cast iron ingot mold?

[colbyjack]

will a old cast iron muffin pan work for making round ingots? once i start melting some lead down? or is there a better way besides buying a ingot mold? -chris

[oneokie]

Will work fine, no need to buy something else, unless you need more for a large smelt. Will the muffins fit in your pot?

[colbyjack]

Will work fine, no need to buy something else, unless you need more for a large smelt. Will the muffins fit in your pot?

not sure the pot hasnt showed up at the gun shop yet. hopefully early next week i can make my first bullet. -chris

[Alangaq]

I would just spend the $15 for a real ingot mould. The ingots will fit in any pot and they stack way easier than muffin shaped pucks, or God forbid the half corn cob or pie shaped muffins. But then again, if you use the half corn cob muffin pan, then perhaps you can tell your wife that you will make her some shiny metal corn cob decorations to hang on the wall, but you will need to “experiment” for awhile to get them just perfect for her. You could then “milk” a weeks worth of smelting out of you crafty project…………

[Orygun]

...as long as they fit into the lead furnace. I must have 5 different shaped cast iron molds and they stack just fine in milk crates. The different sizes are very handy when you need to add large or small ingots to fill the pot.

[Goatlips]

Colby Jack, your muffin pan will work just fine. I toss my muffin ingots in a mesh bag like oranges come in. No stacking whatsoever, just throw them in a corner or under a bench.

I have some fancier ingot molds, shown here:

http://goatlipstips.cas-town.com/smelting.html

Goatlips

[mtgrs737]

Goatlips,

Wow! What a great website you have! I enjoyed reading the info there. I would like to comment on the smelting article about the zinc weights you never have found. It just might be that your scrap ww's didn't include any or like my buckets of scrap there were only two or three zinc weights in there. My point is that when I used the weed burner to speed up the melting of weights I didn't find any zinc weights either as the weed burner really poured the heat into the ww's. After only one time I decided to dis-contiune the use of the weed burner so that I could control the heat from the turkey fryer and keep the melt under 725 degrees so that any zinc weights would not melt and float to the top of the melt to be skimmed off with the clips. Not using the weed burner greatly increased the smelting time, but I felt it was worth it as the zinc might give me problems later in casting. The other option is to carefully sort through the scrap ww's and look for zinc ones to cull, but this would require more effort than just slowing down the smelting process.

mtgrs737

[Blammer]

I use muffin tins, ingot mould and a triangular shaped cornbread thing.

don't really matter as long as you can get em into your pot.

[colbyjack]

cool so muffins ingots it is. -chris

[colbyjack]

Colby Jack, your muffin pan will work just fine. I toss my muffin ingots in a mesh bag like oranges come in. No stacking whatsoever, just throw them in a corner or under a bench.

I have some fancier ingot molds, shown here:

http://goatlipstips.cas-town.com/smelting.html

Goatlips

nice site, i book marked it for future reference. i like the animal lead cookies... -chris

[Typecaster]

I think I'm gonna cry...

Ingot moulds are easy to buy; cast iron muffin pan aren't. Nothing works better for making corn muffins—will give my easy recipe to anyone who wants it.

#2 son absconded with my muffin pan about a year ago, and I haven't run across another cheap one yet.

BTW, it's not a good idea to use the muffin pan for muffins after smelting...

[Blammer]

yea the muffins taste a little funny afterwards...

[jawjaboy]

A few a friend made me. Makes a ~7.5~ pound ingot.

[DtheD]

Hello everyone. I'm the new guy here, just registered. It will take some getting used to using the term boolits. But that is what they are. Our old friend lead. Today I cast about 300, ( 13.86 lbs. ) of WW into Swiss Vetterli 320gr boolits. I figured the count, the weight ratio. They came out of the custom Lee mold nice and easy. Very shiny and then as they cooled turned a frosty gray. I first encounterd our friend lead when I was 10 years old. Got a lead casting set up for toy soldiers. Been hooked since. A great forum and I'm happy to be in the group. I've got lot's to learn and I know this is the place to do it. Great forum, glad to be a member.

[wills]

Regarding the virtues of rusty ingot molds.


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ght=leave+rain

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...81&postcount=7

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...86&postcount=9

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...8&postcount=14

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...t=rusty+muffin

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...7&postcount=20

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...t=rusty+muffin

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...8&postcount=10

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...t=rusty+muffin
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[colbyjack]

well i may build or make a mold too. but i seen a store in town with cast muffin pans for like $12. so not to bad -chris

[Sam Carp]

I have used aluminum muffen pans but you have to be careful not to punch a hole in them. Cast iron is much better

Sam

[osage]

I started off using mini muffin tins as they were extras. I went to a alum. corn bread mold. Then added a lee, lyman and saeco molds as only one ingot mold slowed the smelting down to much. I found out the hard way that some of the ingots from the mini would not fit past the valve rod in my 10lb lee drip-o-matic.

[TJD]

I tried the light weight sheet metal muffin pans but the lead would eventually deform the sides making it hard to remove the ingot. Then I saw a cast aluminum corn-stick pan in a flea market and have been using it ever since. I have learned where to fill it so the ingots are one pound each. It does takes a few minutes for the ingots to cool. But I have another project while I’m waiting on the ingots to cool. I have two “Do-It” sinker molds. After I have cleaned and fluxed the range-lead I fill the corn stick pan. While I wait for it to cool I make fishing sinkers. This project is a winter time project. The range-lead does’t make great looking sinkers. We all know that some tin make the material fill the mold better. I however save the tin for my bullets. I have never had a catfish complain that my sinkers aren’t first class.