Smelting clay pigeons

[mjwcaster]

My clubs berm is basically clay, rocks and broken clay pigeons with a little dirt mixed in.
In the past I have hand picked the boolits from the berm.
Last year I built a screened sifter to try and make things quicker.
The first batch of scrap I brought home I still hand picked the boolits from.
The second batch I brought home several hundred pounds of range scrap (dirt/clay, clay pigeons with some boolits mixed in).

I washed the scrap, getting rid of most of the dirt.
I wasn't even going to try smelting it until I get a propane burner, I just didn't feel comfortable using my coleman stove any more after seeing how much the grate softens and bends under that much heat and weight, even with some reinforcement.
And I knew I needed more heat.

But spring is here, I am tired of tripping over heavy buckets of scrap and while cleaning up I moved some T-posts. Hmm, those look like they could work as a heavy duty grate.
A little while later I had 3 shortened T-post pieces sitting on my coleman stove, looking real heavy duty.

Now I can't resist trying it out, so I fill up the gas tank and the cast iron pot. Just dumped the washed range scrap mix in, almost to the top.

Too much range scrap, didn't help that it was a little windy. All I managed to do was make a smoky stuck together mess.

It took 3 sessions the next day to render that mess down into lead ingots.

Need more heat.

[jeepyj]

I use a propane turkey cooker. A little while back I did 300 lbs in under 4 hours start to finish

[mjwcaster]

In a few sessions over the next week or two I smelted the rest of the scrap down.
Ended up with 9 piles/210lbs of still dirty ingots. I didn't flux as I smelted the first time, just tried to get lead out of the jackets/junk.

And the dirtiest smelting pot I have ever had.

The last batch I had was about 10-15lbs, the dregs. Tons of small broken clay pieces, 22 boolits, dirt etc.
I was tempted to just return it to the berm, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
Plus I wanted to see if I could just smelt it all down.

There wasn't much wind this morning, so I gave it a shot.
Stinky, real stinky, but with a small enough batch and enough heat it all smelted down nicely.

So I have proven to myself that with enough heat I can just dump all my range scrap in the pot and let her rip.
If I had to keep hand sorting I would never mine this berm again.
So I will not even mine the berm until I get a good propane burner.
Then I plan on trying to mine and smelt at the range. Mine the berm and take it over to the campground and smelt. Maybe even drop a line in the pond while smelting.
And just bring home dirty ingots to remix and clean later.

I am boiling water in the pot right now after scrapping all the big chunks off the sides/bottom to clean it.
Then I will re smelt all the lead evenly to make a consistent batch.
After I had issues with my range scrap last year I really want larger, consistent batches.

And I need to make more sawdust, I only have a little here. Tons at my folks house on the miter saw that I kept forgetting to bring here.
Oh well, the circular saw will make some for me, just not as easy. And of course the wind is picking up so it will blow all over as I cut.

[country gent]

smelting range metals with dirt clay in them can get tricky It may require more heat as the dirt clay acts as a transfer and insulator. another is the dirt clay is like clips on wheel weights in that a large batch the clops can be hard to separate remove di to mass of them and ratio to the molten lead recovered. I would recommend a bigger pot and hotter fire here. A 100-300lb pot and a heavy weed burner I the 500,000 btu range. Fill the pot full and fire the weed burner with a heavy stand and wind shield. Once it melts down flux and remove what crud you can. If level remiling is low add more DO this with a small steel pan. Fill pan with range lead and set in pot for 8-10 mins to pre heat dry contents and add to pot do this as needed Once the mass of lead in the main pot is up you can let the contents melt in the pan if you want.

I had considered a 1/4" mesh steel screen formed to match my pot. set in pot and add lead to be smelted melt and flux raise screen out with handle and let drain. This would remove most of the crud in one quick shot. All the wheel weight clips and jackets. If more was needed it could be set back in pot and the sauce pans of material used to preheat bring to full level.

[Conditor22]

Start with an inch or 2 of lead in the bottom of your pot. that will come to temp and distribute the heat better.

[mjwcaster]

I was planning on getting a propane burner before even trying to smelt this range scrap.
But once I started I just wanted to finish.
Trust me I won’t do that again. I hope.

And I always leave an inch or so of lead in the pot to help with heating.
I just have too little heat with the Coleman for the volume I am trying to do, especially with it so dirty.

I have probably recovered 500lbs or more of lead from range scrap on this stove before, but it was all hand sorted, picking boolits from the junk.
Slow, but it was smaller batches over a few years

I am just tired of the sorting, it was never fun.
If I have to hand sort any more I would give up on range scrap from this berm.

Big burner here I come.



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[sfcairborne]

Go to Lowe’s or Home Depot for free sawdust, just got to ask if you can empty the shop vac they have attached to there wood cutting stand.

[mjwcaster]

I made enough sawdust today to last a while.
It doesn’t take but a few minutes.
Funny thing is when you want saw dust it seems to take a while, but when just cutting for a project you get buried in saw dust before you know it.

Just irritating that I never remembered to grab some at my folks house.
And they are as close as the nearest lowes/menards for me.

I got half the ingots remelted and cleaned, so I will have a nice consistent batch to cast with.

Supposed to rain tomorrow, maybe Thursday and I work all weekend so I will be tripping over 9 small piles of dirty ingots until next week at least.

Not quite perfectly clean ingots, but probably the cleanest I have made so far.

I ladle cast so I can flux them if needed when casting, but they are clean enough that I will only use wax with them.


Yielded closer to 235lbs.
When I put my smoker away I found another 25lb pile of ‘dirty’ ingots.


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[ioon44]

I would put more effort in removing the clay targets, rocks, dirt and any thing that is not lead, it is a lot easier to work with this stuff at 70 deg F than 700 deg F.

[mjwcaster]

I would put more effort in removing the clay targets, rocks, dirt and any thing that is not lead, it is a lot easier to work with this stuff at 70 deg F than 700 deg F.

I have put more effort than I want and will ever do again.
I would walk to Mickey D’s, put on a uniform and start asking ‘do you want fries with that’ to get the money to buy clean ingots before going through all the effort I put into this last batch.

And probably be time ahead.

All considered my yield was around 10lbs per hour, probably less.

It was not fun nor productive.

Edit- I am lying to myself, I know my yield was much less than 10 lbs per hour when you consider initial harvest and washing last year.
I need more heat.


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[grullaguy]

Melting clays are the worst. They seem to be made of some petroleum product like asphalt.
Think of those times you may have melted roofing lead with tar still on it.
I recommend you get out all the clays you can. You are just wasting fuel and stinking up the place.

[mjwcaster]

Show me an easy way to remove thousands, tens of thousands of little broken clay pieces and I will.

I believe that people do not understand the volume of tiny broken clay pieces we have.
The trap range is next to the pistol range, everybody harvests the trap range for clays.
Many of use never even set up paper targets, just shoot clays.

I filled two 5 gallon buckets with debris, almost all tiny clay pigeon pieces, none larger than a dime.
Most are much smaller, but large enough to not fall through 1/4” mesh.
It took many hours of sorting over several days.
My wrists hurt.

Volume wise there was more small clay pigeon pieces than boolits in the mix.

Either people have a much better method than I do, have no where near the volume of clays or just have more time and patience.

I plan on never doing that again.
It just wasn’t worth it.
No way, no how.
That much work for much less than 10 lbs per hour of effort.

Please show me a better way and I will try it, there are thousands of pounds of lead in that berm.
I literally just scratched the surface of maybe 10% of the berm.





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[Drm50]

It might not be possible for some but I do my dirty smelt over a fire. Lay up a small 3 sided bar bq type think out of concrete block. I have a heavy stainless grate out of a separator from a mine to put on top to hold 3lb
coffee cans. Bend top of can out of round to form pour spout. Cans only good for one shot. Pick up with channel locks and you can pour a lot of lead from under dross. I pour it out on a piece of steel plate. Keeping it thin makes it easier to remelt on my propane salamander. My dirt is paint, tar and corrosion. With a few pipe fittings thrown in. If you can rig this up it saves a lot of time and money.

[RogerDat]

Go to Lowe’s or Home Depot for free sawdust, just got to ask if you can empty the shop vac they have attached to there wood cutting stand.

You risk getting glue from OSB or plywood. Or chemicals from treated lumber cut on the lumber store saw. I would avoid it as a source for those reasons.

Small chip rodent bedding from Walmart pet section or pet store is cheap, plentiful and easy to come by. The other good source is planer shavings. People generally don't plane manufactured wood so no glue, and landscape timbers are also seldom run through a planer. Any millworks outfit in the phonebook would be a good potential source. You can do a couple of tons of lead fluxing and not go through a printer paper ream box of planer shavings.

[JimB..]

I thought that clay pigeons were clay, been a long time since I’ve shot shotgun. Have you tested to see if whatever they are made of might float? Not sure it would be less work, but even if they sink you should be able to separate the lead by panning.

[mjwcaster]

I thought that clay pigeons were clay, been a long time since I’ve shot shotgun. Have you tested to see if whatever they are made of might float? Not sure it would be less work, but even if they sink you should be able to separate the lead by panning.

Unfortunately they do not float.

Panning or a sluice might be an option.

Edit- looked it up, conventional pigeons seem to me mostly crushed limestone held together with pitch.



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[ulav8r]

Haven't seen a berm withlots of clays, but could you scrape off the surface layer and avoid most of the clays?

[mjwcaster]

Haven't seen a berm withlots of clays, but could you scrape off the surface layer and avoid most of the clays?

The problem with that is I am trying to disturb the berm as little as possible.
All I mine is what I can sweep down with a lawn rake.
So just the top inch or two, exactly where all the clays live.


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[centershot]

I smelted my last cauldron of range scrap back around 2002-3, I just gave away the last 4 buckets of "raw" scrap that I had and I will NEVER smelt that **** again! I'm not telling you not to do it, but I won't do it again. I grew tired of the mining, the smoky mess, hauling away the sand and gravel.....enough! I've been buying CLEAN metal for $1.00-$1.25 / pound and no smoky mess! Think about what it costs to transport it home (gasoline isn't free), how much propane (or other fuel) you burn to smelt with, and how much time it takes to do it, time that you could use for casting, loading, shooting, fishing, family....you get the idea. For me, compared to the cost in dollars and time, I'll pay the extra few cents per pound for clean metal that magically appears out of that little white truck!

I'm not trying to irritate anyone, and I know you may be getting that scrap at no charge, but you have to think about the actual cost to YOU, then decide if it's worth the effort.

[mjwcaster]

Center shot I sure hear you.
Besides my low yield per hour, sore back and hands last year I had some weird contamination and a super soft batch from range scrap.

I am planning on looking for more local sources of cleaner lead scrap.
Lead wheel weights were outlawed here years ago.

But when I get a larger burner and pot I will probably try at least one more batch of range scrap. I can get kind of stubborn even when I know better.
And I have proven to my self that with enough heat I can burn up the clays/dirt. Keep it covered long enough and a little breeze it isn’t too bad.

I started casting by just hand picking the berm, got a couple of hundred pounds of scrap when we moved the berm .
Then bought yard sale/thrift store stove/pot/utensils, tried smelting it all down and liked it.
Then I bought mounds and started casting.

I guess I just like turning trash into something useable.
But is it worth it?
Probably not.
Definitely not for my last batch, but it was a learning experience.




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