Green dross and lots of it

[jmsj]

Hey guys,
Ran into something strange today while smelting today. I was trying out a new smelter I built, it has an old dutch that I thought I cleaned out real well. The lead was given to me by a guy that works for a propane company, they were casted into fishing weights and they looked okay. He says the tank gauge floats are made out of soft lead. Going by the fingernail test they are pure or close to pure.
Had a little time so I thought I would try out the new unit real quick, wrong !!
I adjusted the flame on the burner and threw in the 6 pounds of lead from the propane floats. It melted quickly but instead of the gold, purple and blue it was almost emerald green and lumpy. I skimmed off the green dross and more seemed to keep coming up. I was stirring/ scraping the pot w/ a wood stick and more kept coming. I tried fluxing w/ sawdust stirred skimmed, thought I had it but more continued to surface. I tried a couple more times w/ sawdust and still more of this green stuff kept coming up and the sides of the dutch oven were turning mustard yellow. Not knowing what else to do I tried parrafin wax, Threw it in stirred, it caught fire and the melt turned silver. I thought success but when the fire went out and I started to ladle out the green came back. Tried the parrafin wax again, same thing. Went back to fluxing w/ sawdust and it finally worked.
Anybody got any ideas what the green dross is? I think I got most of it out of the lead but could it pose a problem down the road? Any input would be appreciated, jmsj

[sagacious]

Not sure what it is. Yellow dust can somtimes be a sign of antimony content.

It does sound like your temp is way too high, though. Try less heat next time, as lower heat causes less drossing. Good luck.

[MJR007]

Copper?

[GabbyM]

Sulfur? you get any sulfur smell? Perhaps from the leads long term contact with propane. Just a wild guess. Not sure if propane still has sulfur in it after refinement.

I'd not be to quick to remove the dross. See what it does after it cooks a while. Poor a layer of used motor oil on it then light it off if you can tolerate the stinky smoke. Spending more cash for flux white lard, corn oil and such works great. Cheaper than bees wax or paraffin.

[runfiverun]

lead floats in propane??
dude, it's 6 lbs. if it's jacked now.....

[GeneT]

You're running too hot. The mustard color is lead oxide. The green is likely some alloying material, but as long as you're getting mustard colored powder, you're too hot.

GsT

[jmsj]

I don't think the tempature was too high but it sure could have been. This was the first time I tried out this new smelter and because it was suppossed to be a quick try out I didn't use a thermometer. I was just going to check the flame and see if I needed to make another orifice. The flame looked really good and the lead that I got from the propane guy was right there, I thought what the heck and threw it in.
Gabby, I thought it might be sulfer also but I have never smelted this kind of lead before so I am not sure. Didn't notice any strong sulfer smell but a little, thought maybe it was some of the odorant they put in propane.
runfiverun, I did not see what the floats looked like before they were cast into fishing weights but I imagine they looked like a toilet resevoir float or carbuerator float.
Looked at the ingots today from this lead and they look good and are really soft (fingernail test). I have about 200#s of clean x-ray lead to smelt, do you guys think I should blend it in or keep it seperate?
Thanks again for your input, jmsj

[mold maker]

I'd never mix an unknown that was suspecious with a known good, soft, sheet lead.
First try casting some of the unknown. Check it's weight against a known boolit weight. Use a thermometer to see the melting point against a known. Check the hardness . If all is well cast it into boolits and shoot em.
Lead is becomming scarse and we can't afford to take the chance of messing up known good, by mixing in something suspecious.

[sagacious]

Never mix unknown lead with your working supply until it's 'pourability' has been verified by test pours.

If that was the first time with the new smelter, then you likely were too hot. If the 'mystery lead' is dead soft, then we can be pretty sure it's pure or nearly pure, and the dross and powder were a result of too much heat. Good luck.

[skimmerhead]

Hi there Saga. how you doing? you know i like to ask you Q.'s well i have one for you. recently i was smelting a little pb and used a wooden stick to stir, having read that it works well. Q is what is the best type of wood to use? sincerly your pain in the butt,

skimmerhead how do you like my impression of the deer

[jmsj]

Thanks guys for the replies,
After thinking about it, it is very likely was too hot. Once it melted I turned the heat down really low, but the cast iron pot might have kept the melt too hot. In a pot that size (12" dutch oven)I usually put a 100#s or so. With only 6#s I wouldn't even been able to get a reading from my thermometer.
I'll try to get some pictures posted on my new smelter this week

[skimmerhead]

sorry to hijack your thread but i had to say hi to my friend please forgive me. now on your green dross it could be some thing added to the lead because of the propane. i ran into a simulur problem with stick on ww. i had smelted bout 125# everthing ok,nice shiny bars. next load started smelting and i knew something was wrong. i checked heat 600 degrees so i know there was no zinc. it was not green but rainbow kept fluxing and still a lot of dross, i used beeswax marvelux and still heavy dross untill i quit pourded it into ingots looked wierd. tryed a month later still the same. got a new batch of ww sorted the stickons, smelted em perfect, go figure. that other stuff i put in the scrap pile. just wanted to share that mystery.

skimmerhead

[sagacious]

Hi there Saga. how you doing? you know i like to ask you Q.'s well i have one for you. recently i was smelting a little pb and used a wooden stick to stir, having read that it works well. Q is what is the best type of wood to use? sincerly your pain in the butt,

skimmerhead how do you like my impression of the deer

Hey there Skimmer! I use either free wooden paint stir-sticks or whatever dry wooden stick is handy-- commonly a red oak split-stave. The softwood paint stirrers flux well, but the oak stave is sturdier and lasts longer-- either is fine. A piece of dry, resiny pine works very well too.

Congrats on your deer-- you need a photo with you holding some shed antlers to your head!

[Lloyd Smale]

I got some what i though was lead that acted funny and had weird colars. I had my neighbor take it to the paper mill and have it analized. It ended up being cadium. Im sure glad i didnt fool with it much. It came in weird looking pieces that looked like plumbing parts. Its all buried now.