Need help with alloys

[SkookumJeff]

I'm getting started here, new to casting. I have two types of lead material. Soft near pure lead, and linotype. I plan to make my own alloys for boolit casting. I have a few hundred pounds of soft lead and 70 pounds of linotype. My plan is to use the linotype to add tin and antimony to the soft lead. Right now I'm smelting and pouring lead ingots with my soft lead. Once I get a stockpile of pure lead ingots poured I plan to start making up some alloy. How do you guys manage your melting pots when working with different lead alloys? Do you empty your melting pot before making up or melting an alloy?

I have a cast iron smelting pot, and a Lee 20 lb ladle pot. Which pot should I mix my alloy in? I'm thinking I should use my smelting pot since it has a LOT more capacity, seems like that would be much easier to use. I don't want this to be any more complicated than it already is....

[stubshaft]

You can by all means use your smelting pot to mix an alloy. I usually cast ingots of pure and ingot of lino. That way I can make a wider variety of alloys, although I do use alot of "hardball" 50/50 lino/pure. Sometimes I'll make a softer alloy like 4 to 1 for my HP's. I usually also mark the ingots with a marsh pen and stack them by alloys on my casting table.

[bumpo628]

Mixing 2 lbs of Linotype to 10 lbs of pure lead will give you properties of:
Tin % = 0.67%
Antimony % = 2.00%
This is pretty close to wheel weight lead (0.5 / 2).

You can download my calculator here (2/14/11 version):
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=105952

[fredj338]

If I sue lino & lead, it's at a 3-1 lead/lino ratio. CLose to clip ww.