From reading here, I realize I need to smelt these down.

Figuring I want to make some nice clean ingots, I started going to Kmart, Wally World, Salvation Army and other thrift stores to pick up some equipment.

Roughly 80% of the muffin pans I've seen were non-stick coated. Hmmm, doesn't sound like that would be a good idea.

The non-coated remainder are either aluminum or a mystery metal. Hmmm, I remember reading here that I should stick to steel or cast iron pots to smelt in because the high temperatures will weaken aluminum and make it unsafe. What about already melted lead? Are aluminum muffin pans acceptable?

What do you suggest?

[45nut]

I have been using a pair of aluminum muffin pans for years, you aren't exposing them to continuous heat like you are for smelting and they drop right out, works well here.

[TexRebel]

this pic shows a few of my ingot molds, even the teflon coated muffin pans work
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk302/Texrebel_album/reloading/IMG_0435.jpg

[anachronism]

I used to used empty aluminum pop cans for ingot moulds. I'd cut off the tops, rinse them out & let them dry thoroughly to avoid the dreaded earth-shattering kaboom, then fill them about 1/2 way. If you do this, make sure you set the cans on a piece of wood that you don't mind getting a few burn marks on, pop cans will leave a burned ring on wood. After they cooled overnight, I'd peel the can off the ingot with pliers, then toss the aluminum in the recycling bin.

[FN in MT]

I recently got back into all of this and needed a set of muffin pans, or ingot moulds larger than the one pounders I had. Luckily found a 9 muffin CAST IRON pan. Works very well. Yields a nice 5# ingot that fit's easily in my electric pot too.

Had the same problem...the only thing I could find were aluminum or COATED.

FN in MT

[Russel Nash]

I welded my ingot moulds out of channel iron and angle iron.

I goofed and welded on the inside of the channel iron where the lead woud go.

It has and I guess still does take a lot of cleaning up with a cone shaped stone chucked in a dremel, to get the welds to look better.

If I were to do it again, I would space out the channel iron with some flat stock, just enough so I could get a welding rod (aka the stick) in there, so I could weld it all together from the back side.

Thereby leaving the inside where the lead goes nice and smooth.

Then again the welding machine I was using probably sucks (the big red Lincoln AC only machine) which I guess I really do need AC marked rods for. [smilie=1:

7018 AC rods might produce better results than the 6011's meant for DC I was using. :roll:

Somebody here used a wire welder to make their ingot moulds. The pictured results looked a lot better.

Oh, I wanted to make my own ingot moulds because I really like storing stuff in ammo cans so I wanted an ingot that would fit nicely inside a .50 cal ammo can and also slip nicely into my RCBS Pro Melt pot.

I still have a Lodge cast iron muffin pan that I have to take back. It was $26.

I just figured my own rectangular shaped ingot moulds would stack better than muffins.

[hiram]

I use light gauge steel, teflon coated mimiloaf pans. They make ingots up to about 8#. Fill the pan to within 1/8" from top. When solid, roll the pan over and the 1/8" clearance allows the ingot to drop free.

[garandsrus]

I goofed and welded on the inside of the channel iron where the lead would go.

Russel,

Just flip them over and use the other side of the angle iron :)

John

[Russel Nash]

^^^ I'll have to take a picture of my ingot moulds, and then another picture of the ends of my ingots.

They don't look very pretty.

But, I am working on another project right now where I should end up with some spare channel iron.

So I could start over.

Looking at the "endgrain" of my moulds as they are now, they look like this:

l\__/ll\__/ll\__/ll\__/l

What I should have done was this

l\__/TT\__/TT\__/TT\__/

The top of the letter "T" 's there would be some 1/4" thick by maybe 1" wide flat "bar stock".

It would space out the channel enough to be able to get a stick in there to weld with.

I used the angle iron as a way to cap the ends of the channel iron with.

It also gives me something to clamp the vise grip "handle" on to, to flip them over to get the ingots
out.

And like I said having the correct rods (the 7018 AC's) should give me better results next time.

[mikenbarb]

Russel, Use Jetrod(E7024 1/8"dia.) and it will make it alot nicer. Just crank the heat to about 140 amps and it will make the bead lay down nice and flat. I make tons of ingot molds and their all done with either Jetrod or solid wire with gas shielding and I never had to grind any of the welds and the ingots drop right out.

[Russel Nash]

I'm not all up on the rods and stuff... I just know that I was using the Happy Home Handyman kinda welder, the big Lincoln red box, which is AC only.

I just happen to notice that at Lowe's or Home Depot they do sell a rod marked as "7018 AC".

I had bought some 6011's a few years ago and used those to weld up the ingot moulds and the laddle to my birdshot maker.

When I am on the job, we typically have welder-generators powered by propane tanks.

I think they are all DC machines.

So I typically grab a handful of regular 7018's and weld away.

Have the dial set too high, it drips out.

Have the dial set too low, either the rod sticks or I can't get it to reliably shoot an arc through the already painted stuff we have to weld together.

Everbody loves the 7018 rod because it's a "drag rod" and the slag usually pops off in one big piece as it cools.

No need to do the little semi-circular "c" shapes or looking for a "lady's finger" in the melt.

I have only wire welded once.

It was on metal studs.

There's definitely a technique to that.

[Dale53]

Here is an ingot mould that I had a welder friend put together for me. It is made from 2" angle iron and delivers three 5 lb ingots. An ingot mould this big greatly speeds up the smelting process (I have a couple of them) and they release the ingot easily. I use Lee ingot moulds (2 - 1 lb ingots and 2 - ½ lb ingots), RCBS, Lyman, and Saeco ingot moulds (they each have four 1 lb ingots). The mix works well when I need to alloy after the ingots are cast. All sizes fit my RCBS pots well.

Dale53

[montana_charlie]

Here is an ingot mould that I had a welder friend put together for me. It is made from 2" angle iron and delivers three 5 lb ingots. An ingot mould this big greatly speeds up the smelting process
If you fill a standard Lyman (or Saeco) ingot mould all the way full it will yeild a single five-pound ingot with 'segments'.

Having two or three of them gives you that 'five pound speed', and makes them easier to stack and handle than all of those 'little ones'. The advantage (over a 'block' ingot) is that the segments can be broken off if you need small pieces to fit in a pot.

CM

[georgeld]

Russel:

See if you can get some either: E7014, or 7024

Those are AC all position rods and will flow smooth beads.

7018 is another DC rod and you'll have hell getting it to work right. Take's a lot of hassle out of it to have the right rod.

I use a Lincoln buzz box in my own shop and have used up over 400lbs of these two rods in a yrs time. Haven't been doing too much the last few yrs. But, it's there when I need it.

Good luck,