Melting range scrap.

[berksglh]

What are good ways of melting your range scrap.

I sift through stacked 1/2" 1/4" and 1/8" screen to see what I get, then soak and wash dirt off, dry.

From here is where I am wondering what works best. If i just toss in the pot, it takes for ever to melt out and leaves an impossible layer of jackets. Weed burner on top of the load in the pot is too hot and can melt the jackets.

Dumping small amounts into molten lead seems to work, slow, but beware of tinsel fairy.

Then scooping all the jackets and crud out if was a big load is a pain.

Shoot me ideas. I have a few hundred LBs to melt I've been putting off.

[Idz]

I don't go through all that effort. Just load up a large pot cold and start cooking in a covered pot. The water is driven off long before the lead melts and the junk floats atop the molten lead, if there are target scraps in the mix they carbonize and act as flux. Scoop off the junk and you've got a fairly pure lead alloy.

[matrixcs]

I use an inch or 2 of melted lead on bottom of pot, let cool enough to peanut butter consistency then add scrap (to avoid tinsel fairy) then full heat then skim. Repeat as necessary.....
Hundred pounds goes quickly....

[merlin101]

I use an inch or 2 of melted lead on bottom of pot, let cool enough to peanut butter consistency then add scrap (to avoid tinsel fairy) then full heat then skim. Repeat as necessary.....
Hundred pounds goes quickly....

Pretty much the same here, do NOT start with an empty pot. If you do it seems like it takes forever! I also fill the pot about half way and stir (pry)the jackets, as I skim them off I sometimes will slowly add a scoop of fresh 'ore' to the mix. Just make sure it's DRY, I rarely wash mine down. After sitting in the garage for months the dirt just falls off.

[country gent]

I did alot of range scrap years ago from an indoor range with water tanks so no dirt. I found a big pot filled heaping full with scrap. I was using stoker coal with a blower for heat. The stand and burner allowed me to have coals under and up the sides of the pot. I was using the bottom of a propane tank cut of just under the top radious. This held between 400-500lbs of lead I could do between 3-4 pots a day with this set up. One trick when smelting dirty metals is to have heavy enough utensils and set up. I sloted a small garden spade and fitted a pipe handle 4' long, this allowed me to stir and scrap pull crud off using 2 hands. I also made a ladle from a weld on pipe cape 4" with a 4' handle to pour ingots when pot was ready. Make sure tools are heated and work slow and steady.

[berksglh]

I use an inch or 2 of melted lead on bottom of pot, let cool enough to peanut butter consistency then add scrap (to avoid tinsel fairy) then full heat then skim. Repeat as necessary.....
Hundred pounds goes quickly....

This sounds like a good way.

Curious if anyone used some sort of screen and melted it from above and agitated to drop molten into a pan.

Will use Matrixcs way for now.
Thanks.
Dave.

[BK7saum]

I use an inch or 2 of melted lead on bottom of pot, let cool enough to peanut butter consistency then add scrap (to avoid tinsel fairy) then full heat then skim. Repeat as necessary.....
Hundred pounds goes quickly....

Same here. I have to scoop and shake in a slotted spoon to get all the lead out of the jackets. But when done I've gotten #2 copper price for the jackets at the scrap yard.

Start with lead in the pot is a huge time saver. I also Flux 2-3 times with sawdust and then candle wax. The wax Adds soot to help keep the jackets from holding small amounts of lead.

Brad.

[berksglh]

Worked great!
This should help keep my 45 fed. Then I can save the COWW lead for rifle alloy

[websterz]

Nice looking muffins you got there!!

[stillhere]

When I do range scrap, I remove the "valve" on my Lee 20 pounder and then load it up with scrap and crank the heat up.

This way, I can drain off the lead as it melts and I can really get all the lead out from the scrap.

Stirring vigorously helps get every last bit out. When I'm done, I thoroughly clean the copper jacket remnants and remove any ferrous jackets using a magnet. Yeah; it's a lot of trouble but the scrap yard will give me a better price on the copper if it's free of steel, lead and fines.

I trade it back for more range scrap and repeat. If I recall, my cost was about 25 cents a pound for finished product and I was getting 75% yield on the range scrap.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

You can duplicate those muffins seen in post #8 above by making an ingot mold out of a 2 inch pipe cap. It has to be turned to remove the inside thread and leave a very light taper so that the cooled ingot will easily drop out. Drill a hole to accept a short piece of steel rod that can either be threaded into the hole or else welded in place...to serve as the handle A short piece of wooden handle completes the job. How full you fill it determines the cooled weight. LLS

[Jon]

Start with a cold pot with an inch or two of lead on the bottom. My dutch oven died a couple of years ago, and I built a pot from a 20lb propane tank. It works wonderfully.
Fill the pot with your range scrap, put a lid on, and let it cook for at least an hour.
A small garden trowel works ok for moving lead/dirt around, but I recently moved to the access cover off my old water heater. It's plenty strong, and skims very well.

I use a wire mesh ladle to sift out the jackets. They get stored in a metal bucket for scrap.
A large spoon works pretty well for getting the rest of the junk. This dust/sand can go back to the berm on your next trip.

A large soup ladle works pretty well for filling ingot molds. Mine will hold almost 4lbs at a time. Find a good quality one if you can. It'll last longer.

The more the merrier when it comes to molds. The Lyman molds are more expensive, but the LEE molds only hold 3lbs at a time. I only have 2, and always seem to be waiting for at least one of them to cool.

[Idz]

I gave up on muffins because they don't stack well. I use the aluminum Lee ingot molds. I discovered if you use a shallow pan with a wet towel in it you can cool the mold and ingots faster and keep up a high production rate. Without water cooling the mold gets so hot the handle chars and comes loose after a few pours. By cooling the bottom of the mold and then dumping the hot solid ingots you avoid the problem of getting water inside the mold and causing a steam explosion.
It works great with the aluminum molds (about 1000 lbs cast this way) but the cast iron ones might crack from the thermal stress.

[sliphammer]

A lot of great info in this thread

[stillhere]

I like the Wilton brand square muffin pans. The ingots are about 2x2 and weigh almost exactly 3.3 lbs each, which makes adding up the weight of multiple ingots a cinch. The also fit easily into my Lee 20 pounder.

[Nose Dive]

I do the muffin tin casting too. Mine really aren't as pretty as yours as mine came from the kitchen and old oil always boils out and makes 'bubbles' and a bit of discoloration. But, they plop right in my little casting pot right on top of the wax. And once melted, color gets right and bubbles are a thing of the past. I have a mold that makes nice ingots, but it really is slow and a pain as it only makes four at a time and with the four old muffin tins pilfered from the kitchen, things move along much faster. I guess if I wanted to remove the bubbles and color I could go to WalMart and buy some 'new' ones, but, well, ones I have work. so.... And, if I really liked the 'ingot' type products, I could buy more molds. But...well,,, I am repeating myself.

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[RKJ]

I use a fish fryer and an old SS pan I got at Goodwill and sift as I go. I usually wash as much dirt off as I can (it saves aggravation later) and ladle with a soup ladle into SS condiment cups available from Wal-Mart. They hold about 2 pounds and cost 99¢ for 4.

[RogerDat]

Muffin tins found at thrift stores and garage sales. Cheap to get a large supply that allow pouring large batches. However for "stock" supply lead like COWW's or pile of sheet lead I like the bread loaf pans. 12 - 16 lb. ingots are about the right size to combine with some other stuff for a 20 lb. pot worth. Or into a big batch of finished alloy for later use, that finished stuff might well end up as smaller ingots because adding small pre-warmed ingots tends to keep the casting melt at a more consistent temp.

For storage can't beat those slabs from bread loaf pans. Only down side is it takes them awhile to cool enough to dump. Upside is a large supply from garage sales and thrift stores makes doing hundred pound batches pretty easy.