What Experiences with a Rowell Bottom Pour Ladle

[lightman]

I take it that your ladle did not arrive? I was hoping that you would get to use it this weekend and post some pictures.

[RogerDat]

I take it that your ladle did not arrive? I was hoping that you would get to use it this weekend and post some pictures.

Today, I was working from home, it has been sooo hard to ignore it. Thing is huge! I can drop a 2 liter bottle in it and it doesn't touch the sides. Or even come all that close to them. Taller than the plastic base of said soda bottle. I do have some molds warming on a hot plate and will be hitting it really soon.

[RogerDat]

Today, I was working from home, it has been sooo hard to ignore it. Thing is huge! I can drop a 2 liter bottle in it and it doesn't touch the sides. Or even come all that close to them. Taller than the plastic base of said soda bottle. I do have some molds warming on a hot plate and will be hitting it really soon.

First impressions. Big bowl sucks up heat like deep space! Unless one has about 50# of molten lead in a dutch oven to float the bowl in it won't get hot. Not hot means can't ladle lead into it to pour without lead in bowl getting semi hard so you can't pour it. So you can ladle the last 30# in the dutch oven from a 100# batch but not going to do a 30# batch with a ladle that big.

I need some expanded metal and a block so I can set the ladle directly over the burner and prop the handle on a metal block. It is literally the size of a small pot so... why not use it like one?

Pours fairly well but there are side ports in the spout so if you let the bowl get too far down it can pour top dross.

I think I would like the smaller one in the 2 or 3 pound range for most uses, if I was going to buy one for general use I think the smaller would be better. However my goal is to take several hundred pounds and make ingots in large batches so the larger size should work well for that use.

I will have a better feel for this when I get a chance to do a full pot. I was foolishly trying to whip out less than 20 lbs. of ingots from a couple of slabs I had that I needed to ship to someone in a SFRB it wasn't the tool for the job. Still it was fun to play with and that is something. I'm thinking that when I do the 350 lbs. of WW's it might come into its own.

Pictures will have to wait. I did take pictures however I'm tired and need to call it a night.

[lightman]

I just went out to look at mine. Its got lead smeared on the bottom covering up the letters but from your description mine must be a #4. Its about 4 or 4-1/2" in diameter and maybe 4" deep. It works well for the 4 cavity Lyman style molds that I use. I do have a smaller ladle for getting the last little bit of lead out of the pot. I only totally empty the pot on the last time around.

Be cautious heating your ladle over flames. I seem to remember reading warnings to not use the ladle as a melting pot. My pot is big enough to float mine on top of the melt.

[RogerDat]

I just went out to look at mine. Its got lead smeared on the bottom covering up the letters but from your description mine must be a #4. Its about 4 or 4-1/2" in diameter and maybe 4" deep. It works well for the 4 cavity Lyman style molds that I use. I do have a smaller ladle for getting the last little bit of lead out of the pot. I only totally empty the pot on the last time around.

Be cautious heating your ladle over flames. I seem to remember reading warnings to not use the ladle as a melting pot. My pot is big enough to float mine on top of the melt.

There is this from Rotometals but they have it under a paragraph on both cast iron and steel stamped bowl ladles. Not sure if it is for one, the other or both.
Warning - These are for ladling out of a pot for metals under 1000 F. Do not try to melt metals in these ladles as they will flake and holes will form.

My main need for the grill to direct heat the ladle is to get lead out of it or pre-heat. I can see dumping a small cooking pot worth of lead into it to pour ingots using the bottom pour. At less than about 40 lbs. one can't even get the ladle hot in my 110# dutch oven. Not enough contact with the lead. I would estimate at around 50# or more the melt can heat the big ladle enough to use a small ladle to fill without going slushy or semi-solid on hitting the big cool ladle.

I do have a couple of smaller old cast iron pots, such as those that are used with a plumbers lead furnace and those show some evidence of metal flaking off.

[kevin c]

I usually have 200# or more in my pot, so I can hold the bowl of my #5 down into molten metal up to the handle flange. There have been times, though, when I have much less in there, and can only partially submerge the bowl. The uncovered part can freeze lead, both inside and out, until it heats up.

Something that helps speed up heating the uncovered part is to use the small ladle to pour the melt over the uncovered part of the bowl, both inside and out, first to melt off the frozen lead, and continuing until the lead flows off without clinging.

Once hot, I shake molten drops off the exterior by tapping the empty ladle by the flange or handle on the rim of my steel pot (NOT CAST IRON) while the bowl is over the melt (BE SURE THE BOTTOM OF THE BOWL IS CLEAR OF THE MELT BEFORE DOING THIS!!!), and afterwards I fill with the small ladle. I don't dip the #5 into the melt after initial heating - I don't like dripping lead all over my work area. I try to keep a fill and pour cadence that keeps the bowl from cooling down too much. If the interior of the bowl starts showing a solidified layer, I upend and tap the ladle as above, freeing the solidified lead and restoring the bowl to full capacity for making uniform ten pound storage ingots. For the smaller CB ingots I think I might ladle into the Rowell more than the minimum needed for one or two cavities in order to keep the bowl hot, or maybe I'll need to periodically reheat the bowl. I guess it will depend on how hot I keep the pot, how much I ladle into the Rowell, how fast my cadence is, and what the weather is like.

[RogerDat]

Yeah the ambient temperature can make a big difference. I have a pre-heating hot plate that on a hot day can melt or keep a small pot molten. If it drops below around 40 it generally has a rim of solidified melt forming around the edges.

Have to get a couple more things lined up but then I'll be ready to do a few hundred pounds and see how it goes.

Those nice heavy and large Cast Boolit ingot molds are also a bit harder to get heated up well. Bigger than the pre-heat hot plate burner so losing heat to the air at all 4 corners. Filling them of course does wonders but in terms of pre-heating they are a little tougher to get first cast ready.

I think I was under filling just a bit. Stacked in SFRB they were a little narrow to equal the full dimension. I wasn't going all the way up to the top of the mold I think. Tapered mold means fuller is wider.

Looks like Sunday. Supposed to be nice on Saturday so yard work rules the get it done list. Try to get the prep work done during the week.

[RogerDat]

I ordered and received a Rowell #3 bottom pour ladle. Have not used it yet but at 3 inch diameter it is close to the same size as a ladle I commonly use for making ingots, Mostly slabs in bread loaf pans but also in molds. Most of the time I use a 3.5 inch diameter ladle this Rowell is only 3 inch but it is deeper.

Have not used it yet but think it will be useful for less than full pots that are not uncommon with scrap yard lead. Not uncommon to get 35 - 75 lbs. of some type of lead at one time.

I have used the larger #5 for a full pot and it worked, toward the last 1/4 to 1/3 of the Harbor Freight Dutch Oven I was setting the big ladle in the lead and bailing it full using a smaller ladle. Up to that point I was rocking and rolling with the big boy. 60 lbs. in 12 pours. The last 30 or 40 lbs was a bit frantic with the bailing and trying to keep the temp up on mold & ladle.

I think switching to this new Rowell at a smaller size will be more efficient for that bottom of the pot ladling. Can easily fill a single 2.5 lb capacity mold cavity. Rather than scooping and dumping into the big ladle, then picking the big ladle up to dump in the mold. Handling the lead 2x seems inefficient. With hot molds I could dump a pound or so from the small ladle into the next cavity before refilling to pour some more. Make it to be three scoops. Same as it would take to fill the big ladle.

[kevin c]

Please keep us up to date on how it goes. The double ladling thing I can put up with for the big ten pound storage ingots, but direct ladling sounds like it could be more efficient for the 2.5# quad ingot molds. Even at four fills with a #3 or three with a #4, with easy, light moves to the mold for four ingot pours, it seems less trouble than the most efficient double pour technique I have come up with with the #5 (three ladle fills of the #5, a slow careful transfer of 16 plus pounds to the mold, followed by the four ingot pours).

[RogerDat]

I only fill my #5 enough to do two ingots @ 2.5 lbs. each. Maybe around 2/3 filled rather than full. I found I had a better rhythm to pour two, scoop, pour two, next mold. Easier to handle that monster ladle if it wasn't full. Will probably do the same with the newly arrived #3. Fill it enough to easily do a single ingot @ 2.5 lbs. so a little over half of the 4 lb. capacity. It is possible I will fill ladle and pour 1 1/2 ingots per pour. Will have to see what works best.

I do have a set up that allows me to not move bowl of lead very far. With the big ladle it is almost brace arms and pivot. Pour and pivot back to pot.

Have a nice little problem. Too much lead and casting alloy for my back to deal with. Have some tin based alloy from organ pipes in a couple of buckets that has to be sorted and melted. A few pieces of pewter. And member BNE got back to me with XRF testing of alloy I have stacked on a pallet in bulk bread loaf pan slabs. Now that I know what that alloy is I need to use the Bumpo calculator and figure out what to mix together to make CB ingots with it. Then I'm going to do a bunch of plain soft lead that has started to oxidize and is in a bunch of different ingot forms. Re-smelt and make standard CB ingots of it.

Oh and a fellow member hooked me up with some sheet metal I can use to cover the pallet I cast on so the wood won't char as quickly or as badly. I essentially stand in my garage moving in circles like a 4 year old with a sneaker nailed to the floor and the laces double knotted. (laces, what we used before velcro to attach our shoes that proved we were "big" kids)

Snow is supposed to melt this weekend, lot of little outside stuff, and a gun show nearby but... hopefully some lead will become pretty bars so I can really give these ladles a work out. As most of us know any boots can feel good in the store, it is when we actually use them that we find out how they fit us. Will let folks know how they "fit" after I get to give them a bit of a work out.

Problem is a lot of big melting won't really clear any space, the smaller stuff or more tedious operations will. I do have a plan. I put away or straighten 4 things out there every evening. Some days I get ambitious and get to 6 things. Someplace in there making big 100# plus batches of ingots is going to fit in.

[RogerDat]

Well have done 300# of plain lead in 2.5 lb ingots. Plus another 400 to 500 pounds of bread loaf pan slabs of assorted alloys.

• The ladles have that bottom ring to allow them to sit flat. It drips lead. Maybe the spout does and it runs down bowl to drip off that ring but get noticeably more drips than my regular ladles.
• The larger ladle is ideal for the bread loaf pan slabs. Two pours and approx. 16 pound slab is results.
• Found the larger ladle is more useful doing 2.5 lb ingots 3 per fill. Especially as long as the pot is full enough to get full ladle per scoop. Better rhythm be hanged, more ingots, less filling and moving between pot and mold.
• Smaller #3 ladle works fine also doing only one ingot per fill. Fill ladle less than full to keep weight down and can move pretty fast.
• Ladle spout pours a wider and flatter stream. If not hot enough one can pour voids due to the lead solidifying in a sheet within the mold creating a pocket.
• I ended up using a thin wall soup ladle with a bent handle to scoop melt into the bottom pour ladle. Was able to get the bottom of the pot and go fast enough that things didn't cool off. Or mostly fast enough. Last couple of ingots set pretty quick. Like as being poured.
• The ladles are right handed. Not a problem for me but those who use Satan's hand as their dominant hand might find it more difficult to use
• In a full Harbor Freight Dutch Oven (110+ lbs) at 45 or 50 degree ambient temperature the larger ladle drops the melt temp by 50 degrees when placed in the melt.

I store scrap in 10 to 16 pound slabs poured in bread loaf pans until tested. The larger #5 ladle rocked at cranking those out.

I use the tested slabs alloy content with the alloy calculator when making casting alloy. I generally pour the casting alloy into slabs to have tested before I go to the work of pouring smaller ingots. This melting of tested mixed slabs for smaller ingots provides a final chance to do any minor tweaking to the casting alloy based on testing. It is an extra step but I like my Lyman #2 to be close enough to "store bought" when in ingots I'm going to use.

The reason I made small ingots from the 300 lbs of plain soft lead is they don't require any additional testing, anymore than COWW's do. I know the sources for that soft lead are essentially "pure" or close enough.

[lightman]

It sounds like you have been busy! I'm hoping to give my ladle a workout after hunting season closes. I have enough wheel weights to make a 400# batch and a buddy has a big pile of pole top pins laying in my shop floor waiting for their turn in the pot. Those are pretty slow to melt, not having a lot of contact with the pot.

[RogerDat]

It sounds like you have been busy! I'm hoping to give my ladle a workout after hunting season closes. I have enough wheel weights to make a 400# batch and a buddy has a big pile of pole top pins laying in my shop floor waiting for their turn in the pot. Those are pretty slow to melt, not having a lot of contact with the pot.

If one can keep a 1/4 or 1/2 inch of lead in the bottom of the pot it can really help speed up melting the oddly shaped items. Once the bottom layer of lead melts the odd shaped items settle into it making a lot more contact than when just sitting on top of a flat pot bottom.

Starting from a cold pot or pre-heating the items being melted is required. Never smart to put lead item into molten lead, least little condensation going under the molten lead and it is hello tinsel fairy. And boy does that broad make a mess at best and is painful at worst. I once had a ladle that formed moisture coming in over the top of the hot pot, no fairy but one doesn't expect recoil from putting a ladle in the pot.

Yes busy, and paying for it just a bit. However am getting some stuff straightened up and put away while the lead melts. Why dear wife may actually get a car in there for Christmas... as long as she agrees to keep funding my propane purchases.

[kevin c]

Thanks for the observations, RogerDat.

It turns out that I picked up a #3 Rowell, but I haven't used it yet to cast any 2.5 pounders (have to recover from some doctoring first).

Even submerging the bowl of the #5 in the melt for a minute plus, there'll be a few stubborn drops of alloy that cling to the exterior, which is why I'll do the tapping I described before, and why I prefer to charge the big ladle with the small one rather than dipping directly into the melt. Dunno what I'm going to do with the small Rowell: ladle charging that one sorta kills the pace.

Since I empty my processing pot to change alloys everything in the pot gets poured. I leave the burner on for the last ladle pours so they flow well. When the alloy level is too low to scoop into the ladle the burner gets turned off and I'll use vice grips to lift and pour the last ingot.

[lightman]

Roger, those are all good points and pretty much how I do all of my smelting. I've only messed with these pole top and cross arm pins once before. I'll be helping a buddy with these. I'm not even sure if they are worth the effort or not.

The cross arm pin is basically a 5/8 in bolt with a shoulder on it and they are about 12 inches long. Theres a lead cap with lead threads on about 1 inch of one end of it. My best guess is that each of them have about 5 oz of lead on them. I thought that it would be soft but test have shown it to be about like clip on weights.

It would go much faster if we cut the leaded end off and didn't put the whole thing in the pot. But thats a good bit of labor and we decided to let a few dollars of propane do the work for us!

Ladles ------- I think my Rowell ladle is a #4. It will hold more than enough to fill a Lyman style ingot mold. It does get lead stuck to it and that lead dribbles a little. It has some lead stuck to it right now, covering up whatever print that is on the bottom of it. I consider it to be a worth while purchase. If you're melting several hundred pounds of lead at a time it sure speeds things up.

I'll post up some pictures when we start on these, probably early next year after hunting season closes.

[winelover]

The large ladles, I'm sure work fine, when smelting pot is full. The issue is getting a ladle full, when the pot is low. I own, two Rowells......#1 and #2. The #2, I use for smelting, as well as casting. It will fill half of a RCBS, Lyman, Lee or Saeco ingot mould. I don't find double dipping a problem. When the pot gets too low to fill the #2, I switch over to the #1.

Winelover

[kevin c]

The large ladles, I'm sure work fine, when smelting pot is full. The issue is getting a ladle full, when the pot is low...When the pot gets too low to fill the #2, I switch over to the #1...
Winelover

Which is why RogerDat and I use a soup ladle to fill the big Rowells from the pot. It takes almost three full ladles to fill my #5, but the advantage is that I can get alloy from the pot down near the bottom, and I'm not dipping and dripping with the Rowell. I can also tilt the soup ladle as I scoop, so I can even get alloy from below the depth of the shallow bowl (it helps that my pot has a curved bottom). So for the big Rowells the inefficiency of ladling into the ladle is made up for by filling it to capacity, emptying nearly the full capacity of the pot before having to melt more alloy, and less mess. It's just that with a #3 I'm not so sure ladling into the ladle is worth it, since I'd be pouring only one ingot at a time versus three or four with the full #5.