Uh oh! Perty colors in melting pot...

[Sensai]

I don't think that you can get the lead hot enough with a stove type burner to vaporize it, but you can get some pretty noxious fumes from the stuff mixed with the lead. I did caution a guy once that was going to cut a sailboat keel into more managable pieces with an oxy-acetylene torch that it might not be his wisest move. He wound up using a sawzall to good effect.

I wasn't sure about shadygrady's requirements, thanks rupe01.

[bangerjim]

The colors usually only appear when melting pure lead. I just did a batch of pure Pb for 32 cal round balls and the surface was gold/purple/green/brown/etc almost within a minute or two of reducing with beeswax. Temp was at moderate range.

Zinckers will cause that also! You absolutely have to sort your ww's !!!!!!! Don't just throw all of them in the smelting pot without full inspection and sorting each one. Zn is becomming very popular due to all the "greenies" and their enviromental rants.

That sorting & farting around has really put me off of using "free" COWW's these days. My time is not free, my fuel is not free, my propane is not free......so I don't consider ww's a good soruce of anything today............ but a big waste of time. If your time is not valuable..........have at it with all the ww's you can get your hands on. I prefer to mix my own alloys from known CLEAN RELIABLE sources of pure lead, tin, and alloys.

The batch you have can be salvaged. Use copper sulphate or sulfur. It will remove the zinc......and tin and antimony......but you can always add those back. Do a search on here for sulfur & cu sulphate for zinc removal and read about it. It does work. I have used it to test the proceedure.

Here are a couple. The 1st one discusses sulfur and CUSO4........

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...t=zinc+removal

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...and-blue-Oh-My!



Sulfur really smells!!!!!!!! Reminds me of a visit to Hades I did back in college...........or was that just the drugs?

Never mind!


bangerjim

[rupe01]

I wasn't sure about shadygrady's requirements, thanks rupe01.

You're welcome Sensai. Thanks for mentioning him, as i wasnt even aware of him before. These forums are great places for learning!

[d_man2]

Yep, if it is curdly most likely zinc....there is a pretty good article to read about it here:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/arch...?t-442704.html

FYI, zinc is a bluish type metal

[-Mischief]

some posts on the last page of this thread imply that oatmealish blue/purple is and overheating issue and not zinc. Did I read it correctly? http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...e-Oh-My!/page8
It shows a pic of a cruddy looking blue/purple ingot.

[runfiverun]

settle down a bit.
heat was your problem.
the gold come first because that was tin oxide. [750-f ish]
the deep metallic blue color was the lead and oxygen.
zink will show up as oatmeal and you can skim it out but it keeps on returning. [until you get it below 2% where it is soluble]
antimony comes out more a grayish type issue but can be fluxed back in.
try turning down the heat and re-melting [properly fluxing it] everything again.

[popper]

Just dilute it (zinc) with pure until it casts good. 1% won't hurt anything. Bangerjim - I haven't found anything about the CuS04 taking Sb out of the alloy. You find some article about that? I tried it with antimony/lead and didn't get much of any dross. Cu alloys with Sb, I guess it is lighter than Pb and could float to the top. The zinc sulphate definitely does make a powder dross. Throw it away.

[Defcon-One]

I'm with the moderator, runfiverun. Slow down! Your talking about three problems and reacting to all at once.

First, always control your temperature. Under 700 degrees F, all of the good stuff melts, but the bad stuff like Zinc does not. So, keep you pot at or under 700 deg F. Also, as he stated, Pure Lead and Lead Alloys when heated too high 850+ deg F will oxidize and create the colors that you saw (Yellow, Blue, Purple, black...). Controlling yout pot temp will cure that problem.

Second, if you melted everything at once and got a bunch of Zinc weights in the pot, then you need to make fishing weights out of that batch of lead. It is not worth the trouble to try and clean it up and it will not make good bullets. Again, keeping the pot under 700 deg F will solve this problem.

Third, cleaning a small pot is as easy as getting it up to temp and then pouring out all that you can. Then tip it upside down and tap it in an old pie pan or cake pan. 4 or 5 taps and the crud will be mostly out. There won't be enough anything to cause you problem with the next "Full Batch" that you melt. Oh yeah, wear gloves!

DC-1

[-Mischief]

On a different note, who would everyone suggest I get lead from? I do, already have some good coww lead that I can add to pure.

[rupe01]

Dont you get enough from where you work? If not, other small tire outfits, if they arent already spoken for (most are!). The big outfits usually are dictated to by Head Office and will only allow Approved Dealers to collect it. There should still be plenty out there that you dont need to buy from scrap dealers. Just takes some patience is all. Otherwise, you can buy on here for around $1 per pound, i believe.

[-Mischief]

I do get quite a bit from work but I want to make sure that I have what I need while I go through this learning curve of sorting WW. I've been reading all of the threads I can get my fingers on and watching youtube videos about sorting them. I just want to buy a bit from someone trusted so I know I have the correct stuff.

[shadowcaster]

I'm with the moderator, runfiverun. Slow down! Your talking about three problems and reacting to all at once.

First, always control your temperature. Under 700 degrees F, all of the good stuff melts, but the bad stuff like Zinc does not. So, keep you pot at or under 700 deg F. Also, as he stated, Pure Lead and Lead Alloys when heated too high 850+ deg F will oxidize and create the colors that you saw (Yellow, Blue, Purple, black...). Controlling yout pot temp will cure that problem.

Second, if you melted everything at once and got a bunch of Zinc weights in the pot, then you need to make fishing weights out of that batch of lead. It is not worth the trouble to try and clean it up and it will not make good bullets. Again, keeping the pot under 700 deg F will solve this problem.

Third, cleaning a small pot is as easy as getting it up to temp and then pouring out all that you can. Then tip it upside down and tap it in an old pie pan or cake pan. 4 or 5 taps and the crud will be mostly out. There won't be enough anything to cause you problem with the next "Full Batch" that you melt. Oh yeah, wear gloves!

DC-1

I did that my very 1st time smelting WW's. It made excellent fishing sinkers! I then bought a thermometer, kept all smelts at 700 degrees or less and never looked back.

Shad

[-Mischief]

So, I had the pot down to about 1/2" of the "contaminated" lead init and added only 2lbs of certified ww lead (just to be safe) last night to the pot and used the thermometer to keep it between 680-700. It turned slightly tan but no blue or purple! Fluxed and poured...everything went great. Thanks all for the help! I also sat there for about 20 minutes and separated some zinks from lead ww's.

[runfiverun]

after a while you can sort by sight and scrape the "not-sures" on the cement.
you know right off with the scraping after a bit too.
you can double check with some side nippers until then.

[w5pv]

I think there s a sticky saying to flux with sulphur several times to pull the zinc out do this outside for the sulphur will burn and smoke the fumes are in all probability will be toxic.Good luck

[C. Latch]

FWIW, as a new caster (8 months now, mainly from COWW) I have found that I can very reliably find Fe and Zn weights using pliers......take a pair of needle nosed pliers, put each WW in the cutters, and squeeze. Iron won't hardly scratch, Zinc will scratch and dent with great difficulty, and lead alloys will easily dent. I haven't yet melted a single Zinc weight and don't think I've yet to throw away a single lead weight, using pliers. Yeah, it's slow, but I'm in no hurry. Casting is my hobby per se until I get moved back to a place where I can shoot at home.

[lockinload]

This noobie keeps reading about the dreaded Zinc. Why is it so bad if mixed with the lead?

[waksupi]

This noobie keeps reading about the dreaded Zinc. Why is it so bad if mixed with the lead?

It turns your lead to the consistency of oatmeal, and is impossible to mold with.