Wal Mart ingot molds

[grumman581]

Walmart used to sell condiment cups that were made out of stainless steel. They charged a reasonable sum (a couple of bucks) for a set of 4 or 5. But there was no handle so you needed a pair of pliers to grip the edge and turn them over to dump the ingot. With a couple of sets you could make ingots until the cows came home. Some folks drilled holes for them in a length of board to aid in the dumping. The ingots were a comfortable size that would fit any pot and of course you could vary the weight by how full you poured the cup. LLS

They're a pretty good size. I made a holder for them out of some rebar...

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post2372084

Here's how the condiment cup "ingot mold" sits in the holder:
Attachment 80784

Here's the two that I made:
Attachment 80785

[alfloyd]

And with six 4 cavity molds, I can move darned fast.
bangerjim

You only have six of them?

I have managed to acquire 15 of them over the years, 3 Saeco and 12 Lyman.
That way I can make 60 pounds of lead ingots at a time and by the time I refill the "smelting" pot they are cool and ready to dump.

Lafaun

[Rustyleee]

I use cast iron corn stick molds. I picked mine up at a yard sale years ago.

[NavyVet1959]

When you retire that scone pan, please make sure it does not get back in to the food prep system. My wife has instructions to destroy my muffin pan molds when I pass. The rest of my equipment is obviously for casting and reloading, but if those were sold at a yard sale, no one would know that they were used to process lead.

The mere possibility that someone might have used cast iron with lead is the reason that any cast iron cookware that I buy for food is always new and any that I buy used is used for lead. I suspect that if I really wanted to use a used piece for food, I could probably clean it of any residual lead contamination. Maybe start out by pressure washing it and then sandblasting it, followed by another pressure washing.

Up until 1986, drinking water systems used 50:50 lead:tin solder. As such, many of us have drank a lot of water that was exposed to lead in the supply lines.

[lightman]

I'm in the group that uses the Lyman style molds. I run 6 of them at a time. I don't see the wisdom in casting something that won't fit into my casting pot. At $25-$30 each these molds are expensive! If I had not found these at a gun show for $2 each I would make some from channel iron. If you guys that use muffin tins or cornbread molds are happy then thats all that counts.

[rondog]

I found a WWI mess kit in an antique shop for cheap and I was tempted to buy it, but it was obvious that it had been used to melt lead with, so I passed. Bummed me out, it would have been a great addition to my collection. Found another one later though.

[mold maker]

Drinking water has been running through pure lead pipes since city water has been available. Flint Mi is a good example.
It was all perfectly safe till they ran acidic water through them.
Just how much actual lead can cast iron retain, and how hard would it be to get rid of it?
Not being a smart *** , just wondering if anybody has facts instead of hysterical rants.

[ArrowJ]

I would never reuse cast iron for food after melting lead nor would my wife, but I wondered about that too. It seems like there might be a theoretical way to clean it enough to make it safe. I would probably just take a sledge hammer to it if I did not have a forum to give away unwanted cast iron on.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Just recently got some of those NOE ingot molds that use mold handles, just like their molds really nice to work with.Robert

[reddog81]

I'm pretty sure you could easily find better and cheaper ingot molds at a thrift shop. The nice thing about ingot molds is that the condition is irrelevant. I use some old school heavy duty muffin "tins". I have no idea what they are made have but they are pretty heavy duty and the 2.5 Lbs circular ingots fit perfectly into my LEE 20lbs pot.

[dragon813gt]

they need to rust first time i did the same thing as you

Yep


They are Wilton MiniLoaf pans. The 1# ingot molds are to small and a waste of time for me. Each ingot is 3.5#s and this was a normal processing batch.



I you stack them one up, one down they will lock into place. There is no wasted space when stacking. The commercially available ingot molds are to expensive and time consuming to use.

[Seeker]

Maybe I'm lucky or something. My wife picked me up a Wally World Teflon coated mini muffin pan a while ago. 24 little ingots to the pour. I figured if it worked for 1 smelting session it'd pay for itself. It's been through 2 sessions and a total of 400 lbs of sorted cowws (weight of ingots after pouring) and 250 lbs of pure lead. It still has the Teflon coating and looks almost new. I just pick it up and fan it a few times between pours to cool it some and then fill it up again.

[Geezer in NH]

I love the mini-muffin trays!!

[NavyVet1959]

Drinking water has been running through pure lead pipes since city water has been available. Flint Mi is a good example.
It was all perfectly safe till they ran acidic water through them.
Just how much actual lead can cast iron retain, and how hard would it be to get rid of it?
Not being a smart *** , just wondering if anybody has facts instead of hysterical rants.

I'm firmly convinced that just living is hazardous to your health...

We used to think that the fish out of our local rivers are lakes were perfectly safe. Not so if you read the notices put out by the TPWD... Limit of two 8-oz portions per month? Hell, both of those combined doesn't equal what we used to call a decent meal at a backyard fish fry.

http://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/ou...and-advisories

[725]

I made an ingot mold out of angle aluminum. Blocked the two ends, put two "feet" on the bottom, voila. Lead mold.

[jrayborn]

I have about 3 tons of ingots I made using 2 Lyman and one Lee ingot molds. No big deal.

[Big Dangle]

Fastest way is next time you have a fire toss it it gets red hot for a while come back a day or so later bang it on a rock a couple time, your in business. Done this with the little cheap steel ones like your talking about, hell I even cut them up to give to friends for aluminum ingots.

[birddog]

Ya I've had the muffin tins and can say they're not worth taking to the house. One year and they're rusted completely through. Have some cast iron pans that are 50 yrs old and still look fine.
Charlie

[Hardcast416taylor]

Went to a Salvation Army thrift store yesterday just to browze. Found quite a few stainless condiment cups besides gravy boats for about a buck apiece, bought 6 of them. All had a base to hold them upright and look to hold about 3 lb. or maybe more depending how liberal I am with the dipping soup ladle. Sorta surprised that nobody here has mentioned looking here for these cups?Robert

[NavyVet1959]

I also use the WalMart stainless steel condiment cups. As previously mentioned, they hold about 1.5 lbs of lead per cup. I haven't seen them at WalMart in awhile though. I stack them on shelves that I built between the exposed 2x4 studs in the walls of my garage. I can usually get 2 high by 2 deep on each shelf. When I smelt down the lead, I originally put the lead into some larger ingot molds that I made out of channel iron, but although they would fit in the Lee pot, they had enough mass that it quickly cooled down the rest of the lead, causing it to solidify. So, I started putting those large ingots in the Lee pot and then pouring out the bottom into the stainless steel condiment cups. Since I normally just use a 50:50 WW:Pb alloy, this makes it easy to measure out when adding to the pot -- just put one WW ingot and one Pb ingot in the pot when it gets slightly low.