Lodge Frying Pan for small ingot casting?

[Mr_Sheesh]

http://shop.lodgemfg.com/bakeware/ca...-wedge-pan.asp is a $25-$30 8-section frying pan, you could cast up to 8 wedges in the pan per pour to form ingots; Seems like that might do for temporary cast alloy at least. (Not "ideal" for long term storage but for using the next time you run the pot, it should be great! Or for an odd mix you want to pour and mark specially.) Anyone using those? Or is a more traditional ingot mold just plain handier? Having to replace most everything, one piece at a time, just looking for a good system Thanks!

[Went2kck]

If yoou think it will work for you then give it a go. Seams like it should work.

[Jeffrey]

I clean my scrap twice before pouring boolits. The first time the lead is cleaned I ingot it into a standard muffin pan. These are cheap and easy to get: garage sales, thrift stores. I've learned that a standard muffin cavity, completely filled weighs very close to 2#.
Muffins are easy to stack in circles of seven, take up very little space, and are not apt to fall over. Their edge / side can be marked with a sharpie. Because the edge is curved, those marks are very unlikely to wear off due to contact with other ingots.
If you go with muffin pans, make certain to use the pans with a black / grey finish. The ones with a silver finish are plated with tin. Your molten alloy will very happily solder itself very firmly into those cavities. The grey finish is a form of teflon. Theoretically teflon can burn off producing a poisonous gas, phosgene, in the process. Having had direct, personal experience with phosgene, I have never smelled it coming from a hot muffin tin.
The product of the second cleaning goes into ingot moulds made by a member here, D Crockett. Being an occasional seller of lead, I was amazed how well his moulds cast ingots. His moulds, made from angle iron, produce ingots that nest and stack amazingly well. I was quite happy pouring and storing muffin ingots, but angle ingots pack and ship in a flat rate box amazingly well.

[Tatume]

I like to segregate my alloys by shape, and have several ingot molds. For example, I use a Lyman ingot mold for COWW, and a corn cob cast iron mold for high-antimony alloy. Soft lead, SOWW, goes into cookie molds shaped like Christmas trees. My Lee ingot mold has one half-pound cavity that I use for solder scraps.

Sometimes I get a good deal on lead, and sell some. For that I use an ingot mold made of angle iron. The ingots stack tightly into a USPS SFRB.

The worst ingot mold is one too big for the pots. My brother once bought some wheel weight metal that was cast in an eight inch fry pan. He didn't have a pot that would accept the ingots, and we had to break them with axes and mauls. It was a chore.

[Mr_Sheesh]

The pan I mentioned has 8 triangular segments per pour, a 4" long by 4" wide triangle should fit nicely into 20-22# pots I'd think. I have a set of stamps coming so I'll have "PUR" or "LY2" or "RAN" or the like acronyms, one per alloy, set up to label things. I do agree that an 8" pan would be way too bit, till I get a 100# or so "smelting" pot set up anyways I've been told a lot about Phosgene, musty hay, but as my dad was a research chemist "somehow" we never managed to make any LOL - Cannot say I'm eager to make anything toxic.