I hate melting wheelewights

[Patrick L]

But I did it today. Five partial buckets (4 5gal and 1 4 gal) yeilded 2 five gallon pails full of wheelweight ingots. The last time I did this was (I think ?) '96. With any luck this will be another 10 year supply.

I know it sounds like heresy, but I really don't like melting down the weights. I don't mind alloying my clean metal, or the actual casting, sorting, lubsizing, or any other aspect of this hobby of ours. Its just the initial cleaning/processing of the raw weights I hate. It's a dirty, stinky, dreadful job.

Anyone else feel the same way ?

[Dale53]

I feel so good when I am finished, that I overlook the rest. Simply mind over matter:drinks:.

I may smelt some tomorrow. The thing that I DO hate about it is that I have a bad back. I am just coming off a two week "lay down" and hope I don't screw it up. I need some strong 17 year old who wants to learn about bullet casting. Dragging those buckets of WW's around is the pits. Unfortunately, I know of none in the area....

Dale53

[felix]

Necessary evil, Patrick. It is too bad you and Dale don't live around here. Corky and I need all the help we can get with that big smelter which can easily do 5K pounds at once. What about once in 5 years? That's about our feeling right now. Next time around we might be too old, Corky, so we had better hurry, eh? ... felix

[imashooter2]

Indoor range scrap is worse... The stuff is full of powdered rubber, dirt and assorted trash. It is also very fine as compared to WW and a real pain to get out of the bucket and into the smelting pot. But when it's your only free lead, you do what you gotta do.

[mooman76]

I don't mind doing it. I pick a good day outside and piddle around while waiting between melting.

[arkypete]

A couple of buddies and I get together and spend the day melting lead, drinking coffee, telling lies. All in all a day well spent.
Jim

[BruceB]

Yeah, reducing the WW to usable form is a pain.

Mine is a very solitary operation, due to my shift schedule (unlike ANYONE else's) , plus the fact that when I'm at work, I work alone...ergo, no one else to share my schedule even if they did have similar interests.

Fortunately I don't mind my own company, which is good 'cuz it's been that way for 30+ years.

Like mooman and arkypete, I usually have some other project "on the go" while smelting. This eases the waiting time, but in all honesty, my current weed-burner setup melts WW so fast that there's not all that much time to kill between pours.

Just a few days ago, I 'ingotized' the remnants of some unknown muzzle-loader's stash, about 100 pounds of maxi-balls and .440" round balls. The balls were MUCH harder than the maxis, which seemed to be near-pure lead. These bullets were so incredibly cruddy and caked with rust and other glop, that I just melted them as a mixture, marked them as "soft, unknown" in a .50 can, and will use them for .45-70 moderate loads as-is. Total time was about 2.5 hours, I think.

[Beau Cassidy]

I will generally delagate a half a day or more a few times a year running 2 turkey fryers and 5 quart dutch ovens. It keeps you humping. Really good for a backache!. I can usually get about 4 or 5 5 gallon buckets done. Besides my back, what kills me is the tips of my fingers will hurt for a week from grabbing all of those ww.

Beau

[targetshootr]

I like smelting as much as anything. It's hard and dirty work which is fine by me and I think the fumes smell great. My favorite part is skimming off the clips and watch it turn into a pot of creamy goodness. I do five buckets max in a day and while it's murder on the back it's satisfying to fill a milk crate or two with ingots.

[arkypete]

Besides my back, what kills me is the tips of my fingers will hurt for a week from grabbing all of those ww.

Beau
What we do is dump the WWs out out ofthe bucket on piece of scap plywood and use a shovel to pick them up. Then we use our grubby mitts to pick them up.
I got a buddy to make a pot out of a 15 inch piece of pipe with a 1/4 plate welded to make a bottom.
Jim

[NVcurmudgeon]

For sure, smelting is to boolit casting as case trimming is to reloading, a necessary
evil. Having recently accumulated 2 1/2 buckets of WW in the last three years, it got to be high time to ingotize my stash last week. I did it over three days in my 12 lb. casting pot, about two hours per day. Not too bad that way. Report to follow.

[Bret4207]

Lately I've done more smelting than casting. One of the benefits of my job is that I cover an area roughly the size of Conneticut or maybe a bit bigger. I've got nearly every garage, junk yard and gun shop mapped out pretty well. Given enough Dunkin Donuts I can usually pick up a fair amount WW. There's only so much storage room in the gun room/ fur room so I have to ingotize them and store them in 5 gal buckets in the mow just to save space.

It helps to have a good CD player going ( played Burl Ives, Connie Francis and Hank Snow last time) and a thermos of Joe. The old gasoline plumbers furnace and dutch oven get a pretty good work out.

[obssd1958]

Being pretty new to this, I have only done the smelting thing once - so far. But I am very fortunate to have 2 grandsons that come to my house pretty often. I waited to melt down the first batch of WW until one of the days that they came over. If you want to see wide eyed wonderment, just get a 10 and 12 year old watching metal melt!! :bigsmyl2:

Now they ask when we can do it again!:drinks:

BTW - we also used the time waiting for the WW to melt to talk about safety around lead and HOT metals. We all wore safety glasses and welding gloves.

VERY enjoyable day!
:castmine:

[454PB]

Now they ask when we can do it again!:drinks:

BTW - we also used the time waiting for the WW to melt to talk about safety around lead and HOT metals.

Good for you! Some people would probably cringe reading that, but as long as you protect and tutor them, it's a great way to "plant a seed".

I vividly recall at about 11 years of age, I disassembled a 12 gauge shotgun shell. I put the powder in a pan and light it off, trembling like it was TNT. I then put the shot in a spoon and melted it over the cookstove flame, and poured the molten lead into a glass of water. I then showed of my "sculpture" to all my friends.

Thus began the passion for melting lead all those years ago.

[FISH4BUGS]

I have about 1500 lbs of WW to smelt - it should take me about 3 full days to do. I always take a full day where I have nothing to do but that. Winters are long here in NH and I will smelt and cast ingots during the winter outside with a 60,000 btu burner and large cast iron pot that holds about 60 or so pounds of metal.
Currently I have four 5 gal buckets in the basement full to the top with 1lb and 1.5lb ingots of WW and linotype with more to come. I want to have a lifetime supply in the basement when I am done. I just pray I don't have to move.
People complain about the smelting process. Dirty, smelly, crappy work, yes. But nothing beats a pile of fresh ingots awaiting alloying and casting. It is all part of the deal. Looking at your handiwork with newly minted ingots is kind of like admiring your newly stacked woodpile after cutting from tree length, splitting and stacking 10 cords of wood over a few weeks. Nice to look at, and certainly satisfying to have all set for future use.
It is amazing how much you can get done after you murder your TV! I never lack for anything to do. Smelting, casting, lubing, sizing, trimming, reloading and shooting....it is all good no brainer time. Nice relaxing hobby time. It keeps me out of girlfriend's way, too. If she wants to chat, she knows where I am - in the shed having an adult beverage, casting and listening to the radio.

[Uncle Grinch]

I do my smelting in small batches as my pot will only hold about 65 pounds safely. Once I get it separated and semi clean I add them (WW) to the pot and shut the fan off and leave the room. It seems to help get rid of the skeeters and other vermin that seem to hide in my storage area. After 15 minutes or so, I open everything up and turn on the ventilator fan.

[Patrick L]

Glad to see others mostly feel the same way.

I do it outside, with my Dad's old plumber's furnace and an old cast iron pot that probably holds 50 - 60 lbs of metal. I'm not sure. It's about 6 inches deep and 12 inches in diameter. I ladle the melt into aluminum mini muffin tins with an old cast iron ladle (also my Dad's. What would I have done without him?) A 5 gallon pail full of those muffins is REAL heavy!!

Like I said, I probably do the raw WW processing about once evey 10 years or so, and that's probably what makes it tolerable. I get about two 5 gallon buckets full of clean WW ingots. I will take the WW ingots and alloy them with about 2% tin using the same setup, and get my bullet making ingots that way. I do that every 3 years or so. I don't mind that so much since I am dealing with essentially clean metal. The bullet alloy ingots are then placed in 50 cal ammo cans, and that's how I feed the electric pot.

[Blacktail 8541]

I must be one of the odd balls as I like smelting WWs' almost as much as casting bullets. It goes pretty fast, about a 5gal bucket every hr. My problem is collecting enough ww to get to do it often enough.

[Stanger73]

Around here I can't get WW for love nor money! I have tried everywhere, but it is all going to the recycler that has a contract.

When I was younger, I worked at a tire shop and brought home about a pound or so a day. My employer had a contract and wanted to get every penny, but I couldn't resist...

Obviously I am now being repayed for my disloyalty. But the guy was a jerk, so I think it was worth it.

Besides, I would rather pay for the known quantities than gamble with the unknowns.

Or maybe that's just "sour grapes" :)