What went wrong with my smelt?

[Gunslinger]

I smelted some WWs yesterday. And things didn't go as smooth as they usually do. Normally I just smelt, remove dross, flux and then poor ingots... no biggie untill yesterday.

I followed the traditional procedure. But after having skimmed off the zinc and steel weights along with the clips and such, in the smelt remained a dark grey kind of lumpy substance. I could be skimmed but never seemed to dissappear intirely. I know it's not zinc, I've had zinc melt on me before, this was not it. I fluxed the pot first with candles stubs and then later I stirred a few times with a big wooden stick.

When I had gotten rid of most of that lumpy grey stuff, I noticed the smelt turned golden. I know it's due to the presence of tin, and only has to be fluxed back into the alloy. But the weird thing is that after I fluxed with the stick, and poured maybe 10 small ingots, the smelt turned golden again.... So I fluxed... which bought me roughly 15 seconds before the golden surface reappeared. This continued....

Any ideas???

I took some pictures, maybe you can identify the dark grey substance.

And please forgive the not so great quality of the pictures, my cell was all I had at hand!

[44man]

The more I see stuff like this on the site, the more I believe it is another case of back door gun control to remove a source of lead for us. Maybe something is being added to WW's on purpose.
I have never seen anything like that. :confused:

[weasel 21]

I have had a blueish,gold hue on some of my melts and when then ignots cooled the color was still there. I think it was zinc.

[wallenba]

Where's your wedding band....oops. Just kiddin, I have no clue. I get color sometimes in the bottom of the pot when ingots are poured, but none in the ingots.

[wallenba]

What happens when bismuth get in. I have some old fishing weight I've thought of using but I'm not sure it's lead.

[geargnasher]

I've seen lots of that grey lumpy stuff in ww, I generally attribute it to the aluminum flakes in the paint on some of the weights (could be wrong, though). Never seen the golden hue you describe before. Wish MY cell phone took pics that good :|.

Gear

[Bret4207]

I was thinking aluminum but it's hard to say. What's it look like cold?

[geargnasher]

What happens when bismuth get in. I have some old fishing weight I've thought of using but I'm not sure it's lead.

I've experimented with adding bismuth shot to a couple of pounds of ww in my furnace but never got that golden/cadmium coloration.

Now that I think about it, I have mistaken zinc plating on steel for cadmium plating before, there is some process of zinc plating (I forget the name) that makes it super-thin and has a golden-greenish tint to it and is semi shiny, just like those melt pictures. I wonder if that is some sort of zinc or zinc oxide residue?

Gear

[Leadforbrains]

The dark grey stuff looks like the paint or coating that comes off when I melt my wheel weights.
The dark brown stuff kinda looks like some kinda high temp grease that won't burn off.
It could be you just got a really dirty batch and it needs extra cleaning.

[Leadforbrains]

What are you smelting in? It looks like some kinda teflon coated Wok.
I wonder if the coating on your smelting pan is getting worn off into your melt, and causing you to have to keep fluxing and cleaning.

[anachronism]

I get the same stuff from water pipe lead. It almost looks kind of foamy in a way. I wrote it off as calcium from hard water or some other contaminant, and fluxed the pot, then skimmed anything that returned. The bullets all came out fine for me.

[Gunslinger]

I was thinking aluminum but it's hard to say. What's it look like cold?

The ingots look pretty normal I think...? The grey stuff doesn't change when it's cold - it's still that dull grey color.

Leadforbrains:

I've had dirty batches of WWs before... but none that contained that thick grey stuff. Maybe it is paint, I don't know. I had removed trash and zinc weights before smelting, and none of the lead weights looked painted.

The pot is an old cast iron pot I borrowed along with the burner, so it isn't coated with anything....

[Leadforbrains]

Hmmmmm.
Maybe you should ship those ingots to me for further testing. I probably would need 50 or so to make a complete broad spectrum analysis.

[44man]

I have melted thousands of painted WW's and it burns away. Skimming leaves clean metal, no foam or dirt. Color means little but that junk on the surface is something else. Zinc will not do that and if smelting temps are right, aluminum will not melt. There is no need to go over 600* to smelt.
I would reduce the temp to 600*, hold it for a while and remove everything from the surface. Better to let it cool and then bring it to 600*.
I have no idea what is in that metal but if ingots are OK and boolits cast good, why worry?

[Echo]

What 44man says. The rapid oxidation causing the gold tint can be slowed by rendering at a lower temperature. How hot was the melt? Try to keep it down around 600* and you won't need to flux as often to keep the tin in the alloy.
As for the lumpy stuff - no clue.

[Gunslinger]

I have melted thousands of painted WW's and it burns away. Skimming leaves clean metal, no foam or dirt. Color means little but that junk on the surface is something else. Zinc will not do that and if smelting temps are right, aluminum will not melt. There is no need to go over 600* to smelt.
I would reduce the temp to 600*, hold it for a while and remove everything from the surface. Better to let it cool and then bring it to 600*.
I have no idea what is in that metal but if ingots are OK and boolits cast good, why worry?

I only worry a little, haven't cast any boolits from them yet. Unfortunately I don't have a thermometer....

The whole thing just left me wondering since I'd never seen this before.

I'll try smelting some from another batch, and see if it's the same thing!

[theperfessor]

A while back I smelted down about 150 lbs of a lead-based material that was apparently used in a chemical plant as a jacket around some type of piping. It stunk like sulfuric acid when first melted and the surface turned all shades of pastels - teal green, blue, purple, you name it. The top of the melt looked like pastel green alligator skin. Repeated fluxing and skimming brought forth a yellow powder that looked a whole lot like sulfur. I dropped the temp and kept skimming off the dross until it disappeared and the melt looked normal.

Yes, I stayed downwind (I smelt outdoors in front of my garage) and I haven't suffered any noticeable effects from it. I think what was left was mostly pure lead as I could scratch the purified alloy with my fingernail.

Since I have plenty of mostly pure lead around and I wasn't sure it would make good boolits I "donated" it to make lead hammers, one of which is still for sale under the site benefit section.

Would still like to know what was in it that made all the colors and the alligator texture on the top of the melt.

[leadman]

I recently had some wheelweights that were coated with a plastic like substance that did not want to burn away. It was a dull grey color.

The golden color on the surface might be antimony or copper. I get this in my shotmaker when a breeze blows over the ladle. I just stir it back in.

[Uncle Grinch]

I recently experienced the same golden color recently. The only difference was I was smelting a 3 gallon bucket of linotype. It had a lot of grey powdery stuff in it along with some thin shim like steel spacers.

I kept the temp below 700, but the mix had a grainy crytalline like appearance to it. Several of the ingots broke in half when I dumped them on my cooling board. They looked very grainy inside also.

I'm not sure of this mix now.

[Bret4207]

The ingots look pretty normal I think...? The grey stuff doesn't change when it's cold - it's still that dull grey color.

Leadforbrains:

I've had dirty batches of WWs before... but none that contained that thick grey stuff. Maybe it is paint, I don't know. I had removed trash and zinc weights before smelting, and none of the lead weights looked painted.

The pot is an old cast iron pot I borrowed along with the burner, so it isn't coated with anything....

Looks good to me. I'd try 1 ingot and a mould I was comfortable with and see what the boolits looked like. The crud may be nothing to be concerned with.

[Springfield]

Sometimes I get that and sometimes I don't . It usually shows up when I get distracted and let the temp go too high. I then let the whole thing cool, and pay more attention to the temp. I find that fluxing at about 675 works the best, hot enough so that when I flux with either wax or shavings(Pat Marlins Cal. Flake Flux) it is hot enough to catch on fire. For some reason the fire seems to release most of that crap back into solution. No fire, no workee. Just the way it works out. I have scooped out big batches of whatever it is, and later added it back to another batch and it all went away. Temperature does make a difference with smelting, just like casting.

[billyb]

nothing. I have smelted unknown hundreds of pounds of wheel weights, lead pipe, railroad babbet.Some of it containing all kinds of crud. A lot of wheel weights are coated with a polyester coating to protect the aluminum wheels. I have seen the color you posted,common for tin bearing alloys. Purple for the soft lead. The crude on top is the dirt ,carbon from the oils, paint and polyester coatings used on the wws. Use it with out a worry. Bill

[Lloyd Smale]

hard to say for sure but im running into the same thing right now with the lead i recovered off the floor of the barn when i had the fire. I get about a 1/2 inch of lumpy gray stuff on the surface and it wont flux in. (at least using wax for flux) I just skim it off. Funny thing is this alloy i ended up with with all my bullets melted and all the ingots of various alloys in it is the best casting alloy i think ive ever used!! It tests out to be about the hardness of #2. Aluminum is my guess as lots of aluminum things melted in the fire two and im sure some of it got in the melted lead. I cleanded and fluxed making it all into igots and then again to mix some from every batch together to make something consistant but its still there.

[XWrench3]

the problem is you got it too darn hot! smelt should either be deep fried or pan fried, and only for a few minutes! LOL! :drinks: sorry, i wish i had some good useful info to share with you. but i couldn't risit the word play. i will be watching this as well. good information is hard to come by sometimes.

[243winxb]

Looks like a high % of antimony and copper to me.

[45r]

I've been melting my WW's in a half gallon pan with two pour spouts and putting wood chips and candle wax with a hand full of WW's at a time.I skim off the clips soon as they melt and put another handfull in.I only melt enough to make six one pound ingots and leave about a half inch of alloy left in the pot.I flux with Frankford arsenal flux before pouring into ingot molds.I get the zinc WW's before they have any chance of melting this way and the alloy I end up with is very clean,it takes a lot of time but worth it to me.The alloy never gets too hot this way.I put my thermometer in the pan and it wouldn't even get up to 600 degrees.

[glicerin]

80% tin based babbit has often given me the gold color, on the surface of melt and sometimes on ingot(good stuff for alloying), but I wouldn't expect to see it in WW.

[cbrick]

I recently experienced the same golden color recently. The only difference was I was smelting a 3 gallon bucket of linotype. It had a lot of grey powdery stuff in it along with some thin shim like steel spacers.

I kept the temp below 700, but the mix had a grainy crytalline like appearance to it. Several of the ingots broke in half when I dumped them on my cooling board. They looked very grainy inside also. I'm not sure of this mix now.

Uncle Grinch, if your ingot had not cooled enough to solidify enough even softer alloys will break when dumped out of the ingot mould, the inside will look grainy like that. See if they break if alowed more time to cool.

Assuming your ingot had time to cool enough to solidify it sounds very much like monotype rather than lino. A very high antimony alloy will break the same way even when cooled. You can break in half a monotype (19% antimony) or foundry type (23% antimony) bullet dropping it on the floor and even when chambering a round. That much antimony is extremely brittle, try dropping one of these cold ingots on a cement slab and see if it has a high pitched ring vs a thud.

If it is monotype or foundry type its great stuff but for alloying . . . not straight for boolits.

Rick