Messy Stickies!

[Gtek]

Does anybody have a trick when melting stickies. Picked up 2 five gallon almost full. I have 40# cast pot. Run first batch, what a mess on sides, tools, everything. Then when it cools turns into rock where it is. I went out back under the old Oak and picked a bunch of little sticks and cotton candy twirled some off melt. What a mess! Any ideas or advice from the been there done that crowd? Thanks, Gtek

[shotman]

sounds like you mixed zinc and lead
sticky's are both are hard to tell only by temp
keep melt at 600 and if you have [oatmeal] on top do the sulfur stuff

[R.M.]

Don't know about zinc, but if you get it to 650-700 degrees, and let the crud burn, it should just turn into ash.

[Gtek]

Pot was never over 650 degrees, each and every piece handled and eyed before swim. Talking about tape and glue and stuff on backside. After battle with green and brown boogers off top and sides things were normal. Trying to reduce mess. Gtek

[R.M.]

Put your flux in, sawdust, wax, whatever, and let it burn. Flame will reduce smoke.

[fredj338]

Yeah, tape wts are a smelly mess. Wood sawdust works better than anything U have found for helping get rid of the crud. You can also soak tape wts in min spirits & the glue & tape comes right off in 5-10min. It's expensive though, min spirits aren't cheap anymore.

[plainsman456]

I just put sawdust and flux away.Even if you have to do it 2 or 3 times it will clean up.

[Defcon-One]

It is the glue strips, not Zinc!

I get globs of the stuff. It smell nauseatingly sweet and probably isn't all that good to be breathing. It does burn off after a few minutes and turns into clumps, which I skim off with the dross. Then after the melt, I scrape down the sides of the dutch oven when it has cooled about half way. Maybe 300-350 degrees or so. It is a semi-solid then and can be scraped off pretty quickly and dumped out before it hardens up.

It is not perfect, but it's the best I could come up with!

[runfiverun]

i use a bit of gasoline and a match to get rid of the sticky gunk.
then do a proper flux.

[gray wolf]

gasoline and a match
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[clodhopper]

Putting gasoline in a hot lead pot sounds just a little to hairy for me. Or maybe I should be saying hairless, If all I lost was my mustache, eyebrows, and hair then luck would be with me.

[runfiverun]

yep gasoline.
it removes most of the tape before hand.
a little soaking in the bucket and a wipe with some old rags.
then once it hits the pot it's ignited with the match, helps heat things up too.
i pre wash my clip on ww's too.

[ubetcha]

i use a bit of gasoline and a match to get rid of the sticky gunk.
then do a proper flux.

Is this considered preheating the lead? :shock:

[Gtek]

Well, done 200# this morning. Pashense- see I cannot even spell it. I left pot at 650 as before, so I thought. I was popping Thermo in and out checking, not leaving in. Found after leaving thermo in pot temp would drop to about 575 then climb back just after initial melt. Instead of forcing/pushing to get clean just let sit and cook for five or so. Man, what a dfference. I would get big SS spoon over side and get on bottom for warm up, then do the swirl and it would gather up in middle and just lift out. Then I would take my 16"x1" cedar paint sticks I made and scrape sides of my cast pot, swirl and lift out crud. In five minutes had super clean shiny top and no STUFF hanging around. Fine tuned to next level. Thanks for help, Gtek