New fluxing find!

Well, in the spirit of being frugal to the point of silliness, I have found a new source of fluxing material.

For several years, I have used Gulf Parrafin with great results. There was a time when I used boolit lube too, usually either homemade stuff or White Lable Lube's BAC. All work well and will flame up to prevent much smoke BUT, I have found a source now that causes the material to be supplied by my wife! That's right!

MY WIFE NOW BUYS MY FLUXING MATERIAL FOR ME!

I can hear some of y'all say, who cares. Then, and these are the folks I am speaking to, there are those that say: "Tell me MORE!"

Okay, I will......Scentsy! That new fangled smelly candle stuff that they have out now. Maybe your woman hasn't found that yet. Mine has and I am glad of it!

Let her plug that light in and melt her smelly stuff away. When she notices that the "smell" is gone, tell her that you know just what to do with it and carry it to your casting area.

There is usually just enough smell to make it interesting but in the pot, MAN, that stuff really works!

Cheap too and, I figured y'all could really appreciate that!

After all, isn't saving money what casting and reloading is all about?

I`ve used old birthday candles, broken crayons, different types of old oil, wood dust, chainsaw chips, votive candles, canning wax, marvaflux, tree limbs, paint sticks and others I can`t remember. My favorite flux, for the time being, is chainsaw chips that I put thru a small food processor to make the chips smaller. I don`t know about this scent stuff you`re using, but it must work for you - good find.Robert

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Originally Posted by Hardcast416taylor

I`ve used old birthday candles, broken crayons, different types of old oil, wood dust, chainsaw chips, votive candles, canning wax, marvaflux, tree limbs, paint sticks and others I can`t remember. My favorite flux, for the time being, is chainsaw chips that I put thru a small food processor to make the chips smaller. I don`t know about this scent stuff you`re using, but it must work for you - good find.Robert

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Instead od putting the saw chips through a processor, why not just use a dull chain:bigsmyl2: That way all you chips will be saw dust instead[smilie=w:

i just use the jig saw, and saws all to cut everything up.
i keep the fine toothed metal blade in them at all times.
it slows things down a little and gathering fire wood for the season takes a little longer,but the flux i get is worth the extra little bit of effort.. :lol:

seriously now.
it's hunting season.
i scrape pine rosin from the trees when i see it.
i can easily get a sandwich bag full with little effort in an afternoon, free and top notch.
smells like christmas in the shop too.

I use wood shavings and saw dust these days but the best ever flux I have ever used, was rendered Bear fat. For years it provided me with the best looking lead I have ever seen in a pot. You could comb your hair or shave after fluxing with it. Nice stuff!!!!
Silver Hand

Hydrocarbons are sacrificial reducants, not fluxes. If you want to do more than reduce oxides, like actually FLUX the melt, you need carbohydrates. Sawdust is just about the best true flux there is. Grease/wax/oil makes decent reducants, but that's it. I agree that pine rosin is superb as a reducant, and has some fluxing properties as well.

Gear

My wife has been saving all of her leftovers from her sensy wax melters and it smokes like the dickens.
I think i will use them when reducing range scrap next time around.
They work.

Dry sticks and sawdust, best and cheapest flux material I know of. Don't like wax and oils as they make a dirty greasy smoke and as has been explained they don't flux as well.

I have been using candle scraps for about a hundred years. Always free. Usually had enough to give extras to friends.

Geargnasher turned me on to sawdust and although I don't like using it, ( it burns my nose ) it does a better job than wax.

Fortunately, my brother in law is a wood working hobbyist so I have more sawdust than I can use in a lifetime.

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My wife bought one of those candle melters, and thought it was really the business until one day she knocked it off the kitchen window sill, and melted wax ran all over the counter. The language would have shocked a marine sergeant. After she finally scraped all of it off of everything, the whole mess, melter and all, went in the trash.

Use rosiny yellow pine sawdust, and light the smoke with a BBQ lighter. Alloy needs to be at least 700F for best results. Stir lots with a clean, dry stick or spoon to expose as much of the alloy as possible to the sawdust charring on the surface. Once the melt is "fluxed" and reduced, it really only needs to have the oxides maintained after that unless you introduce other contaminants after fluxing. Grease/wax/oil/boolit lube/rosin work great for just "reducing oxides".

I try to do all my heavy fluxing when I "smelt", so it's done outdoors with lots of natural ventilation, that way I can really over-do it and use piles of sawdust in several rounds to absorb the impurities from the melt. There is a huge difference in the appearance of the ash between the initial fluxing and the third or fourth go, that's how I tell when it's "done". After that, I only need to contend with the oxides of the stuff I want to keep later on when I'm casting, and for that I use several things, which ever is handy, mainly "failed" boolit lube experiments, scrap wax, powdered or gooey cedar or pine rosin, etc.

Gear

My neighbors pine red pine fell down in a high wind, so I cut a couple 5 foot lengths out of a couple 3inch limbs. I used my radial arm saw and sawed up a couple feet of one and put it in a tupperware storage container. Makes great flux, had to let it dry a bit and don't push it under the top of the melt until it can dry a bit. Smells good but is a nasty smoke.

Light the smoke, it helps the reduction by creating surface-level carbon monoxide and an oxygen-free "shield" over the top of the melt while lessening the quantity of particulate-containing stinky rising from the pot.

Gear

I just found a hidden benefit in those scent burners. There is a small very strong magnet stuck in the glass dish that holds the wick burner. I`ve found several good uses for the mag, and I`ve just had it several days.Robert

Candle warmers make excellent coffee-cup warmers, and are much less expensive. I have mine set up in the gun room with a wall timer because of my tendency to lose track of time. Nothing like coffee syrup for potporri. :bigsmyl2:

Gear

Stink bugs! [smilie=l:

I haven't been casting long, but it seems like I get my cleanest lead when I use both sawdust and an inch or so of candle. Either one alone doesn't seem to work as well.

Having just cut and split eleven cords of firewood I've got a lifetime supply of nice chainsaw poop. My Stihl 440 produces a very nice uniform chip.

Wonder about those fireplace logs? Aren't they made of wax/sawdust

They will sometimes have some nasty glues in them that you don't want to breath.