Where to mix alloy?

[Gunslinger]

Say you have your different ingredients in ingots: rangescrap, WWs and lino respectively, and you want to try out a new alloy! But you only want to make a small portion just to test it... say 2 rangescrap 2 WWs and 1 lino. Where should you mix it??

I assume you could do it in the same pot you do your smelting in. But my pot is a fairly big one and it's not excatly super clean. And 5 ingots will barely fill the buttom of the pot. Once it's mixed it would probably be difficult to get out of the pot with the ladle, and for obvious reasons you can't just grab the pot and pour it directly into the ingot molds. Should I use a smaller and cleaner pot for this?

With a small amount like this, could you mix it in your furnace? 5 ingots will no doubt fit in it, but what if the desired testing alloy were to be 2-3 times as big?? And what about fluxing in the furnace?

What do you guys do?

[Boerrancher]

I always have done all my mixing in the furnace. It is a lot easier to clean it out or fix the alloy if it turns out to not be exactly what you want. I never blend more than 20 lbs of any given alloy at a time. Even if it is my old reliable 50/50 blend, because you just never know. As I said earlier, it is a lot easier to deal with a 20 lb mistake than it is a 40 or 100 pound one. As for fluxing in the furnace, I do it all the time. I have gotten to where I use a small pinch of pipe tobacco for the flux in my pot. It leaves a nice aroma and there is just a bit of ash on top that I have to dispose of. You can also use a pinch of wax, but the wife gets upset about the smell of burning wax in the house.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[Wayne Smith]

I ladle cast on an old Coleman stove. I use an old, steel 1qt kitchen pot to mix alloy on the small burner. You should be able to pick up this combination for very little money if you or someone in your family doesn't have an old Coleman around already. 1qt pots are almost a dime a dozen in the thrift stores.

[Calamity Jake]

I'm like Boerrancher, I mix all alloy in the casting pot using a set of machanical postal scales that weights down to 1/8 oz. I can keep alloys pretty close from batch to batch.

[monadnock#5]

I do my alloying in a stainless steel sauce pan. Holds 2 qt I think, on top of a hot plate. It works very well. The stainless pot is much easier to keep clean than the cast iron smelter.

[Silicon Wolverine]

i have one lee 10lb production pot that i strictly use for just doing oddball alloying. i bought it at a garage sale for 5 bucks so if i wreck it im not out much. you can also use cast iron camp cookware on a BBQ grill.

SW

[montana_charlie]

I have a pot specifically for alloying. It is smaller than my smelting pot, and larger than my casting pot. I mix (never more than) thirty-one pounds at a time, and always empty and clean the pot when finished.

It's easy to keep clean because it's heavy aluminum. If that makes you want to yell at me...go ahead. But, as long as it holds together I will keep using it.

CM

[monadnock#5]

After rendering down range scrap in the cast iron pot, I was finding lots of clinkers in the dross. I started panning the dross looking for them. A true PITA. When I had a small bowl full, I tossed it all into the stainless pot and hit the heat. What I found was that 75% of what looked like pure WW was actually dross, nicely soldered within. I really like my stainless pan.

[docone31]

I melt my prime source in a cast iron pot I got years ago.
When I am in the first melt stage, I ladle the melt into an ingot mold I use for making silver, or gold ingots. It is about 4" long by 1" X 3/8". One ladle, one ingot.
I do this for the same batch.
When I get tired, or it all gets too hot, or I get bored, I shut it all down and let the remainder cool in the pot. I keep the large melt, and ingots together.
When I melt a strange batch of whatever it is, I start in the pot, melt it all in, and ladle into my ingot mold. I then "test" what I have. I let the batch cool in the pot, and keep the ingots with that batch.
I do this with all the different leads I lay my hands on. Roofing lead, wheel weights, scuba weights, whatever weights. I keep these all seperate.
When I go to cast, I start with the wheel weights. I melt these into my casting pot. I flux, scrape, and get the pour correct. I cast a few to test.
A test I came up with,
I cast a boolitt, size it, stand it on end on my vise plate. I smash it with my hammer!
What I look for, is how it deforms.
If it fractures, I add pure lead, my roofing stock. If it deforms naturally, or what lead is supposed to do, I leave it alone.
Now for the casting. I take my ok melt material, and pour some castings. I look for rounded shoulders, wrinkles, things that should not be there on my seasoned predictable molds.
I then roughly calculate how much of what goes in proportion to make the receipe.
Sometimes I do indeed miss.
Once I get what I believe to be a good alloy, one that shoots the way I want it to, I then make ingots again.
This time I make ingots in an old rusty muffin tin. This way I know they are done the way I like them.
I go through my lead source pretty much like that. Eventually, I end up with a bunch of ingots that are what I want without adding any tin, or lead, or changeing the alloy. It is pretty much guess work, but it is based on range time.
I got some real light lead that snapped on bending. I have no clue what it is. I found, with my batches, if I add one ingot to two full pots worth of pouring, or half to one, I get a sweet alloy that pours real well, and does not fracture on the berm. I am not an hunter so I do not care about expansion. Paper does not care about expansion.
I have also added zinc. With real high heat, a small amount of zinc works well for me. I do mean small amount. About 1/4 of my ingot to 20lbs of melt.
The cast iron pot, when it cools, the melt shrinks and falls out when turned over. It is one solid pot full, rather heavy. Stores easily.
Essentially, even though I am almost rambling on this, I blend almost evenly, my melt. I don't have a front stuffer, so the stick on wheel weights go right into the melt. I just meter them.
I have a pretty good predictable alloy that I use from that. During the casting, depending on what the boolitts show exiting the mold, I can tailor the melt to meet my needs by adding an ingot of this, or that. The ladle makes a great measuring tool for what I do. Being a jeweler, I have lots of tweezers to pull clips out of the pot during melting.
It is really a fairly precise measureing process. Even though there are some weight differences between each long ingot, it comes out fairly well. It helps me keep organized all the alloy.
Grain weights of random boolitts, are 2-3gns of target weight. Not too bad. They size well, load well, and really do not grow much after sizing.
That is what I do.
I melt silver as my job, I melt lead as my relaxation.
I got the cast iron pot by trading an easy repair I usually do not charge for in exchange for the pot. She was selling it for 50 cents.
I do not alloy in my casting pot, although I do touch up the mix sometimes.
I do my alloying seperately.
Keeps it simple when I am casting.

[cajun shooter]

I don't like to alloy in my casting pot. Find a small cast iron pot and have fun. Easy to use in all stages of the melt. Easy to ladle from, pour and so on. Find one that's even all rusted ,it does'nt matter.