Cast iron or....

[TexasGrunt]

My cast iron dutch oven is driving me nuts. It's producing a lot of dross in my smelts. If I let my ladle touch the bottom of the oven a bunch of black dust floats to the top.

Is there something I can do to treat the cast iron to reduce this?

Has anyone used a heavy duty stainless steel pot to smelt in? Results?

[William Yanda]

I use a SS stockpot to smelt in. I too get the dark stuff on the bottom. I stir vigorously, scraping the bottom and sides, fluxing with sawdust to get rid of it. I suspect your CI dutch oven may be getting the blame for something the lead brings to the smelt. Operative word "may".
Bill

[leebuilder]

I to seen this, it is the lead. I know this after smelting in an old cast pot there would be nothing left except the handle by now. As mr yanda said scraping and fluxing helps, i have nice batches and the odd crud factory, i just keep fluxing till clean, it sure pays off when casting. I started with ss pots then went to cast iron.
When i pour the last bit of smelt from my cast iron pot there is always fine black dust and a smeck of dross.
Be safe

[psweigle]

i prefer stainless steel with my burner. Flux and stir, flux and stir.

[RedRiver]

My pot does the same thing, black dirt like stuff comes up. Just skim it away once in a while. It produces no problems in the finished ingots.

[OS OK]

I have a 3" wide flat tip scraper...looks like a spatchula for a hamburger grill, it scrapes the bottom of the pot and the straight sides as well. After a little stirring/scraping very little of that black dust comes up.

[runfiverun]

that black stuff ain't from the pot it is from the lead.
make yourself a scraper and work that pot over to get all the dirt and stuff out of the pot.
the rough sides of the pot are just trapping the junk.

after a bunch of years my old pots are just about rubbed smooth from me scraping at them.
if I would have thought about it I would have worked them over with some power tools some years ago and smoothed them out back then.

[triggerhappy243]

i get the black soot looking stuff too, I just scrape and rub the whole pot to get it loose.'

[country gent]

Try stiring and scraping with a wood paint stir stick. Work the sides and bottom over several times while fluxing the molten metal when its up to temp. Watch your temps to hot causes oxidation and problems also. Flux good with sawdust and wax. When fluxing scrape sides and bottom and stir so lead flows thru the flux and the fluxing material flows thru the lead. Just letting the flux sit on top and stir dosnt get er done. Like working them together does

[scottfire1957]

Scrape and clean, until the cast iron is shiny. Or, scrape, clean and flux. Take your pick.

This isn't rocket surgery. Flux more, scrape your pot more, or use a new pot for every melt.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have used a Dutch oven, a SS stock pot and the bottom half of a Freon tank. I get what you are describing from all of them. I find the cast iron heats up the fastest.

[Nose Dive]

Runfiverun is correct.... the cast iron pot is not causing the dross issues...it is the smelt....soooo.....

Limme just say...I smelt 'road kill ****'... trash...corruption...nasty stuff...soo....

I start with a COLD POT...add 1" or 2 of sawdust and a hand full of sulphur...then my trash smelt materiel...in a COLD POT....

start the heat on LOW....come up on heat slowly and let thing SMOKE>>>SMOKE and STINK,,,,STINK....STINK!!! go slow..mix well

now when things begin to melt...again...mix well and let the smelt pot get 'liquid' and skim the dross and trash...scrape the sides and
bottom well....the mix in more sawdust and sulphur....GET BACK JACK!!! SMOKE...SMOKE...STINK...STINK...mix well..scrapping sides
and bottom... IT IS NOT THE POT...it is the smelt.... get all the dross out ....then.... add WAX and mix well...do this TWICE and scrape
and dip out the nasties..... now pour into ingot and let sit a few days.... clean out the pot....

I do this TWICE...follow same procedure above with INGOTS and mix well.... then.. after last wax reduction...I add PEWTER to my
pot and mix well....pour into ingots and hardness test.

The pot is not the issue...the smelt mix is... DO ALL ABOVE OUTSIDE and stay out of smoke..IT IS TOXIC and can cause lung damage...

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[TexasGrunt]

It is the pot. Five minutes with a wire wheel and drill got it clean. But, it's dirty again! Nasty, filthy wheel weights. Just waiting on the 12 buckets I've got a line on.

[lightman]

Just waiting on the 12 buckets I've got a line on.[/QUOTE]

You and Jeff308 are on a roll! Your back ain't never gonna forgive ya!

[jonp]

My cast iron dutch oven is driving me nuts. It's producing a lot of dross in my smelts. If I let my ladle touch the bottom of the oven a bunch of black dust floats to the top.

Is there something I can do to treat the cast iron to reduce this?

Has anyone used a heavy duty stainless steel pot to smelt in? Results?

Heavy duty, no. Cheap WalMart brand, yes. As long as you don't run it dry it lasts quite some time. My cheap one is 2yrs old.

[TexasGrunt]

Just waiting on the 12 buckets I've got a line on.

You and Jeff308 are on a roll! Your back ain't never gonna forgive ya![/QUOTE]

If I get the 12 buckets I doubt I will even sort them. Just use the low temp smelt and do the COWW and SOWW at the same time.

[waksupi]

I put a good dose of old motor oil in the mix when I melt wheel weights. Lead comes out nice and clean.

[John Boy]

The trials & tribulations smelting wheel weight with every thing under the sun in the dross. So be it!

[natty bumpo]

My cast iron dutch oven is driving me nuts. It's producing a lot of dross in my smelts. If I let my ladle touch the bottom of the oven a bunch of black dust floats to the top.

Is there something I can do to treat the cast iron to reduce this?

Has anyone used a heavy duty stainless steel pot to smelt in? Results?

With all due respect to all who have answered this post I humbly offer this advice with this caveat. I only last night smelted my first batch of 25# of whatever i could russel up but I learned a lot so here goes.

A neighbor of mine died and left me a garage full of tools from a trade school. Every kind of tool you can imagine and several sets of each. One of the disciplines was forging and a bunch of it. I have forges hand tools anvils hammers tongs and pertinent to this discussion crucibles. Like fifteen or twenty. I brought two up with me to try it out. One ten pound cast iron and one large, like 100# graphite crucible. It's a dixon. Same guy that invented the #2 Dixon pencil on your desk. Used both last night and the difference between them was obvious. The graphite one was soooo much better. Took longer to heat but the bottom was left pristine after the cast. Do yourself a favor and look for one on enay. It'll probably last forever and it will change your life.

[natty bumpo]

Didn't blow myself or the cabin up but I could smell the fumes. Guess it takes a while toof breathing lead fumes before you turn into a babbling idiot but I do think ii must have dropped a few iq points because I'm doing it again as soon as the post office opens and I can retrieve my new six cavity mold. By the way. I smelted all this in a fireplace with oak wood for fuel so yes the buffalo hunters most certainly could have and I'm sure they did retrieve their lead and recast bullets in a campfire. Worked perfectly well for me. No problem at all and was quite fast. Probably faster than an electric smelter. And no I'm not worried about lead poisoning. I spinkle some of it on my cereal in the morning. Kidding