dirty pot

Hi all I am new here so I may ask this wrong. so here goes. when I am making boolits the flow of lead slows real bad. so I drain my pot and there is a lot of gunk in it. I scrub the pot and clean the hole good and every thing is ok but after about 500 boolits it starts over again. so do you empty the pot after each use and clean it ? if I do that It works ok. should I coat the inside of the pot with lube or something to keep it in good condition? I mold for my 50/70 38/55 savage and 58 cal muzzleloader. Thanks all Katie, :smile:

Katie, Welcom aboard. What kind of pot do you use? What is your procedure , do you premelt your lead into ingots before casting? what kind of lead do you use? ww etc.
I use a lee 20 lb and it does the same thing, but I am a slob and seldom empty and clean.
John

Hi I have a lee 10lb ? sometimes I make ingots in my muffin pan. but other times I will just toss in some dirty lead and skim the debree off the top. I use whatever I can find ,wheel weights,old plumbers pipes. telephone cable cover. I just re melted some boolits I bought for a good price. they are for a 45 auto pistol and are lubed. so when I put them in the pot there is about 1/4 inch of lube on top until it burns off I do all this outside because of the smoke. I see that I posted this twice how do I get rid of the other one . or should I just not worry about it.. :lol: Katie,,

Welcome to the best board on this planet, Katie. A little more information will help to figure out what is going on with your dirty pot. I am assuming bottom pour-what make and size? What metal are you using? How are you cleaning the pot? If you are using old wheelweights or range scrap are you cleaning your alloy in your casting pot? That's a no-no, only reasonably clean metal should go into the casting pot. If you "coat the inside of the pot with bullet lube or something" you will only be excessively fluxing and NEVER get the metal clean. Many casters use a layer of kitty litter on top of the melt with bottom pour pots. this keeps oxygen away and makes fluxing unnecessary. Ladle casters often flux with a pea-sized or smaller blob of candle wax, well stirred in, then crud is skimmed off. More details please.

thanks you just answered my question. I will clean up the lead before using in my good pot. :smile: Katie..

As an aside I have a RCBS furnace. I have to admit I've gotten lazy and don't clean it often. In fact I even have melted WW's in it without premelting first into ingots. With all this neglect I still don't have the problems I'm hearing from other bottom pour furnace users. Now I won't lie, it does get dirty and the spout does pour alittle slower. Then I'll drain it and give it a good cleaning. I just don't know what to say about your problems. I would assume dirty lead is one reason, but then again look at all the bad things I do with my RCBS and it still works.

Joe

hello katie- i have a LEE PRO POT 4 and it stops up pretty fast with dirty metal. you need to melt and clean in a separate setup, also i run the temp on my lee about 8-8 1/2. the cleaner your metal is when you make ingots the less problems youll have all the way to the target.

Katie,

It is also good to scrape your stirring spoon around the sides and across the bottom of the pot when you flux the molten lead. Work more gently around the valve and seat of the pour spout as well. Even with clean metal, a deposit of lead oxide (orange to brown powder) will build up. Don't assume the dross will float to the surface just because it is less dense than lead. Some judicious scraping is needed to get it started to the top of the melt.