zinc question

[rondog]

I'm just curious - if a person was smelting a bunch of wheel weights into ingots, and managed to melt some zinc weights by accidently getting the melt too hot, would that zinc separate out the next time those ingots are melted, if they didn't get too hot that time?

I've only smelted WW's once, and I was nervous as hell about this. But I found that it was really hard to get the melt hot enough to melt the lead weights good, and the zinc weights floated right up with the steel clips. I didn't have a thermometer, so I don't know the melt temp, but it seems to me like it would take a concerted effort to melt the zinc weights.

It's funny, my melt was all chunky and gloppy and I was sure I'd ruined it with zinc, but it turned out that it just wasn't hot enough to melt the lead cleanly! Got it a little hotter and it liquified nicely, and all the trash popped right to the top.

But, my question remains - if zinc DOES get melted in, will it separate back out next time if the melt isn't hot enough to melt zinc? Just curious.

[nightal]

I melted some Zinc in mine once, made beautiful bullets, they would not go through the Sizer, too hard. I remelted, it did not separate.
I just kept adding pure lead until I could Size them.

[bangerjim]

No............zinc will NOT separate on remelt!


I have smelted WW's a lot in the past and occasionally miss a zinker in there. That is why you keep your melt temp just hot enough to melt the lead. The Zn melts at a higher them and the zinkers will just float on the top and not melt. But.......you MUST control your smelting temp very closely.

You are kinda screwed. Zn hinders lead alloys from filling out the mold cavities. Tin lowers the surface tension.....zinc raises it. And enough of it in your boolits defeats the sealing action that occurs between lead and your gun barrel because it is very hard. You said you could not get them thru your sizer. There you go.

To remove it, you have to follow the ideas expressed in a thread on here about using sulfur and copper sulfate. Both work, but also remove most if not ALL the tin and ant from your mix! You can always add that back in.

bangerjim

[Defcon-One]

No............zinc will NOT separate on remelt!

Yep, it disolves into the alloy. Better to keep it out in the first place.