Smelt and cast with one pot?

I have gotten back into casting after a period of absence from it. I used to melt wheel weights, flux (or what I thought fluxing was) and then cast from a bottom pour lee pot. I usually did this without making ingots and such. Is this not the preferred method? I started reading posts on this forum just recently, and it seems most of you are using two different lead pots. One to melt and clean alloy for ingots and a second one for making bullets when you are ready. When I first started casting it was pre internet days and you read a book or two and then went at it. Nobody to guide you and no youtube video demonstrations.
Trying to get the best bullet I can get.

Use a different pot for smelting down scrap.

I've done both. For me, its easier to make ingots in a separate operation when using a bottom pour pot . Sometime in the past, I used a coleman stove and a cast iron pot, and it was easy enough to fill it with weights, and smelt then start casting. Not getting the garbage from wheel weights in your casting pot means less fluxing, which means keeping your pace better, for me at least.

I cut an old propane tank I had, and made a smelting pot. Set it on some bricks and built a fire below. Worked well enough the couple times I've done it. Not super efficient.

I removed the valve enough that it started leaking, and let the last bit of gas leak out over the course of a night. Then I removed the valve all the way and let it set a few months, as Thats how long it took me to get around to it. I let it set valve up, and valve down a while. No smell when I cut it, and no problems either, when I put the cutting wheel to it.

I started out the same way you did with the Lee 10 lb. pot. Once you start making ingots in a different pot you will never go back. I now use an old cooking pot with a wire handle over a wood fire. I also don't bother fluxing during ingot making. Just stir once in a while to get the clips to the top of the melt.

I would advise against using the same pot. You’re asking for inclusions and junk in your bullets. Find a cheap cast iron pot to smelt in or similar if in the cheap or one of the converted propane cylinders someone sells here is a good one too.

I use two different. That pot i use to smelt with can hold around a hundred ish pounds while my Lee pot only holds 20. Larger pot makes smelting quicker. Pluss keeps the gunk and debri out of the bottom pour pot

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another vote for different pots.

the crud in the raw lead products can be very interesting at times

Its generally considered better to smelt/melt your scrap lead in a different pot than you cast in. This is assuming that you cast from a bottom pour pot. This method keeps the dirt and trash away from the bottom pour spout and provides nice clean lead to cast with. By smelting in a separate pot you can get larger batches of uniform alloy than doing smaller batches in your casting pot. But, be careful with contamination when doing large batches. I store each smelting session as a batch and in separate containers with a label marking when they were cast and the alloy. Smelting pots can be anything to large Dutch ovens, cut off propane tanks, stainless stock pots, or you can build one. If you go with cast, warm it slowly and avoid hitting it when its hot. Aluminum should be avoided.

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Originally Posted by osteodoc08

I would advise against using the same pot. You’re asking for inclusions and junk in your bullets. Find a cheap cast iron pot to smelt in or similar if in the cheap or one of the converted propane cylinders someone sells here is a good one too.

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I am that person D Crockett I make smelting pots and other thing for casting lead go to the vendor section and look under smelting pots and ingot molds and you can see pictures of what I make thank you D Crockett

Just to be clear, the main reason for not "smelting" in your bottom pour pot is the need for a clean alloy. Any tiny spec of dirt, sand, carbon, etc., can get in the needle valve and cause a drip. Plus junk gets in the bullets. Much better to clean your alloy in a separate pot and pour off the lead into ingots (I never pout every last bit out of my smelting pot as a lot of junk can be floating around in the dregs)...

You must be processing very small batchs of COWW’s! I NEVER re-melt dirty old Pb and stuff in my LEE bottom pours. It is hard enough keeping the crud cleaned up in them without melting dirty unknown garbage Pb in them.

I use a 100#+ plumbers furnace for large batches. And have an old Lee 20# pot for small batches.

Never in the same pot. EVER!!!!! Spend some $$...get another re-melting pot setup.

I'm in the same pot club .melt scrap ,flux ,skim off the rubbish then make ingots all in my Lee 10 lb pot not ideal but I only cast /smelt in small volume .

If you are buying clean alloy and that's all you see you're OK. If you remelt scrap you will benefit from the two pot method.

I was a reloader for years and never gave much thought about casting until I stumbled in here. I was instantly hooked! I lurked and looked and I read a LOT. What I determined was I needed two pots, one biggun for smelting down all those lovely yet dirty stinky wheel weights and a small bottom pour for actual casting the silver stream. I quickly found that way also had the benefit of making larger batches of specific alloy's for different purposes such as rifle vs handgun vs shotgun. As far as I'm concerned that's the ONLY way.

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Originally Posted by robg

I'm in the same pot club .melt scrap ,flux ,skim off the rubbish then make ingots all in my Lee 10 lb pot not ideal but I only cast /smelt in small volume .

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His biggest problem is a “bottom pour pot”! You are using a small ladle pour pot that is just a metal can that gets hot. The 20# bottom pour valve/seat/linkage will plug up eaily even just melting CLEAN ingots, let alone introducing garbage into the bottom of it. And can really plug fast melting garbage Pb.

I suggested to him to buy a small standard (10#) Lee pot (not expensive at all) for re-melting/fluxing small amounts of Pb for ingots. But cast ONLY from the 20# Lee bottom pour he has.

Banger

I smelt in a small skillet. Also cast boolits with it too. Didn't have any issues, as the skillet was emptied of all debris each time. Now I cast with a LEE Precision furnace. Better temperature control.
More alloy to work with.

Like you I was only using my Lee bottom pour pot for everything. since I don't really do that much smelting, I've gone the cheap route and went to Walmart and bought a steel mini muffin pan for making the ingots, a steel pot for the smelting and an electric single burner hot plate for my heat source. It's not that fast but it works.

IMO, the reason so many complain about Lee pots dripping, they smelt in them & empty them. My 2 Lee pots have never been completely emptied nor do I put anything in them but clean ingots. In almost 20y, they do not leak or drip.

I am a Small Volume caster and cast mainly plinking boolits, I use a 20lb LEE for smelting and make ingots of relatively clean alloy about once a year. I cast about 2 pots of boolits at a sitting. My LEE 20lb doesn't drip or leak [smilie=s:

Edit to add: I always ladle my ingots into the Muffin Pan to keep trash out of the Bottom Pour Spout.

If one uses a ladle for casting, using one pot is acceptable. When I started with a SS pot on a Coleman stove, I used a ladle and was able to cast clean bullets, not so with a bottom pour pot...

Life is simpler and everything works better if you use seperate pots for casting and smelting. With some looking you can find a suitable pot (not aluminum) at a thrift store. Home Depot, Lowe'sm, Bass Pro or Cabela's will have turkey cooker on sale. Get one for around $30.00. Will wok great for smelting. Either a Lee 10# or 20# bottom pour pot will cast great boolits.

OP here again.
Although I used one pot for years a Lee 10# bottom pour I have never run into serious leakage problems. Maybe I was just lucky I guess. I think that I will make the move to a separate pot for smelting as all are recommending. Do I need to empty and clean the lee pot for casting?
Yes the Lee 10# pot is too small for cleaning up the dirty WW lead. I did it but it was always a pain and I also would get leading problems from time to time in my 44mag revolver. I guess my alloy was not too consistent. Is the home depot type burner enough for smelting?

Often, those having difficulties with Lee bottom pour pots trace at least some of the difficulty to debris getting in the valve. One way to eliminate this is to use a different pot, as simple as a stainless steel sauce pan, for converting wheel weights and other "raw" lead to ingots. See how I avoided the "smelting" controversy. By using a separate pot, only clean lead will be introduced to the Lee pot, eliminating dirt from wheel weights etc.

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Originally Posted by fredj338

IMO, the reason so many complain about Lee pots dripping, they smelt in them & empty them. My 2 Lee pots have never been completely emptied nor do I put anything in them but clean ingots. In almost 20y, they do not leak or drip.

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+++++++1 on that ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I have smelted cleaned or alloied ( how ever you want to say it) for a couple reasons. One when working dirty lead its easier to stir and skim in a bigger pot. The dirt and crud dosnt contaminate my casting pot doing it separate. And last in the bigger smelting pot ( mine is roughly 300 lbs) I get a bigger batch of alloy that's consistant for a longer run of bullets.

When I clean lead and alloy I do several pots full of an alloy. Ingots are 3-4 lbs each. These are labeled as to pot number and date. If I do 3 pots on a Saturday. when casting the ingots 1 ingot from eack pot goes into the casting pot together, this helps to even out the differences in the alloy pots also. Making for 900lbs of identical alloy. So instead of blending every 10 lbs I'm blending for a year or two. If your casting a lot of 22s - 32s (light bullets) then 10lbs is a lot of bullets but when you get into the 400-550 grn bullets then 10lbs of alloy dosnt go very far.

I use three pots, a turkey fryer base with a 20 gal propane tank with the top cut off to smelt my wheel weights/pipe/range scrap into ingots. Then i will ladel some of my two cavity molds while the turkey fryer is out,I also use my lee bottom pour.

I'm in the "back in the day" before internet group. I bought a Lee pot and soon learned that I did not want the nasty junk in my pot after a couple times disassembling the spout to clean stuff out. So I got a cast iron skillet and burner for the initial smelt. It really does make things better.
Fast forward to now I use a turkey fryer burner and a large dutch oven pot to get things done a lot faster. I still use that original bottom pour pot but the spout is now permanently plugged so it is only for pre-melt like a nurse pot.

Every once in a while, whenever I think about it, I'll empty my Lee pot (Pro 4-20) and wire brush the interior (I never run the pot completely empty via the bottom pour, I just dump it). While I'm at it I'll clean and seat the needle and valve seat. I rarely have any dripping. Jes plain old preventative maintenance...

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Originally Posted by mdi

If one uses a ladle for casting, using one pot is acceptable. When I started with a SS pot on a Coleman stove, I used a ladle and was able to cast clean bullets, not so with a bottom pour pot...

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I do ladle casting, have a cast iron Dutch oven from Harbor Freight that was around $25 new. Plus some smaller pots from thrift store, the ones with all metal handles are best, followed by wood, last is the black synthetic.

I use them all over the $40 fish fryer from Walmart. But after I bought that I saw decent ones for $10 at garage sales, and a very good $100 one for $40 at an estate sale. Alas my haste cost me money. But did get me up and running fast and for not much money

At one time I ladle cast and made ingots on the same burner, later I bought a Lee Magnum Melter (not bottom pour) and cast from that feeding it clean ingots only. I don't have to concern myself with clogging a spout but I just don't want a bunch of crud in my bullet casting pot.

Angle iron dropped across fish fryer to support small pot. I still do scrap solder or pewter this way. Note the all metal handle (pointed away from camera on small pot)
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Harbor Freight Dutch Oven over fish fryer.
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Have been known to cast from either one but mostly I just use to make ingots for use in an electric Lee pot.

The bread loaf pans are for making big slab ingots for storage. I use muffin tin pucks or angle iron ingots from molds such as DCrockett makes for feeding a Lee pot.

It seems that we all started with a minimum of equipment and smaller batches. Stopped up nozzles or annoying drips soon lead to improvements. Unless you ladle pour, the second pot and clean ingots will greatly improve your boolits and disposition.

I still use a single pot save wheel weights and scrap until their is enough to make it worth while ( over 100# 200# is better). Then take apart and clean the pot well. Use wire wheel and fine wet dry paper. Put back together and cast. I have far more time than money. One day I might get another but fore now this worked good for me. Last time I made ingots got 750# of scrap lead and 250# of wheel weights. So don't have to do it often.

You will get a lot of smelting slag in your casting pot that would best be left out of it. Clean metal in your casting pot.

SHiloh

Smelt and cast with one pot? Sure. Smelt in one and cast in one....


Yeah, I know, I'm just being a smartazz.......