lyman 4 20 pot clogged up

[Tripplebeards]

Wait, I meant LEE 4 20 pot. I believe I have it up and running good now. I melted about 13 lbs of pewter blocks in it all at once. My little spout clogged up really good. I had to tighten my screw up and down pretty tight to get what ever clogged it up but its pouring now. I would assume a chunk of residual sludge? I did find out when you have the temp to 7 pewter dose not want to harden any time soon when casted into lee ignots. I turned my mold around and one fell out on my towel in a big sloppy loose pile. A couple other ones broke up and crumbled. I turned the heat down and put the molds on my garage floor and drizzled some water over them. It seemed to take care of the hardening issue. Some of my pewter ignots have some black smear marks in them for some reason. Must of burnt my pewter. lol

[Grmps]

Tin/Melting point 449.5°F

Were the pewter blocks previously smelted and fluxed?

[Tripplebeards]

Yes. They were just casted at different intervals. I wanted to melt them all together so pewter mix was all the same BH. I fluxed them again when I melted the blocks all down in my pot vibe fire recasting. The bars are smooth as silk. You can tell by feel it's a different alloy. They are a little brighter silvery color as well. When I poured them the last part of pour seemed drippy and slushy on top of the ignot for some reason. Could be some other alloy in the pewter casing this or just the way pewter is? I had the temp on 7 so it was pretty hot.

[Grmps]

You can't trust the temperature settings on Lee pots. I had one set at 2 that ran 700+° and another I had to set at 8 just to get 680° I built a PID for casting and haven't looked back.

There may have been some crud in the bottom of the pot from the end of your last casting session. Any lead sludge would be heavier than tin/pewter. I like to use a slotted screwdriver to clean around the lead flow stopper thingy rod [VALVE ROD I looked it up]

I built a"spout cleaner" using a bamboo spoon with the end cut off I drilled a hole through it and pushed a ring shank panel nail through it then I got a metal


notched the middle of one side to fit around the nail with the un-notched side keeping the nail from pushing through. removed the handles.

when the flow starts to slow down a couple of pokes opens it up again.

[fredj338]

You sure it was just pewter? Most tin based alloy melts really low temp. I would suspect some of that was zinc.

[Smoke4320]

just a hint. A Thermometer is a huge help in casting any alloy and can save getting any zinc in your melt

[Tripplebeards]

Thanks, what ever is in my mix has been casted in 1/2 pound blocks now. I plan on burning them up in 16:1 ratios rill it's all gone. Then I won't use anything with a hallmark or "pewter" stamped on it. I know this mix when I first started collecting pewter had a few picture frames that weren't marked so it could have zinc or who knows in the mix. Where can I get my hands on one of those guns that tell you what's in your mix?

[Dusty Bannister]

Since they are all blended into one mix, just melt off a drip and send it with a pound of lead to BNE and ask him to scan it for you. I doubt at the price of those scanners anyone that has one will let you handle it. They are pretty expen$ive. Some scrap dealers have them, but I have not looked all that diligently as BNE is so easy to deal with.

[Grmps]

Scrap dealers have "cheap" XRF guns, BNE works with jewelry-grade metals.
$500 cheap junk to >$20,000

[Tripplebeards]

I mixed up 32 lbs if 16:1 today To go with my left over original mix. I made some boolits to test the BH. Tomorrow I'll make a few batches of 80/20 with 6% pewter added. I have just a hair under 6lbs of the pewter batch I mixed up yesterday. I think why it looked slushy is because I had my mold resting on the bottom. Of the Lee 4/20 base so there was 4-5" stream of alloy dropping into it and the air was cooling it. I noticed the same when working with lead today.