sawdust for fluxing

[duckndawg]

When yall talk about useing sawdust as a flux, do you use chips like a jointer or planer makes, or the finer stuff you get from a table saw? I have an access to some from the cabinet shop I used to work at, also its mainly oak chips some white pine and birch but it could be a mix of what ever goes in the barrel does it make a difference on what kind of wood it is?

[klausg]

duckndawg-
Either or both will work; type of wood doesn't matter except for the smoke, though I don't think any wood smoke could possibly be as rank as some of the stuff I've burned up while smelting wheelweights. Leave an old valve stem in your smelt sometime, all of your neighbors will love you .

-Klaus

[GLL]

Get a bucket of those oak planer/jointer flakes ! Good stuff !

I use white oak cuttings from my planer and the smell is great !

Jerry

[mtgrs737]

duck, where are you at in central KS? Send me a PM if you don't want to post it.

[shooter575]

Duck,I dont thing the lead will care.Just looking for carbon to mix with the o2 to make Co2
Just make sure it is dry.Let burn and char on the top then stir well,skim....
Pic of doing a buddys batch of WW in his turkey cooker.

[Sundogg1911]

I use what ever I have laying around, but I save the mesquite and Hickory for the smoker.

[kellyj00]

sundogg: why not just hang your meat over your pot?

[piwo]

sundogg: why not just hang your meat over your pot?

[Freightman]

I think I am going to have to use pecan shells as I have already picked up 20 gal. of my big tree and I have tree rats to help me eat them.

[Sundogg1911]

KellyJ00,
I've always had trouble multi-tasking!

[Morgan Astorbilt]

sundogg: why not just hang your meat over your pot?

OUCH!!! Sounds painful to me!!!
Morgan

[kellyj00]

lol Morgan. I never even thought of it that way. I guess it takes a fella who's been around molten lead a while to find the inuendo in such a statement.

[Ricochet]

Might not to use the old green pressure-treated lumber full of copper chromium arsenate.

[JohnH]

Might not to use the old green pressure-treated lumber full of copper chromium arsenate.

Gee, sounds like a new alloy method to me

[Ricochet]

OUCH!!! Sounds painful to me!!!
Morgan

Depends on whether your pot's smoking, I suppose.

[Ohio Rusty]

Now I have a question about Shooter575's info .... How does pouring sawdust on top of your lead flux the dirt and oxidation that is suspended in the metal or pinned to the bottom of the pot by the weight of the metal? I have one of the oblong ball shaped pouring ladles (Lyman?) that I fill with sawdust and chips and mix and swirl that virgorously all throughout the metal to break loose the dirt. I them skim off al of that crud and burnt wood powder. I keep the top of the lead cleaned and shiny because I ladle the lead directly from the pot to the moulds. If there is junk on top, it will fill the ladle and end up in the finished bullets. IS what I'm doing just overkill? As a side note, I also looked at ivory soap, and couldn't find anything in the ingredients containing tallow or stearic anything. I have a soap at the house named Cilophil or something like that, and it contains both Tallow, Sodium tallowate and Stearic wax ingredients. In order for that to work as a flux, Don't I have to swirl that soap vigorously in the lead to remove the impurities?
Ohio Rusty ><>
Psalms 27:1-3/91:9-11 (AMP)

[John Boy]

Use green pine sticks to flux the pot. Pine contains rosin which is purported to be one of the better fluxing materials

[LeadThrower]

My neighbor's thornless honey locust drops a ton of pods every year... I think I'll pick up a garage-sale blender to beat them to dust for fluxing. They're supposed to be full of complex sugars -- good reducing agents! Anyone else tried them?