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desteve811
04-08-2010, 12:21 PM
I am looking into getting/making something so i can smelt larger quantities of wheel weights. Im just tired of it taking me half a day to smelt a 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights when i have 4-5 buckets in shed. Any idea's? pictures? The method im using now is using the harbour freight cast iron pot and a turkey fryer burner.

454PB
04-08-2010, 01:17 PM
Something is wrong if it takes a half a day to smelt a 5 gallon bucket of WWs.

I can do a 5 gallon bucket in two hours using my home cobbled electric burner setup, and it's got far less heating capabilities than a turkey fryer.

garandsrus
04-08-2010, 01:40 PM
Get a different turkey fryer! Not all are created equal in terms of power output.

John

Calamity Jake
04-08-2010, 02:36 PM
Send em to me I will help ya out!!!!! :kidding:

osage
04-08-2010, 02:48 PM
A couple things that work for me I.
Proper adjustment of the air mix to get a better flame, keeping the flame under the pot, not up the side. Coupled with a lid to hoild heat in the pot. I'm not out in the wind or I would use a wind break & or a heat shield.
I know there are threads with pics of members smealting outfits.

Cowboy T
04-08-2010, 07:12 PM
A 5-gallon bucket would take me a couple of hours to turn into muffin ingots...a lot of muffin ingots. :-)

bobthenailer
04-08-2010, 07:20 PM
use a lid on the cast iron pot, mines a 12 qt pot, use a heat shield around the pot, about 1/2 hour heating time for the first pot full , flux and skim add more to the pot, after that 25 lbs in ingots every 15 min . i did over 1,200 hundred pounds of finished ingots . in a weekend , working from around 12 noon to 6 pm each day and that includes set up and clean up

kidmma
04-09-2010, 11:58 AM
It does sound like something's wrong. You should be able to do more than that for the given time.:-|

twildman
04-09-2010, 12:15 PM
use a lid on the cast iron pot, mines a 12 qt pot, use a heat shield around the pot, about 1/2 hour heating time for the first pot full , flux and skim add more to the pot, after that 25 lbs in ingots every 15 min . i did over 1,200 hundred pounds of finished ingots . in a weekend , working from around 12 noon to 6 pm each day and that includes set up and clean up

My performance is similar; the heat source I use is that 30,000 BTU wok burner you can get on Ebay for 30 bucks. I use those half-thickness bricks to build a wind screen as needed.

blaser.306
04-09-2010, 12:24 PM
It was taking me and my burner a long time to bring a pot full of lead up to temp as well , even with a wind screen . The thing that I found made the difference was cutting 2 pieces of 1x1x.25 angle iron to lay across the burner under the pot and raise it up into the hotter part of the flame . It seems to have cut my melting time drasticaly , near in half . Just a thought YMMV.

Suo Gan
04-09-2010, 01:52 PM
Get a turkey burner, a large pot, and a weed burner. You will need a large ladle. I made one from a tin can, steel strap, allthread and a file handle in about half an hour. It holds ten pounds. Get many ingot molds. I use 2 9 hole muffin pans, and six four slot one pound ingot molds from RCBS and others. I stamp each and every ingot with the appropriate material and date (ex 7/4 WW or 5/5 Lino or 12/25 P, etc.) because you WILL forget.

Here is the sequence I use: Somewhat presorted bucket of ww, I have taken out the obvious pieces of trash and any zincers I can see. I then pour the entire bucket in the pot until it is heaping full, remove most clips search for any floating zinc weights and blow off the top with the weed burner. Add some flux stir with a cedar stick and pour off the ingots until I can't reach the bottom without getting a full dipper full. Repeat all day. The weed burner works good for melting large pieces of lead, and burning away a smoldering bits too. Should be able to do a thousand pounds in a few hours easy.

I made a steel pot from 12" square pipe. I welded a plate the the bottom and two handles so that I could pour the remaining lead in the bottom of the pot at the end of the day into ingot molds.

EDIT: Should have read your entire post, I have a bad habit of doing that. What I have seen some guys doing is they have the turkey burner and a large pot but only have one or two ingot molds, and a small dipper. You will need as many molds as it takes so that you can pour them while the others are freezing. The cheap weed burner is amazing and it will speed production up a lot. But you go through 1/2 again more propane. You will need a table so that you aren't stooped over all day. Everything should be set up so that you do not have to move very much. Place a large piece of cardboard below your work area to catch the spills.

WHITETAIL
04-11-2010, 07:12 AM
I agree that you need a lot of ingot moulds.
When the lead is melted and fluxed.
Fill as many as you can to empty the pot.
Then you can refill the pot and cool the ingots.
When the ingots are cool enought to pick up,
mark them with a steel stamp.
You can get the steel stamps from Harbor Freight.:lovebooli