Any one use a Coleman stove to melt alloy? I have about 100 pounds to melt before I can mix. Any better ideas?
ACC
Any one use a Coleman stove to melt alloy? I have about 100 pounds to melt before I can mix. Any better ideas?
ACC
It depends on whether you will melt large batches again in the future. You can do 100 lbs (10-15 at a time) on a coleman stove and a cast iron skillet/pot. But it would be better if you had a larger pot and turkey burner. Larger than 10-15 lbs could start getting unstable on the wide grid burner grill on the stove. It wasn't made for that much weight.
There are quite a few here that either started on a coleman stove...or still use it with small batches.
redhawk
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Yup, the big burner of a 2 burner stove, several hundreds of pounds of wheel weights.
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Cast iron pot and 30,000 BTU weed torch from Harbor FreightI have about 100 pounds to melt before I can mix. Any better ideas?
Regards
John
I use one often to do range scrap. It does 60-80 lbs. MAX at a time, as long as its on a secure table or block wall. something solid.
I have about 70 pounds of pure lead that I need to melt.
ACC
The short answer is that the Coleman will do the job, but it will take a few runs to do the amount you're proposing. For some, that's all they'll ever need, capacity wise. Others start there, but eventually use/process/sell quantities much larger than that, and need to scale up accordingly.
Try it out, and see where casting goes for you. Gear up if and when necessary.
a friend of this forum has sent me a spare part to continue using my coleman 508 to melt the lead
It is a simple solution, since the smells remain outside the home
The 508 is a small single burner stove with a fairly weak pot holder, be careful.
"Coleman Stove" encompasses a lot of different stoves. If you're talking about the ubiquitous "suitcase" stove (of which Coleman made many different models); the answer is - Yes it will work but you need to keep the batches small.
The suitcase stoves are economical to operate but the grate will not hold a huge amount of weight, particularly when it's hot. You can reinforce the grate or simply keep the weight to an acceptable amount. Use a little common sense and you'll be fine.
If this is a one-time job of 100 pounds total and you have a Coleman suitcase stove, then I would say, "go for it". It will require a few batches but it is entirely practical to get it done with that stove.
If you intend to melt 100 lbs. on a regular basis, you might want to step up your game.
It depends on how much heat your Coleman puts out but smaller ones, nope.
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Before I moved up to an electric pot, I used an "El-cheapo" Coleman 533 that I got on sale. That is a single burner camp stove and with the little RCBS cast iron pot, I was able to cast with a ladle. So it's possible. However, the OP is dealing with 100 pounds of lead, so that would not be a good solution for him.
The "suitcase" Coleman stoves put out a little more heat and the grate is significantly stronger than the grate on a single burner but even those grates are not the best when dealing with heavy pots of lead.
This setup gives me 20 lbs of cleaned range scrap per hour.
I fill her up,cover and go away to do other things for 45 min, then come back,skim jackets,flux,pour "cakes". Repeat.
Easy to get 100 lbs a day.
I smelted a couple ton with Coleman stove. Took me a good month working 7 days a week.
I started out on a Coleman two burner white gas stove. It was one of the older ones made out of heavy gauge sheet metal. I used an old cast iron skillet, and then a dutch oven.
It works, but it will not stand up long term IMHO. To a certain extent this depends on your volume. I process about 4000-6000 lbs a year these days, but a decade ago I was melting that much a quarter. If I was only melting 100 lbs of wheel weights a quarter, I probably never would have upgraded. But when I was melting 2000 lbs a month, a different solution was needed.
My isotope lead page: http://fellingfamily.net/isolead/
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