Made ingot molds and smelted my first lead today!

[CGT80]

I cast some boolits as a teen and then got back into it about two years ago, at the age of 31. I have been using ww and scrap lead that my dad and grandfather had, and some that people have given to me or traded to me. I had 40+ pounds of new ww from my uncle's auto shop, and another 10+ pounds that a shooting buddy gave me. I also had about 8 big coffee cans full of used bullets from the range I go to. I bought a Bass pro fish fryer and a HF 6qt dutch oven, a while back.

This morning I did a quick search on here for ingot molds. I saw channel iron and angle iron molds and thought about the same. I use an abrasive wheel on my 12" miter saw for cutting and fabbing steel, but it isn't great about leaving nice tight fitting joints. I use a non-ferous blade for working with aluminum and can make nice cuts with it. I happened to have some 1"x2"x1/8" aluminum channel in my scrap pile and also some 1.5" x 1/8" angle. I cut the bottom to 5.5" wide and used a 15 degree angle so that the top of the channel is wider. I cut the angle to the 2" width of the channel. I made individual molds rather than a bank of four, because I wanted to easily weld around the outside of the channel. I quickly tig welded the first mold. I didn't want to make 4 that may not work.

I setup the fryer and my dutch oven. I used two big propane bottles from the front of my toyhauler trailer. I had an old ladle that belongs to my dad, and used to belong to his dad. I had bought a wire mesh spoon at chinamart to scoop out the clips and bullet jackets. I had some sawdust from the planer, some old boolit lube, and some frankford arsenal white powder flux. I also have an rcbs mold that makes four, 1 pound ingots.

I started with all the wheel weights. In 20 minutes they were melted down. I was waiting for my cast iron pot to crack, but it made it through the day. The wire spoon worked great for the ww clips. I had sorted the weights with side cutters and a magnet. I set the zinc weights aside for possible trade when I get enough. I fluxed twice with saw dust and once with the white powder. It didn't come out as clean as I had hoped, but it isn't bad. I put all the ww alloy into the rcbs molds. I used an aluminum pan with a terry cloth towel and a 1/4" of water to cool the mold after the lead solidified. 10-20 seconds in the water, and it was ready to dump onto some 3/8" steel plates. I only have the one mold, so it took a while to get the 41 ingots made. I used vice grips clamped lightly to the horizontal edge of the pot to tilt it, when it got down to half an inch of alloy. The weight was still rested on the fish fryer. This worked well, and I left just a bit of lead in the bottom because it had some junk in it.

After the lead solidified, I dumped 2.5 coffee cans of used bullets in the dutch oven. It was filled to the top. With the lid on, it took 30+ minutes to melt down. My flame was pretty orange, so I don't think I had all the heat that I should have. My bottle was getting a little low, but it was not empty yet. Later, I pulled the lid and saw a lot of empty jackets on top of the melt. The wire spoon worked great once again. It took a while to get all the jackets. I filled 1.25 big coffee cans full of jackets and had a few bullets that wouldn't melt. I had a few cups of dirt to spoon out also. I fluxed with saw dust twice, then used wax. I tried some new motor oil, but it burned off very fast and didn't do much.

I filled the ladle 3/4's full and dumped that into my aluminum ingot mold, then did it twice more. Turns out, my mold is about 3.3 pounds. I let it solidify and then cooled in the water tray. Five or six taps, while upside down, over my steel plates was enough to drop the ingots. I did preheat the mold on my hot plate before I used it the first time. Even after the water cycle, it stayed hot enough to be used again and make nice ingots. I got 17 ingots and 54.25 pounds out of that batch.

I cleaned all of that up and finished the other three molds. Now I have 4 nice sized ingot molds. Two ingots should fit at a time in my lee 20 pound pot, with room to spare. Now I need to get a HF letter punch set to mark my lead. I still have 5 more big coffee cans of used bullets to melt down. I also have two 80 pound bricks that are probably made of wheel weights, most likely by my dad's dad, and I have about 10 round bricks that are 10-15 pounds each of ww, but too big to go in my lee pot. I probably have 10 hex shaped bricks of pure lead that are 5 pounds each. I have 70 pounds of 1 pound ingots that are supposed to be linotype, to sweeten my other lead. To help fill out, I have tin chunks from rotometals and I will use up to 2% in my lee pot, only when necessary.

The aluminum molds made nice smooth ingots. I should spray paint them gold and see what people think






Thanks for all the help and great posts guys. This is the best reloading/gun site I have found. Hopefully others may be inspired by some of what I have posted.

[lwknight]

I love those square edged bars. Like bars of silvery colored gold.

[triggerhappy243]

nice looking ingot mold for sure. I did the same thing except used 3 inch steel channel and it is 20 inches long. each ingot cast full is about 20 pounds. I pour my first melt into these so each batch of lead has the same hardness and is stamped when it was cast and the make up of the cast. when I get to actually casting bullets, it will be fluxed a few more times and then hardness tested to my liking.

[dikman]

Nice mold and nice ingots, but it's not worth the trouble of making them look nice, in my opinion. After all, this is only the intermediate stage, simply to make the "raw" lead clean and in a usable size. I wouldn't worry about making the molds perfect, with welds all around. I made mine from angle iron, cut with an abrasive wheel cut-off saw and welded (at a slight angle, of course) to some flat bar for the ends. I only placed a couple of welds along the outside edge of each one and they work fine. I found it's not necessary to run a complete bead weld along all the edges.

Mine might not be as pretty as yours, but the lead don't care .

[CGT80]

Nice mold and nice ingots, but it's not worth the trouble of making them look nice, in my opinion. After all, this is only the intermediate stage, simply to make the "raw" lead clean and in a usable size. I wouldn't worry about making the molds perfect, with welds all around. I made mine from angle iron, cut with an abrasive wheel cut-off saw and welded (at a slight angle, of course) to some flat bar for the ends. I only placed a couple of welds along the outside edge of each one and they work fine. I found it's not necessary to run a complete bead weld along all the edges.

Mine might not be as pretty as yours, but the lead don't care .

I wasn't sure if the lead would find its way through the small gaps if I didn't fully weld the parts. I wasn't as concerned about making them look nice as I was with them dropping easily. I spent less than 10 minutes on welding each one. I dipped the tungsten into the welds a couple times, but I just wire brushed it and went on, as I didn't care about the weld being perfect in strength or looks. I use an old sine wave transformer machine (Miller 330 ab/p 460 amp) so I have to run pure tungsten with a balled tip and no arc control of any type. I was using a 3/32 tungsten and 200-240 amps on AC current. For non tig welders that means a big arc that wants to go everywhere instead of just into one fine point. The filler was some unknown stuff that I had used in my college tig class.

It may have been faster to make a 4 cav mold since I didn't need full welds. I am not a welder by trade(although I have done various non-structural/critical welding jobs for past employers), so I try to do what I can to make it easier to weld. I also didn't have any scrap steel channel but I did have the aluminum that was for a project that I decided not to do. I might have two hours at most into figuring out the molds, finding the right scrap, making cuts, grinding, and welding. I like to do work that makes other people say "wow, that is nice." I have a feeling that those molds should be around for a long time. The lead doesn't care, but I like the purdy bars of precious metal not to mention they stack nicely.

[CGT80]

I had so much fun yesterday that I decided to smelt two more pots of range scrap today. I made 35 more ingots of range scrap. My 4 molds worked great. I had about half a coffee can of used bullets left. Now I will have to go collect more from the range. Before I tried smelting, I read that TMJ or FMJ bullets don't allow the lead to melt out, unless they have hit a hard object. I was happy to see that there were very few that hadn't melted. I did find a big bullet that looked like a 45-50 cal lead bullet, but it didn't melt down even close to 1,000 degrees. Even if it was zinc, it should have melted. It didn't have the look of a jword. It was also very heavy and long.

I did have to extend the handle on my wire mesh spoon. The plastic handle was find, but the heat from the pot soaked into my tilman stick welding gloves. Maybe I will have to try those ov gloves. I didn't get to melt any pure lead, so that will be next. I saw that HF has the big letter stamp set on sale for $20, so I will pick that up with a 20% coupon so that I can mark the ingots. I could scratch the letters in, but I think the stamps will be easier to see down the road.

I filled the 6 quart dutch oven, three times. It was filled to the lid. I got half a 5 gallon bucket of jackets from it. There was a good mix of cast and jacketed bullets. There is 20-30 pounds of brass there, but I have no idea if the scrap yards near me will take it.

[dikman]

I didn't mean to appear critical of your work (the welds do look better than mine!). If you could knock them up pretty quick, and still make them look good, then well done. It's just that some folks seem to think they have to make their molds appear perfect and spend lots of time making them and I just don't see the point. I've found the angle iron ingots to be great, btw. The triangular cross-section means they stack real easy and are very stable when piled up .

Isn't it funny how melting lead and making ingots is so enjoyable (and addictive!), considering it can sometimes be a dirty, smelly, hot, messy business! Plus digging berms and lugging around buckets of lead is hard on the back (well, on mine anyway).

[CGT80]

I didn't take it personally. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so my quick job may not be the same as someone else's. I had 1.5" angle iron and was going to use that, but it is a pain to cut angles on my miter saw with an abrasive blade and there is a lot of clean up on the metal to be done. I also look for excuses to practice my welding. Just like smelting lead can be enjoyable, fabricating and welding are hobbies of mine.

My walmart deep fryer spoon did not have a long enough handle to keep the heat from soaking through my gloves. I added a 3/8" round rod to the shank, after cutting the plastic handle off. I clamped the two parts in my bench vice and tig welded them together. I think the spoon may have been stainless, but the rod was mild steel. The tig welds come out nice and smooth. The first weld was better (but rushed) and the second was getting a bit hot because I didn't let the part cool after welding the first side. I had a pot of lead that was ready to be skimmed so I spent less than 10 minutes modifying the spoon. I added a section of flat stock on the handle end, as it was a bit hard to shake the spoon with a round rod handle. I just did 4 quick little tacks with my mig welder to attach the flat stock.



This weld isn't all that great, but I didn't setup a rest for my hand or really take my time with getting good angles on my torch and filler. I am happy that it turned out this well for a rush job. It seems like the more I practice, especially under less than ideal conditions, the better I get at tig welding. It really is somewhat of an art to get everything just right: foot pedal heat control, filler angle and movement, torch angle and movement, and body position.

[triggerhappy243]

Is it two tip Tuesday?

I use a speaker magnet to pull out the steel clips off the wheel weights. I attach the magnet to a piece of 2x2 about 3 feet long and roll it around in the molten lead. picks up every bit of ferrous metal.

[CGT80]

Is it two tip Tuesday?

I use a speaker magnet to pull out the steel clips off the wheel weights. I attach the magnet to a piece of 2x2 about 3 feet long and roll it around in the molten lead. picks up every bit of ferrous metal.

The wire mesh spoon and then regular spoon get all the steel that floats to the top, but that is a good idea. Thanks for the tip, and welcome to the forum!

[fredj338]

Nicely done but no need to preheat any ingot mold, you don't really care what they look like & the mold gets plenty hot after the first pour. FWIW, I use a large slotted spoon for removing the crud then solid spoon for final skimming, then ladle pour ingots.

[MaryB]

magnets will lose their magnetism from heat over time.

[a.squibload]

Nice molds! I welded my angle iron molds on the inside, then wore out a dremel bit
smoothing them out.

[CGT80]

Nice molds! I welded my angle iron molds on the inside, then wore out a dremel bit
smoothing them out.

Thanks.

That is what I was trying to avoid. I was hoping the aluminum would have a nice tight fit and the lead wouldn't get in between the pieces. It seemed to work.

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Nice looking ingot mold! Dippin the tungsten...like I have NEVER done THAT before! LOL!