What is causing this color in my pot?

[masscaster]

Just make sure your sawdust is good and dry before putting it into your lead.

Tinsel Fairy Alert.

: )
Jeff

[rosewood]

One more question. Does the pure lead not poor well? Does it tend to clog up the drain spout on a bottom pour?

Thanks,

Rosewood

[rosewood]

Acquired sawdust last week. Decided to build some shelves to store my brass to keep off floor and neat up and the circular saw and belt sander made a nice little pile of dust I swept into a bowl for future use.

Rosewood

[Lloyd Smale]

wws are DIRTY. it sometimes takes fluxing and clean 2 or 3 times to get the junk out and even then when you put it in the pot to cast will probably need it again. the blue is oxidation.

[dragon813gt]

He said that he only used wheel weights in this pot. I thought it was pure lead too from the appearance. Must be close to it.

Were they stick on wheel weights? They're pretty much pure lead. Mixing clip on and stick on clip on together dilutes the mixture. I honestly wouldn't worry about the color. Some of my ingots end up like that. There is no consistency w/ wheel weights. The alloy varies so much that you have to test it to know what it is.

[dondiego]

Were they stick on wheel weights? They're pretty much pure lead. Mixing clip on and stick on clip on together dilutes the mixture. I honestly wouldn't worry about the color. Some of my ingots end up like that. There is no consistency w/ wheel weights. The alloy varies so much that you have to test it to know what it is.

I don't worry about the color much either as the temp can affect color. Blue is more often associated with soft lead for me though.

[Grmps]

In smelting, I predominantly flux with pine sawdust BUT I do at least 1 flux with wax, it does something sawdust doesn't.

[Alcast]

WW recipes vary so much;hard to say what they put in there,as long as it is not too costly.I've quitted using ww since 2010 but if I'd be confronting that problem,I'd flux at least 2 or 3 times with sawdust before pouring into ingots,especially with that weird color.If after fluxing a few times it shows the same color,I'd use it as a fishing weight.If it is zinc,your bullet will hit pretty far away from the 10ring!

[rosewood]

I am going to take the ingots I poured from the batch and melt back down and toss in the slag (or what I thought was slag) back in the pot and flux several times. If I still have mixing problems, may toss in some of the silver solder I have and see what happens. I am starting to think I have almost pure lead and need more tin in the batch.

Thanks,

Rosewood

[leadman]

Are you melting both clip on an stick on wheel weights in your pot? Stick on if lead is usually very soft, near pure. I usually melt these separately and mark as pure. Clip on are usually hard enough for most handgun rounds and light rifle loads. Water quenching increases the hardness.
I usually add lead to the pot when it gets down to an inch or so left. A pot should be cleaned and the valve taken out and cleaned also. I get as much crud out when the last pot is run and then let it cool down. You will probably find a layer of crusty junk on the sides and bottom. I wear a respirator and goggles while cleaning. I spray the inside of the pot with a strong liquid cleaner (Purple Power) and then use a small wire wheel in a cordless drill. This gets most of the crud off. The valve area in the pot may have crud in it but clean carefully so you do not nick up the sealing surface. A propane torch played in the valve can help loosen the crud.

[rosewood]

I segregate the stick ons from the clip ons. I have yet to melt any stick ons. I have a plumbers furnace that I smelt in. Then I dip into ingots for later use. I use a Lee bottom pour for casting. This is the second time I have had the color issue. The first was when I threw in some range scrap. I am betting there was a lot of pure lead in that causing the color now. This last time, all I had in the pot was clip on ww.

Rosewood

[Nick10Ring]

I use a metal paint stirer and scrape the bottom of the pot before casting. The residue rises to the top and I can scoop it out.
I never let the level get completely down so the residue doesn't get to the spout.

[garrisonjoe]

Calcium contamination. Blue scum AND oatmeal consistency dross at normal casting temps.

I get that blue surface scum and start looking for where the Calcium came from - almost always I can identify some range lead pickup which got calcium because some idjut smelted no-maintenance batteries that use Calcium for hardening the grid plates and cast some boolits with it.

Good luck, garrisonjoe

[Oklahoma Rebel]

the only way to get WW's consistent is BIG batches that will last a long time before you need to re-test what you have, and add tin or what have you as necessary, I usually do a minimum of 120ish lbs, sometimes more

[rosewood]

I may have figured something out. I melted down some of what I had already poured and some of the dross I had skimmed off. I ran the temperature a bit higher up to over 700 this time and fluxed and got more junk out of the mix. I left it while I was casting and when I came back more junk had popped to the top. It seems a lot of the crude was stuck in the lead causing the oatmeal like appearance. I guess I wasn't getting it hot enough before make ingots. The color was still there, but would quickly disappear when I stirred, but come back pretty quick after stirring. Looked almost like a film on top and sometimes looked more gold color. I am thinking it was from lead as some others said.

Rosewood