One home smelting production setup

[natty bumpo]

Anything worth engineering is worth over-engineering!

When you've got a hundred pounds of molten metal near your feet and legs, over-engineering is good...

Right on!! If a little is good, then a lot is better and too much is juuust right!!

[WRB10654]

I need to make one of these I guess, I have about a ton of lead and need to turn it in to ingots... I pulled it from where I shoot and it is sorted by the type of bullet, in an effort to sort it by hardness, I have Round Balls shot out of Smoothbores (Very Hard), Carbine (a mix of hard and soft lead) and then Minnie Balls (soft and pure lead)

My issue is a making a pot that will hold enough lead to make a large batch of the exact same composition. say 400 pounds. So the bullets I shoot for a season or two is the same stuff.

Oh, I am a Skirmisher (N-SSA) and I get the lead from our home range.

[grumman581]

I need to make one of these I guess, I have about a ton of lead and need to turn it in to ingots... I pulled it from where I shoot and it is sorted by the type of bullet, in an effort to sort it by hardness, I have Round Balls shot out of Smoothbores (Very Hard), Carbine (a mix of hard and soft lead) and then Minnie Balls (soft and pure lead)

My issue is a making a pot that will hold enough lead to make a large batch of the exact same composition. say 400 pounds. So the bullets I shoot for a season or two is the same stuff.

Oh, I am a Skirmisher (N-SSA) and I get the lead from our home range.

Lead is around 708 lbs/cu-ft, so you're looking at needing to hold around 0.565 cu-ft. I would suggest that you make it a bit taller than the minimum necessary so that you have room to stir it without it splashing out and for any trash to float to the top.

It's going to depend upon what you have available to work with, but I suspect that you should not consider anything less than 12" ID. Assuming 12" ID, you would need about 15.3" in height for 1 cu-ft. That should give you a bit of room on top.

Personally, I wouldn't be as concerned with making every ingot for a particular type of bullet exactly the same alloy by melting them all together. I would just get a pot full smelted down and after fluxing and removing the crud, pour maybe a quarter to a half a pot worth of ingots, then add some more lead, flux some more, and repeat. I figure it would average out well enough for my type of shooting.

[ChuckO]

If you need 400 lbs. of a specific alloy, make 4 100 lb. batches and identify the ingots. When replenishing your casting pot, put in one ingot from each batch. It's easier than getting a smelting pot to hold 400 lbs. at one time. Additionally, you can smelt your batches over multiple days that way.

[mold maker]

I don't envy a backache your gonna have.
Melt all the soft that you have IDed in a batch. The rest will be very close to the same.
To smelt that volume into separate finished alloys is going to be a daunting task.

[RoGrrr]

I thought I was optimistic smelting a couple hundred lbs. Four hundred is WAY optimistic. That's gonna take quite a structure to RELIABLY support that weight in MOLTEN lead. Think about it this way: that's almost a QUARTER TON of melt. Even tho my furnace has substantial substructure, I'd be leery of that much hot stuff.
If you're placing it on an adequately sized footprint of sand, or better yet, gravel/crushed limestone (size 4) and then YOU stand on steel drain lattice which elevates you up above (like the gravel), any imagined flood of the melt, I still don't know that I would do that volume all at one time. ChuckO has a good idea: 4 100 lb batches. I typically do about 150 and am patient while smelting.

[country gent]

I found that allowing for jackets clips and other crud in the pot is important. A pot that will hold 100 lbs of clean lead may only hold 50-6 of dirty stuff with jackets clips and other crud. Allowing for this is important.

[parkerhale1200]

Not much changed in the last 40 years, only gained knowledge and a lot of molds.



Melting all the junk clean:


Be ducking carefull with range lead that was giving....






All are 50+ bhn, needed to add 50%! roofing lead to get 22-25bhn.
350-400 pounds.
700 to 800 pounds at 22-25bhn.



Casting boolits is done in the same aera but in a different pot and 4 barrels of water at hip height surrounding me.

For big melts for cleaning like this, approche it like eating a whale....one bite at the time.
This cleaning melt costed me 3 days.
The cleaning pot can hold 40 pounds, but 30 is better to work with, to much heat loss it is taking to long to melt quick.

My casting pot can do 10 to 20 pounds for a stable temperature.

The most important piece of equipment is not in the pictures----->the radio, but he is there.

Be save and cast what ever you want and all that you need to shoot, but be save.

[Charlie Horse]

^^^^wow.

I have smelted in my Lee bottom pour pot more than once. It worked dandy. Just not high production, but enough to keep me supplied.

[parkerhale1200]

^^^^wow.

.

You never entered my basement....1500 kilo of pure clean ready to use range lead...i am good for the rest of my life.
Had to work a lot for it!!!

[parkerhale1200]

^ but enough to keep me supplied.

That is all you need, a steady supply and a steady material, so you can repeat what you shot before.

[Apple Man]

I do smelting outside.

After a LONG hiatus my two 20# plumbers pot propane tanks can no longer be filled due to lack of an OPD.

So I got a 100,000 BTU high pressure burner but found most of the heat is wasted going around it. So I welded a heat shield with top to turn it into an oven, this is way faster now. I have three pots that hold aprox. 60#, 80# and 100#s.

A commercial ingot maker that came out of linotype shop where I got all my linotype many years ago is cast iron and cools the melt quickly.

I use a 10# crucible that has a special handle for filling the ingot maker.

[Bill M]

I too have one of those ingot molds, approx 3# each!
I've been lazy, cutting my WW, and melting them in the casting pot, but really having to clean it a lot. I got my home built furnace out after Christmas, and melted a couple buckets of WW! I can melt about 70# at a time, the problem is the ingot mold is a lot heavier when full than it was 30 years ago!

[Brad Phillips]

I took a 20 lb. propane tank, took the valve off and rinsed it out with water. Cut it in half and then cut a 2" 'ish ring off the top side and welded it to the bottom off my new "smelter" to act as a base.

I did this year s ago, but I would guess, I saw it here somewhere.. Not sure how much it holds, but plenty to keep me entertained.

[kevin c]

From personal experience, a half 20# propane tank pot will hold 250# of lead, if level, and leave enough space above the melt for careful fluxing, skimming and ladling without spillage from sloshing. A strong burner stand is a must, and a thermal jacket around the pot and windscreens around the burner save a lot of propane.

[Win52D]

I have the basic dutch oven on a turkey cooker. The only thing I can add is that I built a brick chimney around the turkey cooker and pot to keep out out the wind. Saves quite a bit of fuel and the dogs and kids can be in the yard without them getting into any accidental trouble. The bricks are old landscape bricks that would have been thrown out, so the cost was free.

I have the same basic setup. Just need to determine the weight load that the burner can handle.

[barryjyoung]

"After a LONG hiatus my two 20# plumbers pot propane tanks can no longer be filled due to lack of an OPD."

What is an OPD?

[FLINTNFIRE]

Overfill prevention device , tank now is limited to 80% I think it is .

[rockrat]

I just go to WalMart and trade in the old tanks without the OPD, for newer tanks.

[imashooter2]

Overfill prevention device , tank now is limited to 80% I think it is .

And the attach thread is different than the older tanks.