REALLY LONG I have posted a few times but haven't introduced myself. My name is Eric and I am a lead-o-holic. I used to partake of the fine vintages of speer and nosler but lately am in the gutters and tire shops looking for dirty, oil soaked silver metal. As recently as Thanksgiving I was a normal person, then an errant google search sent me in the direction of CastBoolits. One sip and things will never be the same. So here is my tale of whoa! is that a wheel weight.
I am an old retired fart. I can remember as a kid melting lead with my Dad in a ladle on the kitchen stove and pouring soldiers and indians in molds he got as a kid in the 1930's. Still have some of the molds. Maybe with some of the info I have gleaned from you guys I will get them cleaned up and pouring again.
Fast forward to the mid 1970's (said I was an old fart) when I did some casting for .357 with a hot plate and 2 inch wide ladle. Went ok, but the luber (don't remember the brand) just got lube everywhere. It was a mess. That and a move to Korea (Army EOD) religated everything to a box for the next 35 years.
So a couple days before Thanksgiving, realizing the bullets were ~70% the cost of reloading, I googled casting pot. I think if I had had access to castboolits in the 1970's things would have gone a lot better and I would have continued casting then.
After a marathon reading session or three I came to some conclusions. I wanted a PID controlled bottom pour pot which I will build myself. A second smelting pot really depended on lead supply. There were a lot of comments on alloys and percentages and with Rotometals asking $80 for an analysis a 100 lb pot didn't make sense if you really wanted to know. However an 800 lb pot would bring the cost down to $0.10/lb which seemed more reasonable. So was there a supply? Took my Dad for a haircut near 3 tire stores and the results were nada - chain store which traded them in for credit, one that gave them to a hunter, and one that kept them for reuse. On 10 Dec (only 3 weeks ago!! Lordy how quick the mighty have fallen) I stopped at a tire store next to where I get gas and they said sure if you will pay what was on my last recylcling invoice $0.28/lb. OK, 81 lbs of lead 1.2lbs ZN and 1.3 lbs steel and I was doomed.
In the last 3 weeks I have visited 35 different tire, radiator, stained glass suppy, printing and auto shops. I have a list of at least double that length which I have yet to visit. So far I have 275 lbs of clippies and 118 lbs of stickys and only 4.5 lbs of zinc and 7 places which are willing to save lead for me. And this wasn't even the real fun!
The real fun was the research. How do you build a PID temperature controller? Used them a lot, but never built one. For a big pot electric heat is out so what burner for propane, how many BTUs, how many BTUs in a 20lb tank, can you control a propane burner with a PID controller (yes you can), insulation, how to build a better pot, building a movable pot stand, ect. I don't like the lyman mold. I want a mold that says "LOT #" and "Pb Sn Sb" on them. How to make my own molds, CNC, lost wax casting, or welding? I looked at silicone rubber molds, foundrys for smelting aluminium and brass, welding of steel and aluminium. Turning aluminium on a lathe, open faced molds and sprue plate molds as well as automating ingot pouring. Based upon their different densities what size mold would it take to pour a 1 lb ingot of lead, 60/40, wheel weights, and zinc. Google lead me from hobby places to back yard foundrys to beer brewing. A lot of it will never see the light of day, but some will. It has been a blast!! and I haven't even started talking casting boolits yet.
My name is Eric and I am a lead-o-holic!