First time for everything...

[KingAirNeal]

Well, finally melted lead for the first time today.

Windy, cool. Had a hard time getting the puddle to stay liquid. Don't think I have enough BTU to get it right.

Bought a cheap cast dutch oven to smelt the near 500 pounds I scored, sand blasted a mini loaf pan and borrowed a camp stove and gave it a shot.

Not enough heat I think. Started out with my SOWW to experiment. Learning curve after all, me being a noob and all.

I cooked off the the junk, did an okay skim, and dragged the whole setup to a sheltered area so I could get it hot enough to melt the whole pot. I had areas that were cooling off in the pot, while the center stayed molten.

Ladle was too big to get the 15 pounds or so I started off with. I had to tilt the pot over to get a reasonable fill on the ladle.

I will have to secure a better heat source and try again. Or maybe a smaller pot? *shrug*

I like the mold I got, perfect size for my needs. 1 scoop should be about a 2-2.5 pound ingot. After I sandblasted the coating off, I rinsed it in the sink, and there was rust within 2 hours! Ingots dropped with no trouble. I like it when a plan comes together! Kinda...

[sqlbullet]

Looks good. More heat is really the solution, although wind will pull an amazing amount of heat away from a good burner too. I run over a camp chef dual burner set-up. It will work great as long as I don't have wind. I use an old water heater box as a wind shield on blustery winter days.

[CastingFool]

I was gonna suggest that you send me the 500 lbs of lead, but I would have a very difficult time melting it here. It's like -8 F, and very windy.

[MUSTANG]

Try looking for a medium sized cast iron frying pan in a 2nd hand store or garage sale. The lesser size will allow the stove to melt the lead. I have used a coleman dual fuel (coleman fuel or reg gas) in that manner over the years successfully, although I prefer to use the propane turkey fryer burner. You will also need a couple of pairs of Vice Grips to clamp on the sides of the cast iron skillet for pouring, that provides better control than trying to get heavy enough gloves and hold the skillet handle.Take the vice grips off the skillet when not pouring, or the springs will loose their temper.

[KingAirNeal]

What about a regular kitchen pot? Any downside to that? I can go smaller diameter and still stay deep so I can ladle the lead out into my ingot pan.

[jsizemore]

SOWW have a higher melt temp then COWW. Stainless steel pot will work on the camp stove or bite the boolit and buy a turkey fryer.

[NewbieDave007]

What about a regular kitchen pot? Any downside to that? I can go smaller diameter and still stay deep so I can ladle the lead out into my ingot pan.

Make 100% sure it isn't aluminum. Aluminum will distort and "crack" spilling molten lead everywhere.

[jakec]

Make 100% sure it isn't aluminum. Aluminum will distort and "crack" spilling molten lead everywhere.

i found this out yesterday. poured a couple pounds on onto the driveway and melted my gas bottle base. got me a cast iron dutch oven today.

[Garyshome]

First time for everything, same thing happened to me!

[NewbieDave007]

Mine was on what used to be grass.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Well it sounds like you may be one that keeps the fires burning......

[dikman]

If it's cooling around the sides then the pot is definitely too big for the burner (I've had the same thing happen if I let the heat drop off a bit in my forge). Try a stainless pot or largish saucepan, you won't be able to melt as much in one go, of course, but at least you should be able to keep melting!

[KingAirNeal]

Got a different stove, which worked TONS better! Re-melted those first 5 I did, and the rest of the 45 pounds of SOWW that I had. Came out much better this time. Gotta borrow a scale to see what the total weight was. The ingots came out much better, but practice is still in order!

Have a crystal look (like galvanized steel) to the ingots, I assume this is from the mold pan being cold.

Did have a little oops and spilled some when trying to move the pot full of molten scary stuff, lucky it went away from me and not towards me!

Living and learning. I did have some bubbling once everything got melted evenly and I cleaned off the dross. I didn't flux. It was pretty clean once I got the burned up sticky goo out of the melt. I will flux when I do the COWW I think.

Pics to follow. Thanks again to all the posters on here who lend their NOT inconsiderable knowledge and talent with the world!

[lwknight]

The crystal look is antimony in low percentages. The larger the mottled specks , the lower the antimony.
A 3% or higher antimony will have a satin looking finish. Also you will get a rough surface on top as it cools.

[KingAirNeal]

Yeah, the top was pretty rough. Some of them have cracks in them too, right in the center. I figured that was my piss poor technique. I mixed the pure lead SOWW with the ones that were painted with the rounded edges (rumor has it they are just as hard as COWW right?) There is a satin finish, I figured that was due to the sandblasted muffin pan I was using...

I'll grab some pics tomorrow when it is light out.

[dikman]

Doesn't really matter what they look like, they're only ingots after all, and simply the intermediate stage in the boolit-casting process. Some of mine are cracked, or bent () and I've had a couple go crumbly when I tipped them out of the mold too soon - now those look interesting! The cracked/bent ones get stacked, the crumbly ones go back in the pot.

[KingAirNeal]

Here are some pics of the ingots.

[AndyC]

Yeah, the top was pretty rough. Some of them have cracks in them too, right in the center. I figured that was my piss poor technique.

Doesn't matter - this step you're doing is simply creating a bulk supply of lead to refine/alloy later.

[KingAirNeal]

Recast ALL of that SOWW lead, got yet a different muffin pan, the aluminum 9 hole one.
Fluxed with pine sawdust, and with better technique, ingots came out MUCH better.

Also, did my first batch of COWW, fluxed with saw dust. Again, worked great.

The numbers...
SOWW, estimated 45 pounds at the start (weighed in bucket on bathroom scale) Finished ingots (26 of them) weighed individually on a digital postal scale, 39 pounds, 8 oz.

COWW, estimated 60 pounds at the start, finished ingots (35 of them) 48 pounds, 13.7 oz.

Do those numbers sound about right? Is this similar to what others are seeing?

[TreeKiller]

Watch when you put the cracked ingots in your pot. The tinsel fairy might be hiding in one!