The tinsel fairy is real and she is a brutal teacher

[Tom W.]

I keep ingots on the bottom shelf of my component cabinet. The house is generally 76-78 degrees, but if I put an ingot into the lead pot it will make the pot boil for a few seconds. These ingots have been poured and inside the house for well over a year....I won't put them in barehanded, I'll use a pair of channel locks.

Most of the time I'll warm them on top of the pot first.

[kelbro]

105° here today and 4% humidity but I still warm my ingots up on the hotplate.

[Mal Paso]

My melt stir spoon is stainless steel, which from fluxing has a thin layer of carbon on it. If I put the spoon into the melt too fast at the beginning of a session there is enough moisture absorbed into the carbon to blow lead out of the pot.

Steam is impressive.

[geargnasher]

This is a second reason to have a mould warmer. If you set your mould warmer to say 300deg. which is higher then the boiling point of water but not hot enough to melt lead, I put my ingots on the hot plate it will remove any water preventing this. I have a hot plate with a piece of aluminum on top of it with a thermometer stuck into it so I know what temperature it is. When I am goin to cast I place my mould on the plate along with ingots to pre heat them.

I do the same. The ingots don't need to be hotter than the boiling point of water, just higher than the dewpoint of the air.

Gear

[Doc Highwall]

I just set the temperature to the temp that I use to preheat the moulds to. Then when I place the heated ingots into the pot it will recover quicker and the mould will be placed back on the hot plate to stay hot along with more ingots if I am going to cast some more.

[odoh]

Picked up some old, circa '70s co ww. Est 40 gal of a 55 gal drum. Was stored dry and seeing as we had no way to unload it from the pickup, we hand downloaded it all into smaller containers for storage in the shed. So had first hand knowlege of their condition.

Last week while smelting some in a 6qt dutch oven, I was looking at the pot load and wonderiing when I'd see the melt. All the visible ww were above the molten alloy. Then, right before my protected eyes, one spit a piece of hardened lead about the size of #5 shot that struck the front of my shirt and bounced off. Surprising how the mind can track stuff like that in brief real time. The dastardly ww that launced at me had a void/cavity and the breakaway around it was clean/fresh w/o evidence of moisture accessibility. As it wasn't in the melt when it occurred, one could consider it in the preheat phase when it popped. I no longer limit my attn/focus to clear evidence to water/moisture/

[cbrick]

preheat ingots to prevent tisel fairy showing up.

hmm, never heard of that before and I've never done it.

oh well, to each his own.

Best wishes for your continued good luck.

Rick

[edler7]

Does this make any sense or am I mentally masturbating ?

WW come off wheels. Wheels are on roads. Roads are treated in winter with salt. Salt is hygroscopic (it absorbs moisture). If a little bit of salt (and the absorbed moisture) would be stuck on the ww clip somewhere when it went into a hot pot....

[captaint]

Rick - And here I was thinking that was tongue in cheek. I still kinda think so.... Mike Hope so.

[noylj]

Had a moth hit my pot once. Now, I always have a layer of vermiculite floating over the lead.

[Edward429451]

I have an RCBS 20 pounder and a Lee 10 pounder and what I do is to empty my pot when done casting, into the ingot tray. If the pot is cold when the moist ingots go in it will drive the water off as it heats up, and no tinsel fairy. Then I simply preheat my ingots on top of the pot for the continued casting session. Simple and no extra appliance plugged in.

I did have two visits from the tinsel fairy. I was smelting lead pipe in a dutch oven on the side burner of the grill and got a refresher course in weight and balance points. Another time I caught a single raindrop from a partly cloudy sky. Both times, I did not know I could leap that far. No injury and cleanup was easy, just peel it up off the driveway.

[JIMinPHX]

Thanks for posting that. I'll try to profit from his bad experience & not learn the same lesson the hard way myself. I've been getting away with doing that same thing here in the Sonoran desert, but I think that I'll quit that practice while I'm ahead.

I'm sorry that your friend got messed up like that.

[Southern Son]

Does this make any sense or am I mentally masturbating ?

WW come off wheels. Wheels are on roads. Roads are treated in winter with salt. Salt is hygroscopic (it absorbs moisture). If a little bit of salt (and the absorbed moisture) would be stuck on the ww clip somewhere when it went into a hot pot....

You don't even need the salt on the roads situation. I live in the Tropics in Queensland, Australia. We rarely get frosts, and I don't think we have ever got ice on the roads, so we don't put salt on the roads. I still had water inside the WW where it is moulded onto the clip.

I was smelting and had emtied the pot of the last batch of melt. I re-filled the pot with unmelted WW and put a top on (try and keep down the smoke). I was bagging up some steel and Zink WW when I found a lead WW. So I just lifted the lid and put it in the melt. The WW was dry on the outside, I know this because I had just looked it over to confirm that it was lead. When the WW sank, I heard a buzzing noise and saw the bubbles comming up to the surface, then POP.

I hadn't shaved in a while and it was a good thing, rather than the lead stiking to my chin, a few little bits stuck in my beard and a couple hit me on my galsses. The rest (only a tiny bit, maybe a couple of ounces) landed on the front of my cotton shirt.

That WW was dry on the outside, the only place that could hold any moisture was the tiny little gap where the clip is moulded in. I am more carefull now.

[nanuk]

It has rained here the last 2 days in a row and with all the snow we had this winter and spring there is a lot of moisture in the air. I didn't get to go see him today, but talked to him on the phone again. He says thank you for the good wishes. He took an ingot from the concrete floor(about 50 degrees) and put it straight into the pot. I asked if he heard any gurgling noises prior to the explosion, and he said no. He said it a happened pretty much instantaniously. I have always preheated my ingots when adding to a hot pot based off of the advice on this forum and because its so easy to do it. Just place a stack of ingots on the hot plate while you cast. They melt faster and don't lower the temp as much.

Whether people preheat or not is entirely up to them. I just wanted to pass this experience on so people caould see the possible consequences. I will see my buddy at work tomorrow and see if he'll chime in on here.

the very first time I melted WW, I used a propane camp stove and a medium sized cast pot. probably hold 50-70lbs

I didn't know better, ladled out melt into muffin tins, and added handfuls of WW gently on top, with a gloved hand.

I heard several noises, gurgles and steam and such.... just never put two and two together

Until I found this site, and started reading....

Now, WW = cold pot Ingots = preheat

always. Just like handling firearms. Some rules are best ingrained

[williamwaco]

================================================== =======

Here goes. There have been many discussions on this forum concerning the tinsel fairy, how much water is needed to cause a visit, pre-heating ingots before adding them to the hot pot, and safety gear. Well here is what happened to a friend of mine today.


Dick

================================================== =======

This thread scares the hell out of me. I have been casting bullets for 50 years and have at least 20 very close friends that have been casting most of that time with me.

I have never heard of this and I have never preheated an ingot in my life. I have picked up at least six zillion ingots off the floor in all kinds of weather and put them directly into the pot. I have never heard a sizzle or had an explosion.

What causes it?
I am not particularly lucky. How have I avoided it?

Ingots can't possibly have moisture inside. They were molded at > 600 degrees.

An inclosed air bubble could cause it but I have never seen that and cannot understand how one could form in an ingot. ( Although I have seen many air bubbles under the surface of the base of a bullet that looks fine except it weighs several grains light.) These bullets WILL explode if dropped directly into the melt. ( while the bubble is inclosed )

Obviously moisture on the outside of an ingot would cause big trouble but if it was moist, I wouldn't use it at all.

I have seen individual bullets explode when dropped into the pot. I have also seen individual wheel weights do it but I attributed that to grease or oil or an air bubble. or a drop of water on a bullet.

I never drop sprue cuttings back into the pot, I save them up until I have a large spoon full then ease them gently into the melt. Even something the size of a sprue cutting from a two cavity mold can splash tinsel five or six feet.

Surely nobody would "drop" something as large and heavy as an ingot into the melt. That will splash tinsel all over everything even if it were preheated. I use a large vice grip to hold them and ease them into the pot so they will not splash.

Perhaps a large temperature difference? I don't think so but I live in Texas and never cast at temperatures below about 50 degrees.

I guess I will have to buy a hot plate after all.

[Lizard333]

I've never had this happen and I have been adding ingots to my hot lead since I started casting. The difference is I think is your location. I live in Arizona inthe high desert mountains at 7000 feet. We get snow during the winter but is is still very dry. I even run a swamp cooler during the summer to help with temp in my garage. No problems. I did once however empty a bucket of freshly dropped boolits and with a wet hand pick up some ingots and drop them In a hot pot. Tinsel fairy visited then. That was my own fault. It was stupid of me. No injuries, but a learning lesson all the same. Never heard about preheating your ingots till this post.

[Fritz D]

For any laddle casters . . . pre-heating your laddle is also a good idea before sticking it into a molten pot.

[mold maker]

Lead pipe is a prime way to get a visit. Remember that pipe served its life under ground with pressurized water in it. If there was a flaw or void, it probably was filled with water and oxidized over.
That's a perfect tinsel fairy invitation.
If you haven't had a visit, your number just hasn't come up. regardless of how careful you are, sooner or later she will find you.
Being prepaired and using all cautions, won't stop it from ever happening, but it will save your hide, when it does.
This is a dangerous game we play.

[bdbullets]

Preheating is the best way to go but I keep a large piece of demin materal on my bench when I add any lead to the pot I throw that over it at the same time I drop it in. It has saved a big mess several times and keeps it in one spot if it does. I to have porblems even with preheatd ingots every once in a while like moisture is trapped inside the ingot. Don't know how it would work with a exploding pot but for the splatters and bubbling it works great.

[JIMinPHX]

I never drop sprue cuttings back into the pot, I save them up until I have a large spoon full then ease them gently into the melt. Even something the size of a sprue cutting from a two cavity mold can splash tinsel five or six feet.

I drop my sprue cuttings back into the pot pretty much every time. They are still pretty hot when they go back in. I don't thing that there is any real danger there.