stirring?

[barnabus]

how often do you stir you pot when casting and whats the purpose and benefits?

[Bazoo]

Stirring by itself adds nothing. Fluxing however, combined with stirring is beneficial because it cleans any foreign matter out of the alloy. Oxidized alloy on top of the melt is reduced back in, and any debris is moved to the surface for removal. How often do I do it? Whenever I start getting inclusions. The film of silver stuff clinging to the ladle and on the top of the melt doesn't impede my bullets in of itself. After a while, rust and whatever starts getting up in that dross and causing inclusions then I flux. Maybe every 20-30 minutes.

[DHDeal]

I will stir about half way between fluxes. A better way to put it is I heat everything up, cast a few rejects (or at least until the the mold throws perfect bullets which might be as little as 2 pours, might be 4 pours), then flux with saw dust and light it off, then after every 15-20ish casts I'll stir. When I see some oxides on top the next time I'll flux again and do it all over again.

What stirring does for me is it gives me a clean area to dip from. I'm a dipper with a turkey fryer that has been built into a casting table.

I only skim when I flux and only get the left over saw dust and some other minor dross.

[fcvan]

I clean rather well during smelting, but I have also purchased smelted ingots from a vendor here. Either way, I am mostly putting clean alloy into a clean pot . . . but I still flux and stir rather frequently, roughly every 5 pounds from a 10 lb pot.

Years ago, I used to reclaim lead from the range at work. I basically made sure the lead was dry before putting more into the pot. My routine then, was to cast 100 boolits each from 2 molds. I would refill the pot, place a tin can lid over the pot, and place the molds on the lid. While the lead heated up, I would expand/charge 100 rounds then lube/size/seat those rounds. I would have 100 boolits from another caliber stacking up until I loaded 500 rounds. Then, I would start loading the other caliber. At the time, I was training for competition and casting 2000 per week. These days, I don't shoot as often and only cast when I have a coffee can of empty brass that need topping off. I'm almost there.

In recent years, I started powder coating so my routing has modified only slightly. The only modification was mostly to ensure the boolits stayed clean. Basically, I open the mold and drop the boolits on a folded towel and then refill the mold. I have long used a spoon to pick up the boolits, rolling them slightly so I can see if there are defects. The boolits would then be placed into a receptacle for that caliber, the sprue placed in the pot, and I would grab the second mold. This process gives me a good rhythm, and the sprues 'kind of' stir the pot.

I pour mostly with 2 cavity molds by pouring between the openings on the sprue plate so there is a swirling action of the melt and leaves a decent sized sprue. I can tell if the temp is right if I observe the sprue frost over. I have some molds I can 'speed cast' by using only one mold and blowing on the sprue and make sure it frosts over. I don't try to speed cast with boolits heavier than 180 because they take time to solidify.

Anyway, If I am planning an extended casting session, I stack ingots on the rim of the pot to preheat them. About every pound or so, another ingot goes in the pot, another on the rim. When the melt looks like it needs fluxing I break out some used ground walnut, you know, from the tumbler. It works great, a tablespoon on the top, and back to casting. Each sprue stirs some but I mostly let is burn and smoke until almost gone and the oxygen is still depleted. The same metal spoon I use for stirring gets used for skimming.

I have not had problems with contamination on my boolits causing issues with my ASBBPC of the boolits. When coating, I wear nitrile gloves and use hemostats to transfer the PC'd boolits to the baking tray. The only time I actually touch the boolits is after the PC is cured.

Frequently cleaning/fluxing the melt and pot, never touching the boolits until after the PC is cured, has given me consistent results. Smelting in a proper pot and not my casting pot was an obvious improvement. Heck, it was 35 years ago before I acquired a proper smelting pot. BTW, a stainless ladle and a pair of vise grips really keep you from being too close to the heat and makes casting ingots much easier.

[Shuz]

Once my RCBS Mag 20 reaches casting temp of around 700 degrees, I flux with Marvelux, and stir until any impurities float to the surface. I then skim the dross off and then apply a very thin layer of new kitty litter(diatomacious earth). This keeps the air from oxidizing the melt and there is no further need for stirring unless you start to see inclusions in boolits. If you do start to see inclusions, this means to me, that the alloy wasn't fluxed clean to start.

[ioon44]

I stir every time I add bee's wax for flux.

[fredj338]

I only add clean alloy to my casting pot, one reason it never drips. Every time I add alloy & stir with a wooden stick after it comes to temp. As noted it help bring impurities to the top of the melt to be skimmed off.

[Dapaki]

I stir, skin, press and remove every time I add lead. I rarely add flux (wax) and find that a hot pot will give up all the debris readily with a good stir and any tin that comes up is just pressed out of the dross and only the dry scum remains to be spooned out. I went through almost a full 5 gallon bucket of LEE ingots this winter, stocking up for summer shooting and have about 1/5th of a soup can of dross from skimming.

When rendering wheel weights, I will flux hard with a goodly sized piece of wax but not my ingots.