Melting Pot

[Leadmine]

I need a melting pot to melt down wheelweights on a coleman stove or other propane burner. I see someone mentioned a dutch oven. Seems heavy. What are my other options? What is inexpensive but will hold up? I want at least 20# capacity. Can I use some old revereware from the kitchen? Aluminum ok?
Thanks!

[Iron River Red]

See if you can find some old stainless utensils at a yard sale. I have run across a number of the commercial restaurant type warming pans and so forth. They will be small enough to be lighter in weight and don't pollute the alloy too much. They also have a generous lip around them to get visegrips on. I have a couple that I have less than a dollar in. I'm like you, I don't like things being too heavy. Especially when its full of melted lead!

[wills]

I need a melting pot to melt down wheelweights on a coleman stove or other propane burner. I see someone mentioned a dutch oven. Seems heavy. What are my other options? What is inexpensive but will hold up? I want at least 20# capacity. Can I use some old revereware from the kitchen? Aluminum ok?
Thanks!

I have found I can spend from now till Harlingen freezes over looking for this stuff at garage sales just to save a buck and wind up never getting any boolits cast.

I got a plumbers pot for about $20 or less at a plumbing supply, I can put 30 # in it, it has a nice high bail, pouring spout and a lip that is perfect to grasp with a pair of channellocks.

[Wayne Smith]

Lee, RCBS, or Lyman casting pots, 20 lb capacity, are readily available through almost any of the mail order companies.

I have the Lyman cast iron pot, would buy the RCBS because of the ledge to clip on vice grips.

They're not very expensive and well worth it.

Do not use alum.! I used a steel pot with an alum. base to spread out the heat, and the first time I used it I melted the alum. base off of it. Any one quart steel kitchen pot will work, bigger than that and you won't pick it up to pour off your melt.

[Willbird]

Personally I use the 10 or 12 quart stainless stock pot you can buy at Dollar General for $8.00, I put it on a turkey fryer burner. (the burner may need moved closer to the pot in some cases)

I have been cooking a mixture of 50-50 indoor range scrap and wheel weights, and what I do is add 70 lbs of indoor range scrap, cook it down and skim 20 lbs of jackets from it, then add 60 lbs of WW, when they melt I skim 10 lbs of clips out, flux, then dip the alloy out with a stainless stock pot ladle from Gordons Foods (local rest. supply) this ladle throws about 3lbs at a time into steel popover pan ingot molds, these ingots drop right in an rcbs pro pot, and if not poured clear to the top they will also fit my old lyman 10 lb pot sideways.

I have done 800 lbs of alloy that way so far and the stockpot has not gotten "funny" in any way....

Bill

[David R]

I find cast iron works best for me, got some cheap and have been using it for many years.

[anachronism]

I need a melting pot to melt down wheelweights on a coleman stove or other propane burner. I see someone mentioned a dutch oven. Seems heavy. What are my other options? What is inexpensive but will hold up? I want at least 20# capacity. Can I use some old revereware from the kitchen? Aluminum ok?
Thanks!

I use a good sized cast iron pot I bought at a closeout store for about $10.00. Don't use aluminum, I tried two different aluminum pots that I thought were heavy enough, and melted both of them. For heat, try to find a fish cooker at a garage sale or something. Mines a "King Cooker", and works really well for this purpose. You can also find single propane burners at places like Harbour Freight.

Bob

[Buckshot]

.............Before getting a turkey fryer setup with a castiron pot I used a Coleman stove, and liberated a stainless steel salad bowl from the war dept. It heated very fast and did a good job. I suspect it held about 60 lbs or so. Whatever, it was enough to collapse the electric element on our kitchen's rangetop once .

Several times in use on the Coleman I'd noticed the bottom would be red. I don't use it with the deep fryer for this reason as the bottom isn't well supported. The thought of all that lead suddenly sluicing out the bottom had me purchase a cast iron pot instead.

..............Buckshot

[waksupi]

Sometimes, however, there seems to be a problem with the gas flow. Sometimes no propane gets through at all, and other times it is restricted, and doesn't genterate the proper amount of heat. Has anyone else had this problem, and know what to do? I suspect it is the valve that connects to the tank, that isn't working properly.

[Willbird]

Do you have a regulator that has adjustible pressure ?? I have one LP bottle that weirds out like that on my gas grill which has a fixed pressure regulator, with the high pressure regulator on either of my smelting burners it works fine.

Bill

[David R]

I built a burner out of one of those "weed burners". Its a torch on a line with NO regulator. I took the end, put it on a 90 dagree elbow, and built a frame for it. This thing sounds like a jet flying by, but has about 500,000 BTU's. I think it cost me $30.00 new. Makes tons of heat in a hurry. Mostly for my cleaning up of wheel weights, I use a canning stove that also runs off propane. After the lead is melted, I pour it in a muffin tin. Makes nice ingots.

[slughammer]

Sometimes, however, there seems to be a problem with the gas flow. Sometimes no propane gets through at all, and other times it is restricted, and doesn't genterate the proper amount of heat. Has anyone else had this problem, and know what to do? I suspect it is the valve that connects to the tank, that isn't working properly.

I just replaced the regulator on my gas grill for the same thing. Seemed like the tank had run empty, but it wasn't. This happened several times. Just spent $20 for a new double line regulator cause I didn't have one to match.

Most likely you can get a single line regulator off of a junked out gas grill for free.

[D.Mack]

I use a small cast iron pot{about the size of a dutch oven], in my BBQ pit (brick) place my lead in the pot, start a good wood fire, and go ssit in the shade, and have an iced tea, I then dip the crud out with a laddle with a small hole in the bottom ( to allow the good lead todrain back into the pot), then i dip a larger ladle, and begin filling ingot molds. when the pot gets low, I refill the pot (carefully) using a small shovel,(to keep my pretty face and hands away from any hot lead) then back to the shade and another iced tea. repeat till either the lead or iced tea runs out. Some of my ingots say Lyman , RCBS or seaco, and some look like cornbread, but they all work well. When i started this way I lived in the country, and used a dirt pit, an old kitchen sink,`and a bigger fire, worked great, but in town those pesky red trucks kept showing up trying to put out the bon fire. water and moltenlead dont mix, so now I use a smaller fire to atract less atention, as the fire house is only 2blocks away. D.MACK

[Lee W]

Don't try this at home.
I took a 20 lb propane tank that sat with the valve open for a week, filled it with water and cut it in half. It holds about 170 pounds. The tanks are nice thick steel.

[Powderpacker]

Sometimes, however, there seems to be a problem with the gas flow. Sometimes no propane gets through at all, and other times it is restricted, and doesn't genterate the proper amount of heat. Has anyone else had this problem, and know what to do? I suspect it is the valve that connects to the tank, that isn't working properly.

I had a similar problem and switched out the regulator, checked the valve, tried several tanks, topped off the tanks and tried them again, and still not enough gas getting to the burner. Finally I took the burner apart and found a tiny fragment of brass stuck in the orfice. I blew it out with my air compressor and now the burner has all kinds of horsepower or is that BTU's?

[wills]

Sometimes, however, there seems to be a problem with the gas flow. Sometimes no propane gets through at all, and other times it is restricted, and doesn't genterate the proper amount of heat. Has anyone else had this problem, and know what to do? I suspect it is the valve that connects to the tank, that isn't working properly.

The thing on the end of the hose that screws onto the tank (cant think what to call it) has a check valve in it, with a little spring that gets weak. When that happens the gas flow is restricted.

[Leftoverdj]

Don't try this at home.
I took a 20 lb propane tank that sat with the valve open for a week, filled it with water and cut it in half. It holds about 170 pounds. The tanks are nice thick steel.

Lee, I ventilated such a tank from about 75 yards with a .45-70 and let it sit a week before I tackled it. Only used it once because the ring upon it sits gets to cherry red.

[Willbird]

I too had to swap out the regulator on my Craftsman gas grill, it had never been right from day one, I am going to shoot the old one with my 22-250AI bcause it caused me so much grief.

on the LP bottles, that oderant they add is weird stuff, the tanks can set empty for months with the valve open and you can still smell that stuff.


Bill

[357tex]

Has anybody ever used a 30 pound R22 jug cut down?I need a bigger pot.
would it work?

[Willbird]

I used to use an old R12 bottle with the top cut out, I was thinking those were 20lb...the only problem I could see with it, and that is a slight one, is those little dimples they put in the bottle for feet, I kept forgetting about them and would wonder what the $#@& was in the bottom of the pot when I was scraping and fluxing

What I have learned thus far about melting range lead and WW is that DEEP is not better, I would purpose design a vessel now to be only 1 diameter tall and probably only fill it halfway....the clips and jackets form a logjam that must be pulled up to the top of the melt to get everything melted.

10-12 quart capacity will easily melt 100 lbs of alloy and only be 1/2 full when finished.

Bill