Whats a guy to do?

[jdgabbard]

Well, being the apartment caster that I am, it necessitates the need to cast outside on my patio. No big deal. I actually like sitting outside when its nice and sunny.

Well, I sat down today and noticed I'm almost out of 358495s, and really need to cast up about 500 or so, and get them lubed.

Only problem, its 7 degrees outside right now with a 20mph wind... Low for this afternoon is 3 degrees. Whats a guy to do... I feel like I'm back in the mountains of Afghanistan during the winter again...

[RayinNH]

Put a chunk of plywood on your kitchen stove and turn on the range hood to vent the fluxing fumes...Ray

[jdgabbard]

Only one problem with that one... Pretty sure the range hood blows back out the top... Its a microwave unit above the stove, with no venting tube in the cabinet above. Besides, something about my digestive track tells me that it prefers unleaded fuel if you catch my drift. I just wish it would warm up...

[Shiloh]

Most range hoods run fumes through a filter back into the kitchen. Better than nothing I suppose. You'll have a devil of a time keeping consistant heat without somethon to cover the melt if you do this outside.

Shiloh

[mpmarty]

Quitcherbellyachin' I have to cast outside in Oregon. Rain, Rain and more rain.

[jdgabbard]

Rain can be diverted....The cold can't, lol...

Yeah, I had a hard time casting outside when it was this cold last year. I was able to get good boolits because I was ladle pouring with a 1lbs ladle. Having a lot of heat in one pour like that is a must. I just wish the "Blizzard 2009-2010" would be over. Its been snowing here every other day. Oklahoma is supposed to be a very tolerable weather state....

[Depdog]

Do what I do in the basement. Buy a box fan at Wal Mart (about 15 bucks) open a window, use the box the fan came it to make a gasket to block the rest of the open window. Just leave enough room for the fan opening. Put your casting pot in front of it on a table, cinderblocks etc. and turn the fan on low. The fan will blow the fumes out the window. Will cost you a little in heat though.

Glenn

[snuffy]

Why all the worry? There's no lead fumes to worry about. If it's worries about smoke, use a non-smoking flux like marvelux.

I cast in my loading room all the time. Only time there's ANY ventilation is summer time, that's just a small fan in a window. My lead-blood levels are under 8.0 every time they're taken. Last one was 5.7.

Boy how I love to hear about southerners whine about a little cold. We just got 8" of nice fluffy snow, now the wind is kicking it around with 25 MPH gusts. Temps tonight in the single digits!

[jdgabbard]

Boy how I love to hear about southerners whine about a little cold. We just got 8" of nice fluffy snow, now the wind is kicking it around with 25 MPH gusts. Temps tonight in the single digits!

We got 7" on top of 2" of sleet last week. Its snowed every other day for the last two weeks, and it hasn't gotten above freezing... We're used to the cold north of I-40. But it just makes for real bad weather here. It starts to melt everyday with the sun, then it refreezes making for bad ice. The road crews are stingy with the salt and sand. And good luck getting the back roads any attention. They don't care for working harder then they have to...:evil:

[jdgabbard]

The upside was I was prompted to buy a neat pair of snow chains for my boots at Bass Pro...

[swheeler]

jd; light your fluxing fumes, just smells like your burning a candle.

[jcwit]

snuffy's right!!!!

Other than that do what all the horders of primers and .22 rimfire say--PLAN AHEAD

[chris in va]

I wouldn't try to smelt indoors, every time I do it in my open garage my lungs hurt. It prompted me to get a charcoal mask but it's hard to breathe with it.

[3006guns]

Locate a vacant apartment in the building and enter. Turn up thermostat all the way and open sliding glass door. Clean up when you leave. Nothin' to it!:mrgreen:

[blikseme300]

I feel your pain about the cold. We are about to have a below normal cold snap here on the Rio Grande.

I actually prefer to do all my casting and reloading in winter as the summers here are brutal. I cast & reload in my garage with the door open. This allows for good ventilation.

Bliksem

[wills]

Boy how I love to hear about southerners whine about a little cold. We just got 8" of nice fluffy snow, now the wind is kicking it around with 25 MPH gusts. Temps tonight in the single digits!

What southerners?

[Edubya]

Now's the time to bite the proverbial boolit and settle down to review your books or go through the 'designated' stickies.
Enjoy life, man. We're all going through these rough times together.
Damn global warming!
EW

[Uncle R.]

Boy how I love to hear about southerners whine about a little cold. We just got 8" of nice fluffy snow, now the wind is kicking it around with 25 MPH gusts. Temps tonight in the single digits!

Kind of a disappointment again, ain't it? The weather man says we're gonna have a big snowstorm - and it's nothing but a lil' flurry or two. With all of the "Ohmygawsh" talking on the TV, down here to the southwest of you we got maybe 5 inches.
Whoop De Doo.
<
Uncle R.

[snuffy]

With all of the "Ohmygawsh" talking on the TV, down here to the southwest of you we got maybe 5 inches.
Whoop De Doo.

Yeah, well, we got maybe 6 inches. The lake effect kicked in pretty heavy for a while, then it just stopped.

I'm gonna let the wind do what it wants with it, I'll clear the driveway tomorrow. Glad I don't have anywhere to go, one good thing about being laid-off!:coffeecom

[docone31]

Hey, we got Iguanas falling out of trees!
First time for that!
Global Warming.

[wallenba]

My bins are gettin' a bit light too. Thinkin' seriously about ordering from Missouri Bullet Co.
http://www.missouribullet.com/details.php?prodId=103&category=5&secondary=&keywords=
just to get through the winter. Don't think I'll trade pneumonia to save a few bucks. I tried using my pot, hot plate and 1500 watt heater, but kept tripping the breaker.

[XWrench3]

Well, i feel your pain. It cold here as well (michigan), all you can do is put on the long johns, and snowmobile suit, and freeze your nuggets! Lol! Personally, i wait for as nice of a day that i can get. 7 degrees in my opinion, is not nice. Especially a windy 7 degrees. Is there a way to set up at least a temporary wind block? If not, check you weather reports, and see if you can get a 20ish degree day in the near future.

[jdgabbard]

I'm going to have to do something, Wrench. Weather channel right now says it 10, but feels like -2... I went out on the porch to smoke a cigarette... Took two drags and threw it in the butt can and went back inside...

You know I survived the harsh winters in the Mountains of Afghanistan while I was over... But at least it was so cold there you just went numb... Here you just have to put up with it staying cold for a while...

[jack19512]

I do all of my smelting outdoors but do my casting indoors. Been casting for the last two days indoors and no problems. :D

[RayinNH]

Do you have a friend with a heated garage, or know a fellow caster that might take pity on you?...Ray

[JSnover]

I won't smelt ingots indoors because of all the nasty crud on the WW, scrap, whatever else there is to make ingots from. But I certainly do cast boolits indoors because the alloy is so much cleaner by the time it gets into the pot. It doesn't need much (if any) fluxing and I use sticks or sawdust, so there's no fumes from that. Just do like that other poster said, put a sheet of plywood down to keep the lead off the stove top and go to town.

[theperfessor]

Sounds like you need an ice-fishing shack and some extension cords!

[MtGun44]

Smelting is definitely an outdoor activity. I cast indoors all the time, the problem is the
fluxing smells. I use an odorless flux.

Bill

[A J]

Don't stink up your apartment. A few bucks spent on store bought boolits is nothing compared to getting the smell out of your carpeting and upolstered furniture! Plan ahead next time - bite the boolit for now. Don't ask me how I know......

A J

[Taylor]

Well,I don't care where you are from,3 degrees IS COLD!.I bought a gas heater for my casting building last summer- never installed it.Been thinking of casting inside too. The fan in the window does sound good though.Been outside all week,it is the weekend now,I don't won't to go outside! Froze my "coondingy" off last weekend at the range,but I suppose that is OK, I took my daughter,I am really glad she went,my son wanted to shoot the Saiga he got for Christmas,and I got to shoot my new Mosin.However,it is still not suppose to be this cold in The South.

[Thumbcocker]

Put a half sheet of plywood on the floor to save the carpet. Load and flux the pot outside and bring it in, preferably cold. Put a layer of kitty litter or floor sweep on top and cast away. Start with clean metal and only add clean ingots. The only smell will be a slight "hot" odor. I cast in my apartment lots of times back in the day. I knew my wife was a keeper when she let me clamp my loading press on the breakfast bar at her place before we were engaged. (She also bought me a 7.5" bisley .44 as an engagement present.)

[Depdog]

The fan works great to get rid of the "hot" smell. I even took another box and did some cutting and taping to create a shroud. My wife has a very sensitive nose and has no complaints.

Glenn

[geargnasher]

You guys in Wisconsin keep laughing it up! It was 12 degrees at 7:30 this morning and that's the coldest it's been in years. Burned half a cord of wood in the last three days. I know, Waaah, Waaah, Waaah :violin:

I can't wait for Summer, 105* in the shade most afternoons with 95% humidity. If that happened in the "North" three-quarters of the population would croak. Most of us here wear long sleeves even in the summer just to keep the sun off!

As for casting in this cold, I think you would be fine just setting up a makeshift plywood bench near a window and have a fan blowing out, as long as you were using clean ingots and fluxing the minimum with charcoal or even casting under a borate glass layer.

Gear

[Big Dave]

Those little 6 inch cooling fans from old computer equipment make great ventilators for cellar windows. Combined with a largish cardboard box and some duct tape you get no fumes in the house at all. If need be they will exhaust through a 6 inch stove pipe or a length of flexiduct and you can set your casting furnace up on a stand by the sliding door and tape cardboard over the opening below the vent fan pipe. Sure beat working on the patio in single digit temps.
Dave

[reloader28]

noobe here...

We got to 35 degrees here to day, thats by far the warmest its been for over a month. 3 nights ago it was -24 again.

Anyway, for what its worth, I make ingots in our ventilated shop and cast boolits in my tool room at the house. Like some others I use a fan to blow the fumes out the window. Normally works fine but 3 days ago ,try as I might, I could not get it to blow out. I dont know if it was the cold or air pressure or what. SoI just kept casting anyway for about 3 hours and didnt pay it much mind.

The next day I couldnt hardly breath without coughing my lungs up. Finally tonight its letting up a little. But I decided it was time for an actual vent system. I thought about the reloading room (its always heated already), but as the wind blows alot here, we have a BBQ grill in the tool room and I wanted to vent that anyway and be able to use the smoker in there to.

I spent yesterday afternoon and the afternoon before making a 24"x36" hooded vent with a box fan and a light and mounted it over the grill. I vented it thru the wall and tried it out with some hamburgers tonight.

Sucker seems to work good. Now I can move the grill out of the road and put the smoker under it or more importantly, cast boolits on a flip down bench mounted to the wall under it and I dont have to breath in fumes or heat the outside with an open window anymore. [smilie=w: