Lyman ladle & silver film????

[Willyp]

I am using my new Lee magnum melter and wheel weights. I have the ww's cast into ingots of a pound. I flux the heck out of them when melting them down from dirty weights to ingots.
Here is what i have going on? After starting up,to do some casting,i flux the pot and clean the junk off the top. After a while,using a dipper,it will become coated with a silver film or scum.It is like a layer of foil hanging from the ladle,inside and out! This stuff makes it hard to pour thru thru ladle hole. What is this and how do i remedy it?What am i doing wrong,here???? I reflux and it goes away for a short time but then come back!

[dskjeie]

I am just starting to cast myself with a ladle.
I believe it is the oxidation that is forming that layer.

how I deal with it is I take the ladle holding it up right and pull it across the top of the pot (witch pulls the scum to one side of the pot.) then fill ladle with clean lead. It has become part of my normal routine. I leave the layer of scum there instead of fluxing over and over.

Like I say I believe it is oxidation, others here with more time under there belt should be able to inlighting us some more

[mooman76]

What dskjeie said. I have taken some of the mould lube I use and wipe it on the ladle. It helps keep the dross from sticking around the spout, for awhile anyway.

[45-70 Ranger]

It's odd. I've cast for over 46 years with the same old Lyman ladle. I rarely had any scum form on it until about a year or so ago. That was when I was getting scrap lead from a co-worker that does house demolition and remodeling on the side. He brings me lots of lead pipe items from both plumbing and roof mounted vents tubes. In that time I've had crud build up on my ladle like crazy. Now I'm no metal specialist, but I can only presume that I've got some zinc or other trace metal sneaking in there that caused the mess. But that is just my thoughts.

To counter the action before I start to do my casting for the day, I'll take a wire brush to the ladle and get as much stuff off it as I can. I've tried using Kroil sprayed on it lightly to help keep it from getting too sticky. A light spritz of Kroil in my old iron moulds and even the few aluminum ones I have works like 'Pam" did to make a non-stick pan in the cooking world. The Kriol will smoke a bit, but if you don't drench it, it will have little chance of catching fire. That always makes folks jump! But bullets simply fall out of the moulds and look great. I don't 'smoke' my moulds as I feel there is no real value to it.

Again, just my opinions form the years I've cast. Others will have different thoughts and ideas. Take what works for you from everyone that helps you and use that to your best advantage. In the end, you know more than all of us oldtime casters that are set in their ways

Wade

[Willyp]

I am using straight wheel weights. I had thought it might be the tin in my mix coming away from the lead! I haven't cast in 10 years and this is something i don't recall happening to me back then!!!
I will just scrape it off the top and see what happens to my castings. The scum sticks to the ladle like a layer of plastic wrap,inside and out,to a point it will hamper the pouring out the spout?

[Wayne Smith]

Willy, I have the same thing when the metal gets very hot. Do you have a thermometer? I think that happens to my melt when my temps get over about 800 degrees F. Yes, it is the oxidized metals that you have sheeting off the ladle. Yes, it does hamper pouring. I flux with a small handfull of sawdust, it turns to carbon and leaves a layer on the melt. Yes, some does get into the ladle but I don't completely empty it.

Casting with a ladle continually exposes the surface of the melt and some into the melt to oxygen. This causes rapid oxidation of the metal, and yes, the tin oxidizes first.