Steam pan as ingot mold?

[RogerDat]

an inch to inch and a half in a bread loaf pan is about 12 - 16 lbs. And I only use those for bulk storage of raw ingredients I am going to melt into big pot of some alloy. WW's, soft lead, even some printers alloys go into ingots I can feed into a pot. Just too much effort to move heavier than 16# ingots except as ingredients in 100# batch that will get poured into smaller ingots for actual casting. My favorite ingot molds for ready to use alloys are the angle iron ones like DCrockett sells or the muffin tin "pucks".

[Hinnerk]

I've added some quarters and a receipt to a photo of one of these pans for size comparison. They are bigger than a mini loaf pan but narrow enough to fit in a Lee 20 lb pot. Only $2.58 each at the local Cash & Carry. They call this a 1/9 pan.

[RogerDat]

Worth a shot but try one first, some pans have surface that the molten lead can bond to. You haven't lived until you fill up a 12 cupcake pan only to find out the little "pucks" are only going to come loose if you hammer the pan almost inside out.

If the first ingot doesn't stick those look like they would be great. Big enough to use for bulk storage but small enough to fit in a casting pot. Please do report back how they work and how much an ingot from one weighs.

One nice thing about the muffin tin pucks or angle iron bars is they allow you to add small enough quantities while you are casting that the pot doesn't get too cold. Might be worth making some thinner ones in that pan so you don't have to drop in so much lead in order to refill the casting pot.

Have seen pictures of a neat set up for larger ingots. One bottom pour pot on a shelf behind and above a bottom pour pot that gets cast from. Top pot melts the lead and keeps it ready to go and is just opened to drain more already heated lead into the lower pot. Just a thought. Be a neat way to use 5# ingots and really crank out some bullets.

[DerekP Houston]

Waaaaay to big! You need to have ingots in the 1 to 2# range for easy storage and melting in your casting pot.

Get some Lyman or LEE or RCBS commercial ingot molds. Do it the right way....and you will not be sorry. I have at least 10 of those for casting USABLE size ingots.

After moving a ton of lead to the new house, I'm regretting not using larger ingots. I like the small loaf pan size ingots personally, stack easy and are nice and dense. The muffin tins were great for awhile but the stack wobbled and fell down a bunch.

[RogerDat]

For myself I go with bread loaf pan slabs for most raw ingredients other than COWW's They stack well, and spread out the weight. For COWW's I use angle iron ingots, made from molds like DCrockett sells. I then box them up in SFRB's ready to ship (when I die) Again they stack well with the advantage of fitting in a pot if I need to use them before my widow sells them and ships them.

However most of my pucks and mini loaf pans and loose stacked ingots are ready to use alloys. Not ingredients in the smaller ingots but mixed alloys for specific uses. That is sort of what I like about the OP's 1/9 pans. Give me a good way to bulk store mixed alloys like 50/50 + 2% Sn or 94/3/3 I do tend to like keeping things separate until mixing for use but I also like mixing alloy in larger batches so for the next 100# or so it's all the same.

1/2 full 5 gallon pails of pucks stack and can still be moved. Crate on the 4 wheel furniture dolly sold by Harbor Freight can also be a good way to store loose small ingots. Have a bunch of plain lead pucks stored like that under a shelf, I have a rope attached and just roll the dolly out to access the crate. Later I went to the bread loaf pan slabs but they are also stored on dolly under shelf, roll out to access.

[Walks]

I think the best deal out there is the LODGE Scone pan.
Cast Iron will last longer than any of us. And they are under 30bucks & often on sale. And you get 7 - 2.5lb ingots with every pour. And they WILL FIT into a Lee pot.
The pan is heavy & flat. You CAN'T FLIP IT OVER BY ACCIDENT.

[Hinnerk]

I got around to trying out the steam pans today. They seem to work fine. No problem with sticking. I used two ladles full per pan. The Lyman mold took just under one ladle full per ingot. Here are a few pictures of my set up and sample ingots. These could have been poured deeper and still have been practical. Well, I am suitably happy for under $3 each.

This was some "Linotype" that I bought from a seller here. It seems like good clean stuff but I have serious doubts about its authenticity as Linotype alloy even though it was cast in a Linotype pig mold. I just wish that I knew for certain its composition.

BTW, anyone know who makes those ladles? I picked the pair up at the flea market.

[jsizemore]

I picked up a 6 & 12 ECKO muffin tins, 8 hand dipped beeswax tapers and 6 cookie/ candy tins. They'll hold 800-2000 cast and lubed boolits with a lid to keep out the dust. $5. The regular size used muffin tins produce @ 2lb COWW or SOWW ingot. The old cooking buildup ensures the ingots release. Thinner mold walls don't hold heat like angle iron or cast iron ingot molds. I pay $1 apiece for the tins. When one gets a hole it's no big deal. I pour 150lbs of ingots and don't have to dump any until I've got the smelting pot refilled. The ingots stack just fine when dumped into a 55gal drum and fit fine in the casting pot.

[WRideout]

I also use muffin tins from the thrift store. At first the lead would solder itself to the steel, but then I read on this forum that rust is a release agent. I left my muffin tins out overnight so that they would get that coating of rust, and voila, problem solved. Muffin ingots are just the right size for my little Lee dipper pot.

Wayne

[2011redrider]

I started with muffin pans and they don't stack well as posted above. Saw this pan on a"Elvis Ammo" Youtube. It was around 10 bucks from Walmart.com. Its a coated steel mini loaf pan made by Wilton. No sticking at all, first 4-5 rounds it left small 3/16" to 1/8" craters on the bottom of the ingots. Now they cast smooth on the bottoms. Casts 3-3.5 Lb ingots and they stack well in a square milk crate, 15 per layer and 8-9 layers for 400 lbs per crate. I can fit 3 in my Lee or new RCBS pot for startup.

[RogerDat]

I got around to trying out the steam pans today. They seem to work fine. No problem with sticking. I used two ladles full per pan. The Lyman mold took just under one ladle full per ingot. Here are a few pictures of my set up and sample ingots. These could have been poured deeper and still have been practical. Well, I am suitably happy for under $3 each.

This was some "Linotype" that I bought from a seller here. It seems like good clean stuff but I have serious doubts about its authenticity as Linotype alloy even though it was cast in a Linotype pig mold. I just wish that I knew for certain its composition.

BTW, anyone know who makes those ladles? I picked the pair up at the flea market.

Rowell makes ladles. https://www.rotometals.com/ladles-furnaces-for-casting/ I think a member DCrockett does also. Worth checking the vendor forum and sending him a PM
The Rowell bottom pour is essentially self skimming. Any crud floating in the ladle doesn't get poured so ingots will be cleaner. Bit spendy for that feature but the plain ladles are sub $20

Look up BNE he is a member that will test a pea sized drip from your ingots in exchange for 1# of any lead. He will tell you exactly what alloy you have. BNE uses and XRF machine, some scrap yards will also have them as a portable "gun" and you can ask if they will gun one of your ingots that you think is a lead alloy. They may or may not be willing to check. Freaking guns cost like $50,000 and the yard guys are notorious for dropping them, with repairs running many thousands of dollars yards can be a bit fussy about their XRF gun. But it will be very accurate from either source.

knock two of your ingots together. Lino is hard enough the ingot will sort of "ring" with a tink sound, plain lead or COWW's fresh poured will be a bit closer to a "thunk" sound. With the thud of plain soft lead being very dull thunk because it is so soft. Hardness test with art pencils as described in the sticky of this forum. One could heat treat or water quench say COWW's to make them as hard as Linotype but you just cast these as new ingots which would remove that artificial hardness. So if it is hard it is probably linotype.

If you test with a pencil as described in the sticky thread AND have it XRF tested you will have a pencil test of a known alloy. Adding a base line to your knowledge of hardness testing.

[Spruce]

Good info, I found candles in cast iron loaf pans that make a 5lb. ingot. Stacks well and goes into all my pots.

2011 redrider, you are just showing off now, ha ha. Nice RCBS PID pot, I was just reading a post about the guys complaining about not finding that pot available.

[RogerDat]

If you look to the left you will see several of the "classic" ingots represented Puck, angle iron, mini-muffin, bread loaf pan, and lee molds. They are all ready to use alloys. For example the angle iron ingots on the far left are Lyman #2, and the mini-muffin tins loafs are 3.5% tin and plain lead for making hollow base wad cutters. I think the pucks are two different alloys. Some WW's with tin, and some 50/50 COWW/Pb + tin

Toward the right side and underneath shelves you see mostly bulk slabs from bread loaf pan, including the stack on a furniture dolly loose on a board and the crate also on furniture dolly. Plus of course the mandatory 5 gallon buckets.



I could see how having a few of those steamer 1/9 pans could work out well as either a finished alloy or a bulk raw material. Maybe the bulk stuff that will be mixed as an ingredient do a third ladle full so they are thicker, thinner is ready for casting alloy, thicker is an ingredient.

Something else to check is will the ingots sit on the sill between the wall studs? Have a member that stacks them along the sill in the hollow of the wall so no lost space. Seems like those steamer ingots might do well with that location.

[2011redrider]

Think that was on the pro melt that wasn't in stock yet, and the free shipping, rebate and 15% sale was over before they got them in stock. I prefer to ladle cast or pressure cast if needed, so the easy melt is the one I wanted. It keeps the lead within 2 to 3 degrees. Very happy with the new pot, just takes forever to cool off. I just use a big soup ladle and pour into ingots to go back to the crate.

[Spruce]

Thanks, redrider. I did not know the difference. Nice looking pot. I like ladle dipping myself, and bought the Lyman PID pot when it came available.

[RogerDat]

Dang three ladle casters in a row in a thread! Me I'm gonna buy a lotto ticket after that string of coincidences.

[mdi]

I think 2"x4 1/2" would be fine. Just pour about 2" of lead in the pan. As you can see from the answers, there are about fifty different ways to make ingots and even if you are going to do some serious alloying,you would weigh the ingots when mixing so finished size ain't that big of a deal. I use several different pans for ingots but mostly use a muffin pan to make pucks (I read here that one feller makes ingots by digging a small "trench" in the dirt and pouring lead in it.)...

[Rug480]

The mini loaf pan looks great! I tried going Uber cheap with muffin tins at the dollar store. Either had to hammer them out or worped after inverting the pan.

[RogerDat]

The mini loaf pan looks great! I tried going Uber cheap with muffin tins at the dollar store. Either had to hammer them out or worped after inverting the pan.

You might try putting them outside until they rust. Or hit the Salvation Army, thrift stores or Garage sales. Can find them cheap and of better quality but it is always wise to try filling one muffin puck and dumping before filling them all and finding out what a cussed mess they can be if they stick. No I don't want to talk about how I know this.

[lightman]

I got around to trying out the steam pans today. They seem to work fine. No problem with sticking. I used two ladles full per pan. The Lyman mold took just under one ladle full per ingot. Here are a few pictures of my set up and sample ingots. These could have been poured deeper and still have been practical. Well, I am suitably happy for under $3 each.

This was some "Linotype" that I bought from a seller here. It seems like good clean stuff but I have serious doubts about its authenticity as Linotype alloy even though it was cast in a Linotype pig mold. I just wish that I knew for certain its composition.

BTW, anyone know who makes those ladles? I picked the pair up at the flea market.

Those look good. When you said steam tray I was thinking about the ones that are 4 X 12 X 20 inches or so, not realizing they came in smaller sizes. It looks like they work out great for you.