Bad Lead

[smokemjoe]

I melted down and got maybe 90 lbs. out of wheel wts.I had troubles with alot of foam metal on top. I fluxed the hell out of it with beeswax. Today I put it my RCBS pot and added a big handfull of sawdust to it twice and got alot off the top again, But when I poured it into trays the top is all that foam again, I know its no got the way it is, What can I do now, Iam thinking of a trip to the junk yard with it, Thanks, What would you do

[docone31]

Just mix in a few Roof Boots. That will eliminate the foam.
I do not know what causes that, but, it does fix it.
Once that is done, it pours pretty well.

[smokemjoe]

I mixed 2 of them in with the wtrs. while I was melting down the WWS, a roofer stopped by when I was melting and they had alot of tar on them, made a good flux. Still got that foam. Thanks- Joe

[cbrick]

Did you seperate the stick-on weights from the clip-on weights? Did you make an effort to eliminate zinc and other junk or just dump it all together?

Why use expensive bees wax for flux of the smelt? It will not reduce tin, it will remove it.

Try re-melting the already melted WW and fluxing with saw dust.

I have melted down a heck of a lot of WW's and have never had such a thing occur but I'm unclear on what you mean by "foam metal".

Rick

[Ben]

Why use expensive bees wax for flux of the smelt?


I was about to ask the same question ? ? ?

Any kind of petro based grease will work as well as paraffin.

[cbrick]

Why use expensive bees wax for flux of the smelt?

Any kind of petro based grease will work as well as paraffin.

Any kind of wax or grease will not reduce tin . . . It WILL REMOVE it. What is it about tin that people hate it so bad that the very first thing they want to do when melting the weights is remove the tin?

See chapter 4 of "From Ingot to Target" where this is explained in vivid detail. http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chapter_4_Fluxing.htm

Rick

[454PB]

It sounds to me like you aren't using enough heat.

[cbrick]

It sounds to me like you aren't using enough heat.

Maybe but caution should be used to not go over about 700 degrees or the zinc will be included in your bullets.

I'm still unclear what he means by "foam metal".

Rick

[smokemjoe]

I have melted WWs for 40 years, Just got this turkey burner and the heat it puts out is HOT. I see what I may have done now, I looked at the WWs, yes there was the tape ons, I for some reason just dumped it all the the dutch oven and melted it, never done it that way before as its always good wws,Looks like this time it wasnt, I have alot of beeswax and a gallon size piece of beeswax that not refined to good but makes good for fluxing, I found out that if you dont flux the clips good why tin will stick to them, Some of the wts. didnt melt and skimmed them off. I put alot of heat to them, I could melt down a big dutch oven in a few minutes, To much heat? Whats these tape on wws now, The saw dust takes some of it off but when you pour it in 1 lb. bars the tops looks like melted pot metal or alum. Any more ideas how to save this, It will not even pour a good cannon ball. plugs up the nozzel on the pot. I clean the pot with hot water and soap and no more is going into it from that mess. Thanks for reading and any help, Joe

[geargnasher]

Rick, have you been hitting the crack pipe again? :kidding:

Seriously, waxes and oils DO reduce tin oxide when they burn, in much the same way the redox reaction of burning (oxidizing) hydrocarbons creates valence-electron-poor CO which initiates the reduction of PbO2 to create CO2(g) and Pb(s). I reread the article and Fryxell does not contradict this, you must be thinking of his reference to the tin-capturing attributes of borate fluxes.

What he does say about the waxes/oils is that they don't do the whole job, the last part being removing what are considered impurities in alloy intended for boolit making. That's where sawdust shines, and I never would have figured that part out if he hadn't done if for me.

Anyway, couldn't resist the chance to yank yer chain!

Gear

[cbrick]

Ok, now I have to go back and re-read the chapter. Did I remember it backwards?

Rick

[randyrat]

I'm not sure but it sounds like Zinc contamination to me. Unless it is something else.

Keep in mind these temps;
Zinc melts at aprox 720-750 degs F (correct me if I'm wrong)
Pure lead melts at 620 degs F
WWs clip ons = 500

If you have more heat than your used to, you may have melted some zinc turds on the bottom of the bot without knowing it. I stir every so often to even the heat out, just in case, I missed a zinc turd.

[cbrick]

Well, a man has to have his cannon balls. :coffee:

Yep, it sounds very much like way too much heat when you say you could melt down an entire dutch oven in a few minutes. Also the grey swirl you mention sounds like it could be zinc. Lot's of zinc in todays weights and if you don't use caution when seperating the weights, then use far too much heat . . .well . . .

How to get rid of it? Sorry, dunno. Maybe if you could get useable cannon balls even if not perfect that would use up a lot of the alloy in a hurry.

Rick

[giz189]

Search the forum for zinc in wheel weight melt. There is a solution to the problem using sulphur I think.

[randyrat]

As the article says Sawdust does it all. You can keep fluxing and fluxing until your sick of it. You will reduce the amount of zinc, but your also going to reduce some your lead unfortunately. Then thin it out or use it a little at a time with known good lead alloys.
Some have been successful at reducing Zn in their alloy to the point of a usable alloy. Lots of fluxing and scraping using saw dust.

[shotman]

Its full of ZINC drop temp to 500 and get the " foam" off

[cbrick]

Ok Gear, ya got me. I did confuse the Borax stuff with wax. And don't ever let that happen again. [smilie=1:

Rick

[lwknight]

Its full of ZINC drop temp to 500 and get the " foam" off

Its not that easy. You can get enough zinc out to make good casts but they will be extremely hard from the remaining zinc that you will never get out . Besides that the whole pot would be solid at 500 degrees.

I'm thinking that a scrapyard trade would be the best thing.

[Shuz]

The foaming happened to me many years ago, long before I knew to keep my smelting temp below 720 deg.
Here's what I did to salvage the melt:
Pour the foamy stuf into 1 lb ingots and then introduce only one of them to a 30 lb batch of good metal. Down thru the years, I used it up. Just be sure to mark your "contaminated" ingots as such with a Magic marker or some other method.

[Defcon-One]

It sure sounds like my Zinc experience. It only happend once, because I learned my lesson. It was a a small melt of 8 lbs of WW metal. I was in a hurry and sorted poorly and missed a couple of the stick-on type zinc weights and I found half of one in the pot, partly melted, to confirm it. The others I assume melted on the bottom. I got the oatmeal thing which does look like a silver foam.

I skimmed and skimmed and got a lot out, then I'd flux and think I beat it but two minutes later there it was again floating on top. The muriatic acid test of the metalic dross prooved it later.

I made the whole batch into Decoy weights and marked them with a "Z" so I'd never poach them for bullet metal later.

Unfortunately, I think that you have learned a hard lesson about temperature control and sorting out the Zinc weights. I'm sorry but I think that it is a 90 pound loss. Try fishing weights or decoy weights, that's where my junk metal went.

I will never do it again, I double sort and use a thermometer, every time!

[bumpo628]

I melted down and got maybe 90 lbs. out of wheel wts.I had troubles with alot of foam metal on top. I fluxed the hell out of it with beeswax. Today I put it my RCBS pot and added a big handfull of sawdust to it twice and got alot off the top again, But when I poured it into trays the top is all that foam again, I know its no got the way it is, What can I do now, Iam thinking of a trip to the junk yard with it, Thanks, What would you do

Just do the sulfur trick described in the stickys in this forum. It'll stink, but you can fix the lead for under $20 or so.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=62957
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=63082

[MtGun44]

add Roof bolts ?????????????????

All the bolts I know about are steel. What is this about?

Bill

[cbrick]

add Roof bolts ?????????????????

All the bolts I know about are steel. What is this about? Bill

Makes a harder alloy. :mrgreen:

Rick

[a.squibload]

Bill:
Roof BOOTS.
Made of soft lead, don't know why they're called boots.
I'm guessing he meant to thin out the zinc 'til it's at an acceptable concentration.

[williamwaco]

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It sounds to me like you aren't using enough heat.

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I call this stuff foam. It looks more like whipped cream than oatmeal to me. It is mostly air. I don't know what it is comprised from but I do know that it occurs in my experience only when I am smelting wheel weights.

It does not occur when I am using a low setting say 6 or 7 on my Lee pot.
It occurs only when using a high heat setting, 8 or 9 and then only when I get distracted and let it cook for 30 minutes or so instead of immediately pouring ingots.

When it forms on the top of the pot - no amount of skimming will remove it. I can skim it all off and with in 60 seconds it will reform, repeat this process until 2/3 of the pot is in the slag bucket and it will still reform.

No amount of fluxing with wax or "expensive" paraffin ( scrap candles ) will have any effect on it. Vigorous stirring will cause it to remix but as soon as you quit stirring, it will reappear on the surface.

I have tried mixing pure lead with it and all I did was ruin good lead and increase my supply of foam.

When I pour it into the ingot mold, it makes pretty little ( almost one inch high ) volcano features on the top of the ingot. After hardening, this stuff is very soft. If you allow it to cool to room temperature and lay it on the floor with the fluff volcano down, the weight of the ingot will mash it completely flat.

The good news is that if you leave the fluff alone, as soon as the surface of the pot is covered it quits forming and you can cast perfectly good bullets ( from a bottom pour pot ) I do not believe it is antimony because both the ingots and the bullets cast from the alloy hardness test the same as other pots from the same batch of wheel weights. If I were removing a teacup full of antimony foam from a single pot, I would expect the bullets cast from that pot to be softer. ( I am not a chemist or metallurgist. )

I also do not believe it is cause by zinc contamination. Somewhere here there is a post about making your own muriatic acid to test for zinc. I tried that test and got absolutely no bubbles. I didn't really trust my qualifications as a chemist so I bought a bottle of the real stuff. It shows no zinc either. ( This is NASTY stuff. Please DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. If I knew what I know now I would NOT do it. I found a PhD chemist to give it to to get rid of it.).

Another post here says you can flux out zinc contamination with sulphur. I tried that. Amazingly it worked beautifully. The first time. Again REALLY NASTY STUFF. After skimming the pot appeared clean. I poured it up and remelted another batch of the bad mix. This is all the same alloy. This time it had no effect at all. Fluxed it and skimmed it twice, no reduction of foam. Even worse, I remelted the ingots poured from the "cleaned" alloy and the foam was back.

Smokeless - odorless chemical flux.
Same result - no help.


Saw dust.
This is the only thing that appears to have promise. Melted up a really bad pot of the foamy alloy and fluxed it with sawdust. It actually seemed to reduce the foam. I waited five minutes for it to come back. Only a small amount did. I fluxed it again with the saw dust. It appeared to be clean. After ten minutes, only a very thin film came back. I "Cleaned" two pots this way and poured ingots. They formed not volcanos but little fluffy donuts where the stream hit the ingot.

This is as far as I plan to go. I am going to use about 25 pounds of this stuff as semi-cleaned and pour bullets. They weigh correctly, they BNH test correctly ( 12 - 13) and they form visually perfect bullets.

The only good news I can offer is that If you empty your pot and brush it with a wire brush after melting this stuff, It will not contaminate the next pot of good metal.

Summary: I have no idea what it is. I have a vague idea of what it is not. I know I can live with it.

[MikeS]

Ok Gear, ya got me. I did confuse the Borax stuff with wax.

Ok, I was starting to wonder about that, as I have a couple of tubes of Vitaflux, a commercial wax based flux for the printing industry, and they definitely wouldn't want to get rid of their tin!

[Matt_G]

Zinc melts at aprox 720-750 degs F (correct me if I'm wrong)

It's 787 degrees F to be precise.

[7of7]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=33086&stc=1&d=1307294865
Here is a chart.. for everyone...

[kooldecker]

Before you chuck the lot, there was a great thread about using sulfur to remove zinc. I dont know how tested it is, but it looked really solid. That being said ,,,,,,,,i hope to never use it myself lol. However, it does sound like its really bad, i could send my hazmat vehicle over for you to dispose of it!