Discoloration of boolits

[tmatt]

I'm relatively new at casting and have a minor problem. I'm using ingots made from wheel weights. My boolits are coming out with ,what looks like pepper, on them .What am I doing wrong?

[OS OK]

"On them or in them?"

A picture would explain...

[gwpercle]

What looks like black pepper are actually impurities , you simply need to flux the pot of metal and skim out/off all the impurities . Keep stirring the pot and fluxing until the alloy stops giving up impurities .

Some good info in the stickies at the beginning of this heading .
Gary

[Walks]

And scrape the sides of the pot while you're doing it

[Winger Ed.]

As said, stir, flux, & scrape the sides and bottom.
That's normal soot, dirt, and trash that will float out.

I've had good luck with a big flat screwdriver.
Stir around/against the sides, and on the bottom.
All the gook that floats up, I scrape with a wooden paint stick.
---caution though. Set the stick on top of the pot to really dry out. Any moisture in it will alert the tinsel fairy.

[mdi]

Yep, as mentioned above, it sounds like gunk, impurities in your alloy. I use rough cut wood slats for stirring; I found a some wooden wedges at the hardware store. They are about 1 1/4" wide and about 12" long. they taper from a point to about 3/8" at the other end. They are cheap wood and rough cut, not smooth like a paint stirring stick and work great for stirring and the wood adds a bit of fluxing/cleaning. Cheap too, I got a dozen for less than $5.00...

When I'm smelting large batches I use sawdust, stir with the sticks and skim with a slotted spoon...

[Gtek]

I use the large Cedar shims about 3/8" thick on big end and whatever on other, about a foot or so long and split down to just over an inch in width (big pot). As stated above, scrape sides, bottom and while doing wood will char helping in fluxing if needed. Then start slow swirl in pot and it will make a little swirling junk island on top in middle, (where is your long handle stainless spoon) scoop it out and away you go.

[megasupermagnum]

If you stir with a wooden stick, don't touch the bottom. If you do, the char will become trapped under the lead, causing the problem you have now. I've messed with a lot of ways to try and get it out, but the only effective method is to dump the lead into ingots, and clean the pot. When You remelt the ingots, the junk should float to the top.

This is for bottom pouring. I have never had this problem with a ladle, as the volume of lead is not large enough to trap dirt under the surface.

[Mitch]

i keep all wood out of my casting pot anymore or i get just what you are getting.Clean your led in a seperate pot flux and clean it well it is well worth you time to get lead as clean as you can before you sootup you casting pot.then when i melt ingots in my casting pot all it needs a a very small bit of bees wax is all it takes.hope this helps a bit.