Cast iron pans for ingots

[roysha]

In the "sell and swap" forum an individual has some muffin and cornbread pans for sale. Someone commented that if they had been used for lead they could not, and by that I assume never again, be used for food. I have often wondered about that and now that it has been stated, I'm wondering why. Obviously, swapping back and forth would be an issue but could the pans not be reclaimed for cooking if they were super cleaned or does the lead permeate the rather porous cast iron. This is one reason I won't buy used cast iron pans of unknown history.

Just curious.

[William Yanda]

"...won't buy used cast iron pans of unknown history." To use for cooking-understood. To use for casting-I see no problem.

[Butts]

I collect/buy/sell/use cast iron. I always test the gem/muffin/corn bread pans for lead. The reason why is that size pans make great ingots. I have seen a lot of great collector CI that has traces of lead. Yes lead is bad for you, but IMHO I don't think I could eat enough to make a difference. All we cook with is cast iron and a microwave. I personally use a CI foreign made dutch oven for smelting and a foreign made Christmas tree gem pan for making ingots.

[buckshotshoey]

You dont need cast iron muffin pans for ingots. The cheap sheet metal ones at the dollar store work just fine. May not have the life expectancy of iron, but are cheap to replace.

[fastdadio]

Or, one could buy an ingot mold....but what fun would that be.

[Blackhawk357]

I use a different pan for each lead source. That way I always know what hardness the lead is depending on shape. Makes for quick reference. Range lead muffin pan, softest lead or pure goes into a angle iron tray I welded for triangle shaped ingots and the Lee mold for ready mixed for bullets. Wheel weights are non existent in the drinking village with a big fishing problem I live in. I would imagine that bead / sand blasting the cast Iron would clean it good enough for anything.

[DerekP Houston]

Or, one could buy an ingot mold....but what fun would that be.

Same as poster above me, I sort my lead based on shape. Muffin tin ingots are just range scrap, anything in a lee 1/2 or 1 lb is alloyed with tin.

[mdi]

I'm half way thinking this may be an exaggeration of the lead poisoning scare. I think unless there is visible lead in the pan and if cooking temps pass 450-500 degrees a good cleaning woud be sufficient. But what do I know? I cast bullets, reloaded, shot at indoor ranges for 20+ years, made fishing sinkers on Ma's stove when young, (plus I even rode in the back of pick ups and ate potato salad that had set out all day) and every blood test showed my lead levels to be below 9 every time with the average of 7, up till I retired at 65. I'm not saying take your muffin pan from your casting bench directly to the kitchen, just some things are overblown (Chicken Little Syndrome)...

[Mytmousemalibu]

Cast iron that I buy from the kitchen is all old, high quality stuff like Wagner or Griswold. I don't want to eat off someone elses old schmutz and grime so it all gets stripped an reseasoned. That means a soak in a Lye bath to eat all that gunk off. If the wares are rusty, that means electrolysis time. I'm comfortable with both processes being good enough to strip off the CI clean enough and then to re-season it and I can sleep at night after that. YMMV

[Wayne Smith]

I've burned them off in my fire place or fire pit - red hot cast iron face down - will there be any lead left??

[quail4jake]

Lead fluoresces under a wood's lamp so you can check that way and it can be removed with muriatic acid. For the most part I think you could clean it to the point of safety but you still have the "psyche of fear" to treat.

[mold maker]

I too have questioned the contamination of lead in cast iron.
If lead doesn't penetrate the joint and venting in a mold, would it really be subsurface in Cast Iron?
I realize the problem is mostly lead oxide, but can't it be removed without ruining the surface of the iron?
I'm not advocating it's return to cooking after using to melt lead, but it appears we may be hysterical about this.
If hand washing before eating or smoking works why wouldn't it work on Cast Iron?
Would a lead test on a cleaned cast piece show dangerous lead levels?
If you can't clean the lead, to a safe level, would it come out in cooking?
Way too many unanswered question for anyone to state it safe or not.

[Scharfschuetze]

None of these items cost much even first hand. Why not just segregate your cooking cast iron from your ingot cast iron and be done with it. There are enough pathogens and other debilitating agents in the environment that we can't control so why add another one to your plate, particularly when you have control over it. Plumbism (lead poisoning) is insidious in its onset. It affects all organs in the body, particularly the brain and cognition.

The Romans used lead in manufacture of their plates and bowels. There is some speculation that some of the madness suffered by many of the ruling elite that ate off such plates was caused by lead posing. Of course they also sweetened their wine at times with defrutum (concentrated grape product saturated with lead from processing in lead cooking vessels), so I guess that became the ultimate drinking experience.

Because I used or supervised the use of indoor ranges at times in my careers, I had to have my blood tested. That lead (no pun intended) to some insight into the issue via the medical community.

[alamogunr]

Sort of off topic but someone else opened up a discussion of ingot molds. I've got cast iron muffin pans, have used aluminum muffin pans in the past and used stainless steel of some sort. I mangled the aluminum pans and the SS pans made too heavy ingots. I also have SAECO, Lyman and RCBS ingot molds. These I found here or on Ebay. The disadvantage of these was the shipping cost because I bought them before flat rate boxes. I use these for special alloys because of the molded in identity. By special alloys I mean solder, pure soft or enrichment.

To somewhat stay on topic, I have some old cast iron that belonged to our mothers. Some is really well used and gunked up. I've read with interest the method of cleaning. I might try some of those methods on some of the smaller pieces. I have a couple of big CI pots that I have used in the past for cleaning up WW. These will be passed on to another caster when I'm thru with them. If not that I will take a hammer to them to avoid them getting into clueless hands.

[Traffer]

I use the tin plate muffin tins from Dollar Tree. The one caveat is that you have to smoke them or the lead will bond to the tin and you will have to peel the tinplate off the ingot. But when they work they make the perfect sized and shaped ingots (in my opinion) the fit right into the lead pot and provide a lot of surface contact to melt quick. I occasionally get one that sticks. but a new six pack muffin tin is only one dollar at dollar tree. Everything there is a dollar of less every day.

[mdi]

As far as ingot molds; I have been using two, plain old stamped steel muffin pans for at least 15 years. I made a mold out of 1 1/2" angle iron about 8" long but over the last few years I misplaced it and just use the cheap muffin pans. I think cast iron muffin pans were used because they were easy to find and relatively common, unlike today where they bring a premium price. If I had a cast iron muffin pan, I surely would just use it for muffins...

[Butts]

I've burned them off in my fire place or fire pit - red hot cast iron face down - will there be any lead left??

Not sure about any lead left but as a cast iron collector you can ruin a piece of CI with that method. While it does work to clean you can change the molecular structure of it to the point it will be ruined for cooking. For casting it will be good.

[Walstr]

Here's a mold I made, whose ingot fits neatly between studs in my garage. A handy out of the way storage solution I must say.

Forget it. Firefox is preventing the upload, seeing this site as a 'trojan' or something. First time for this event. Sorry.

[RogerDat]

Different shapes can be useful as identifiers, shapes that easily feed into casting pot are nice too for finished alloys. Stuff that fits into post office Flat Rate Boxes are advantageous also. Spending piles of money on RCBS, Lyman, or Lee ingot molds? You're kidding right?

I have bread loaf pans ranging in price from 25 cents to as much as 2 bucks. This $20 purchase allows me to ingot up a 120# pot in 10# easily stacked slabs in one shot, with some pans left over for storing cast bullets in on the reloading bench. Can fit slabs in MFRB for shipping.

I have muffin tins, again prices range from 25 cents to around 2 bucks. This $15 purchase can crank out 1.5# ingots of ready for the pot alloys in 50# batches or smaller disks of tin alloys in some mini muffin tins. Stack fairly well. Can fit pucks into SFRB for shipping.

All told I don't think I would have more than 2 or 3 "regular" 3# molds for the entire cost of those and I know from experience that those little ones are not at all a fast way to move through a pot of lead. With the baking pans the ladle size lets you set the ingot size.

I would personally figure if used for lead then it is no longer for food. They do make lead test pens so I suppose you could check the effectiveness of any cleaning efforts. On heating CI cherry red, you would want to cover in warm dry sand or wrap in insulation afterwards or run a high risk of cracking while cooling off. Need to slow cooling off rate to one that allows the metal to not stress crack. I don't know about "grain" or qualities for cooking but I do know CI is known for cracking if heated and not cooled down evenly and slowly.

I also have a mini loaf pan that I sometimes use for odd ball stuff, and a potter mold replica in aluminum that cast 1/4 pound finger with a "P" in it that is nice for pewter. Got that on ebay from theburpyfrog.

[BattleRife]

...could the pans not be reclaimed for cooking if they were super cleaned or does the lead permeate the rather porous cast iron.

I doubt the question has come up often enough that anyone has done rigorous research into it, so I guess we will all have to make our own choice based on gut feelings. I for one would have no problem cooking on a cast iron pan that had been used to make lead ingots if the pan had been diligently sandblasted and reseasoned.

While it does work to clean you can change the molecular structure of it to the point it will be ruined for cooking.

I don't believe it, and it sounds like echos of the old "you'll ruin the temper!" nonsense. Standard heat treatments for grey cast iron routinely take it into the red hot range. Unless you hold it at temperature so long it decarburizes substantially, it should be fine.