Christorbust
08-07-2011, 08:47 PM
Well I've been "lurking" these forums for the last several weeks and been getting TONS of great information. I really appreciate everyone on here that has taken the time to teach us what they know (or think they know :p ), it has greatly helped to reduce my learning curve. I especially appreciate those of you that learned the hard way!!!
My first smelt I tried to get free wheel weights, but after getting turned down at quite a few places (I didn't try bringing pizza/beer/soda as some suggested, maybe next week) I found a place that said they recycle it at 40c a lb and that he would be happy to sell it to me at that. I figured I would start with that and find cheap stuff later, after all I had two new molds and a furnace in the mail! I ended up bringing home 75lbs of beautiful, dirty, greasy WW.
This post by 38 Super Auto http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40765 on zinc wheel weights led me (and gave me the confidence) to check every single weight individually, it was time consuming, but now I would be certain that my problems weren't zinc related, wasn't worth risking ruining my precious lead! Now having identified zinc/steel WW I may not take the pliers to everyone next time, but it was a worthwhile exercise this time. Wear gloves if you do this, at least part of the time. If you check everyone in a 5 gallon bucket I almost guarantee blistering somewhere weird like the center of your palm.
After sorting out some cigarette butts and rags I had only lost about 5ish lbs to zinc and steel ww (I misplaced my scale). There the pics of the Steel (Fe), Zinc (Fn), and unknown but much harder than lead (that or I got weaker with the pliers) down below from top left to bottom right. I couldn't figure out how to impose images into the middle of my post ATM. The lone clip on WW was indeed lead, you can see the indent of the pliers. There were a bunch of WW with this specific logo, and the stick on ones seemed to be harder than the other stick ons. They also had more "modern" markings, which I found the Zn to have generally, and a similar plastic-i-ness that the Zn had as well. That WW was giving me bad vibes, dirty looks, and even said some unsavory things about my mother. So I held it and its kind out and dipped on in some barely melted stickons. It melted like butter. Lead indeed! Just in case that same brand of weight gives someone else some bad looks!
Once sorted I smelted the stick on WW first, and fluxed with a pinch of granulated wax. I did this in what I thought to be a stainless steel pan. I wasn't 100% sure, so I retired it after this batch after reading some posts on aluminum. It stunk a good bit, and I thought the neighbors would think I was crazy, but I wanted lead. once it was thoroughly melted, and fluxed to my content I used a stainless steel ladle from walmart to scoop it into a muffin tray, also from walmart. The first once came out perfect, I turned the pan upside down and beautiful silver muffins apx 2-3 lbs plopped out. The second time I filled more muffin holes and apparently the extra time these ones spent cooling made them stick like crazy. I beat the pan, dropped it, hit it, talked soothingly to it, screamed at it, apologized to it... nothing worked. I ended up knocking the muffin holes right out of the pan with the lead still in them. I cursed myself for being cheap and not buying an ingot. I finished with the stick ons for the night and allowed the remainder to cool in the pan. At this time I was using a double eye range, 1500w, from walmart 29.99. Having it on high for so long, maybe an hour melted its rubber feet, and did not produce enough heat for my liking.
I took it back the next day and bought a coleman single burner campstove. Upon setting up the coleman, it needed to have a "moat" of water under the burner to keep the heat off the tank. With my possible aluminum pan and a moat full of water I was scared enough of the legendary tinsel fairy to purchase a $30 cast iron from harbor frieght, glad I did, the heat seems to distribute more evenly and keep better, and the lid really keeps the stink down. Although, one of my neighbors did ask me if I was making moonshine, I think the smell would have told him no!
I smelted the clip on WW in this method, and found that if I left them sit with the lid for about 30-40 they would be well enough melted that I could skim off crud for 5-10 minutes before the edges started to harden. I also bought a long magnet to get some of the steel clips out at harbor freight, in hind sight I do NOT recommend this. After getting 4-5 clips out moderately easily I started to notice the liquid lead it was splashing to the sides of the pot when the clips launched to its surface. Needless to say with only glasses on and not a face shield this piece of equipment was also retired. If you had a very large, deep pot and were doing large volumes this would be an excellent method. A face shield would be wise. I found a pair of spring loaded scissors poultry scissors that were in the pile to Goodwill at my place and started using those. They worked but I think a skimmer is in order for the future. Because I could only skim off most of the center until the edges would start to solidify it was a lengthy process. I would say most of my afternoon went to reclaiming these wheel weights, my heat source was not hot enough, but being that my mold and furnace were arriving the next day I chugged along and ended up with about 35 muffin tin shaped ingots. Oh I learned that if you just barely let the lead in the muffin tin solidify then dumped it, it would come out easy every time. Also, if you did happen to wait too long, just carefully float the whole muffin tin back on the metal (now conveniently single muffin tins due to my outrage the previous night). The lead will soon, within 3-20 seconds, faster if you poke it around carefully so it is constantly touching un-cooled lead, turn mostly liquid again. Carefully remove the tin, let it solidify barely (I turn it to the side and if little bubble of melted lead aren't moving under the surface) dump it. Viola ingot!:grin:
I should say I used some grill gloves for this $10 at lowes, for full forearm leather welding style gloves. You can pick up molten lead tins with these for about 5 seconds before you realize maybe this isn't the type of thing you should hold in your hand for that long. These are also great for removing the cast iron lid as well. I did a lot of finger dancing at first with hot lead on the ground, now I pretty much just wear the gloves happily.
I have since put in an order for a fish fryer at bass pro shop's based on some recommendations on this site. I went through 3 cylinders of propane with the coleman, and had to work in very small batches. With shipping this was only $10 more than the coleman and comes with a thermometer that I can hopefully use, and a huge aluminum pot that I can melt gallons of lead in. KIDDING!!! :kidding: That will go to the misses, for frying fish :lol: .
I got the Lee bottom pour pro 4 20, and I'm glad I did. The ten pounder would have been small, and using a lee 6 banger it goes fast. I heard some mixed reviews about lead dripping and what not, but put a muffin tin (pre-separated by rage is better) under the spout, and it won't fill up before your done with the pot. Especially if you turn the convenient screw meant to stop dripping if it starts to drip faster at all. I made some round balls first from a lee 2 holer .575 diameter. I'm hoping to make some shot cup slugs for a 20 ga eventually. Unfortunately in the shotcup they are measuring .64... I digress, that will be another post...which I will require some expertise on :grin:. The balls turned out fine to me. The first ones were a little wrinkly, hehe wrinkly balls (sorry, I'm still in college, and wrinkly balls... you get my drift). I turned up the heat and smooth, shiny balls (I was using only stick on lead for these. I was very pleased. I had heard that these were easier to cast than boolits but still, could casting be this easy and rewarding??? Before I knew it I had a pile of balls larger than I would shoot through my single shot 20ga in a year. Then I decided that ball form is a convenient way to have pure lead for me to add to WW, so I cast a bunch more. I did mention I was having fun right?
I then switched to apx 5:1 Clip on:stick on ratio, hoping this would be 9mm sufficient... the range will tell. I should say that with both of the lee aluminum molds I took time to clean, inspect, and lube them well. I find that with lee (give me a minute to get opinionated plz!) products if I don't take the time to learn it, it will learn me later. If I don't know what something does on a lee product, lets face it there directions aren't the best, I play with it till I figure out why it is there. This has saved me lots of headaches. The times I didn't do this I normally learned the hard way. I am a college student so free money is not something I have, time on the other hand I can make. I have a Loadmaster, a Lee furnace, dies, trimmers, molds... I love them all. Are they the best? I'm not arrogant enough to say that (they definitely aren't), but I love them. LOVE THEM! They are the absolute best buy for your money. That comes with a caveat. If you don't change your oil, you probably shouldn't buy Lee. You may have the mechanical prowess, maybe not, but you probably have money. You will not enjoy getting the best (read cheapest) buy for your money and making it work exactly as the designer intended. You will not enjoy seeing the designers vision to fruition, or better yet improving on it! Yes I have had headaches with some Lee products, but there hasn't been one yet that others haven't been able to get to work, in fact I haven't found one that I couldn't get to work magnificently. This gives me the hope that every time something goes wrong there is a simple, mechanical fix to rectify it. And if not I feel Lee would refund me.... back to casting... sorry. I just get tired of people bashing Lee. Lee has made it possible for me to get into casting at my age, by offering much cheaper products with more features. They just haven't put as much time into product development, they trust their consumer to be able to change their own oil ;-) Until I get a real lemon that Lee doesn't replace I will feel this way.
With the 9mm six holer I was not getting good fill out on all the bases so I turned the heat up from 6-7 to 8-9, it worked. I was getting slightly frosty boolits, which appeared filled out to my untrained eyes. The first batch was wrinkly too, as you can tell from the pics. The mold I got, TL 356-123-2R appears to be freindly to short chambered guns (is that the right terminology?). I reload primarily for a cz 75 SPO1 phantom and have to use short OAL 1.095 and below. I hope this will correct that.... I will report back after the range.
I have tumble lubed in the Lee Liquid Alox, and it is just a touch sticky after 24 hours, so I will probably pick up some Johnsons paste wax to blend it with. I also heat treated half of them at about 425, I know a lower temp than 450, but according to some peoples research it should kick up the BHN to around 14-16. I'll shoot some air cooled, and some heat treated checking accuracy/leading.
If you enjoy shooting and reloading I highly recommend casting. You can make bullets 10 times cheaper than you can buy easily, and it's fun!
If anyone has some loads for cast boolits in the 115-124gn range with 700x, Red Dot, Titegroup, HP-38 I would love the tips!
Any other tips or pointers are much appreciated, sorry I got verbose....
Now to head over to Wiljens flashlight group buy, if I'm honest it probably got me joining CB a week sooner! [smilie=w:
My first smelt I tried to get free wheel weights, but after getting turned down at quite a few places (I didn't try bringing pizza/beer/soda as some suggested, maybe next week) I found a place that said they recycle it at 40c a lb and that he would be happy to sell it to me at that. I figured I would start with that and find cheap stuff later, after all I had two new molds and a furnace in the mail! I ended up bringing home 75lbs of beautiful, dirty, greasy WW.
This post by 38 Super Auto http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=40765 on zinc wheel weights led me (and gave me the confidence) to check every single weight individually, it was time consuming, but now I would be certain that my problems weren't zinc related, wasn't worth risking ruining my precious lead! Now having identified zinc/steel WW I may not take the pliers to everyone next time, but it was a worthwhile exercise this time. Wear gloves if you do this, at least part of the time. If you check everyone in a 5 gallon bucket I almost guarantee blistering somewhere weird like the center of your palm.
After sorting out some cigarette butts and rags I had only lost about 5ish lbs to zinc and steel ww (I misplaced my scale). There the pics of the Steel (Fe), Zinc (Fn), and unknown but much harder than lead (that or I got weaker with the pliers) down below from top left to bottom right. I couldn't figure out how to impose images into the middle of my post ATM. The lone clip on WW was indeed lead, you can see the indent of the pliers. There were a bunch of WW with this specific logo, and the stick on ones seemed to be harder than the other stick ons. They also had more "modern" markings, which I found the Zn to have generally, and a similar plastic-i-ness that the Zn had as well. That WW was giving me bad vibes, dirty looks, and even said some unsavory things about my mother. So I held it and its kind out and dipped on in some barely melted stickons. It melted like butter. Lead indeed! Just in case that same brand of weight gives someone else some bad looks!
Once sorted I smelted the stick on WW first, and fluxed with a pinch of granulated wax. I did this in what I thought to be a stainless steel pan. I wasn't 100% sure, so I retired it after this batch after reading some posts on aluminum. It stunk a good bit, and I thought the neighbors would think I was crazy, but I wanted lead. once it was thoroughly melted, and fluxed to my content I used a stainless steel ladle from walmart to scoop it into a muffin tray, also from walmart. The first once came out perfect, I turned the pan upside down and beautiful silver muffins apx 2-3 lbs plopped out. The second time I filled more muffin holes and apparently the extra time these ones spent cooling made them stick like crazy. I beat the pan, dropped it, hit it, talked soothingly to it, screamed at it, apologized to it... nothing worked. I ended up knocking the muffin holes right out of the pan with the lead still in them. I cursed myself for being cheap and not buying an ingot. I finished with the stick ons for the night and allowed the remainder to cool in the pan. At this time I was using a double eye range, 1500w, from walmart 29.99. Having it on high for so long, maybe an hour melted its rubber feet, and did not produce enough heat for my liking.
I took it back the next day and bought a coleman single burner campstove. Upon setting up the coleman, it needed to have a "moat" of water under the burner to keep the heat off the tank. With my possible aluminum pan and a moat full of water I was scared enough of the legendary tinsel fairy to purchase a $30 cast iron from harbor frieght, glad I did, the heat seems to distribute more evenly and keep better, and the lid really keeps the stink down. Although, one of my neighbors did ask me if I was making moonshine, I think the smell would have told him no!
I smelted the clip on WW in this method, and found that if I left them sit with the lid for about 30-40 they would be well enough melted that I could skim off crud for 5-10 minutes before the edges started to harden. I also bought a long magnet to get some of the steel clips out at harbor freight, in hind sight I do NOT recommend this. After getting 4-5 clips out moderately easily I started to notice the liquid lead it was splashing to the sides of the pot when the clips launched to its surface. Needless to say with only glasses on and not a face shield this piece of equipment was also retired. If you had a very large, deep pot and were doing large volumes this would be an excellent method. A face shield would be wise. I found a pair of spring loaded scissors poultry scissors that were in the pile to Goodwill at my place and started using those. They worked but I think a skimmer is in order for the future. Because I could only skim off most of the center until the edges would start to solidify it was a lengthy process. I would say most of my afternoon went to reclaiming these wheel weights, my heat source was not hot enough, but being that my mold and furnace were arriving the next day I chugged along and ended up with about 35 muffin tin shaped ingots. Oh I learned that if you just barely let the lead in the muffin tin solidify then dumped it, it would come out easy every time. Also, if you did happen to wait too long, just carefully float the whole muffin tin back on the metal (now conveniently single muffin tins due to my outrage the previous night). The lead will soon, within 3-20 seconds, faster if you poke it around carefully so it is constantly touching un-cooled lead, turn mostly liquid again. Carefully remove the tin, let it solidify barely (I turn it to the side and if little bubble of melted lead aren't moving under the surface) dump it. Viola ingot!:grin:
I should say I used some grill gloves for this $10 at lowes, for full forearm leather welding style gloves. You can pick up molten lead tins with these for about 5 seconds before you realize maybe this isn't the type of thing you should hold in your hand for that long. These are also great for removing the cast iron lid as well. I did a lot of finger dancing at first with hot lead on the ground, now I pretty much just wear the gloves happily.
I have since put in an order for a fish fryer at bass pro shop's based on some recommendations on this site. I went through 3 cylinders of propane with the coleman, and had to work in very small batches. With shipping this was only $10 more than the coleman and comes with a thermometer that I can hopefully use, and a huge aluminum pot that I can melt gallons of lead in. KIDDING!!! :kidding: That will go to the misses, for frying fish :lol: .
I got the Lee bottom pour pro 4 20, and I'm glad I did. The ten pounder would have been small, and using a lee 6 banger it goes fast. I heard some mixed reviews about lead dripping and what not, but put a muffin tin (pre-separated by rage is better) under the spout, and it won't fill up before your done with the pot. Especially if you turn the convenient screw meant to stop dripping if it starts to drip faster at all. I made some round balls first from a lee 2 holer .575 diameter. I'm hoping to make some shot cup slugs for a 20 ga eventually. Unfortunately in the shotcup they are measuring .64... I digress, that will be another post...which I will require some expertise on :grin:. The balls turned out fine to me. The first ones were a little wrinkly, hehe wrinkly balls (sorry, I'm still in college, and wrinkly balls... you get my drift). I turned up the heat and smooth, shiny balls (I was using only stick on lead for these. I was very pleased. I had heard that these were easier to cast than boolits but still, could casting be this easy and rewarding??? Before I knew it I had a pile of balls larger than I would shoot through my single shot 20ga in a year. Then I decided that ball form is a convenient way to have pure lead for me to add to WW, so I cast a bunch more. I did mention I was having fun right?
I then switched to apx 5:1 Clip on:stick on ratio, hoping this would be 9mm sufficient... the range will tell. I should say that with both of the lee aluminum molds I took time to clean, inspect, and lube them well. I find that with lee (give me a minute to get opinionated plz!) products if I don't take the time to learn it, it will learn me later. If I don't know what something does on a lee product, lets face it there directions aren't the best, I play with it till I figure out why it is there. This has saved me lots of headaches. The times I didn't do this I normally learned the hard way. I am a college student so free money is not something I have, time on the other hand I can make. I have a Loadmaster, a Lee furnace, dies, trimmers, molds... I love them all. Are they the best? I'm not arrogant enough to say that (they definitely aren't), but I love them. LOVE THEM! They are the absolute best buy for your money. That comes with a caveat. If you don't change your oil, you probably shouldn't buy Lee. You may have the mechanical prowess, maybe not, but you probably have money. You will not enjoy getting the best (read cheapest) buy for your money and making it work exactly as the designer intended. You will not enjoy seeing the designers vision to fruition, or better yet improving on it! Yes I have had headaches with some Lee products, but there hasn't been one yet that others haven't been able to get to work, in fact I haven't found one that I couldn't get to work magnificently. This gives me the hope that every time something goes wrong there is a simple, mechanical fix to rectify it. And if not I feel Lee would refund me.... back to casting... sorry. I just get tired of people bashing Lee. Lee has made it possible for me to get into casting at my age, by offering much cheaper products with more features. They just haven't put as much time into product development, they trust their consumer to be able to change their own oil ;-) Until I get a real lemon that Lee doesn't replace I will feel this way.
With the 9mm six holer I was not getting good fill out on all the bases so I turned the heat up from 6-7 to 8-9, it worked. I was getting slightly frosty boolits, which appeared filled out to my untrained eyes. The first batch was wrinkly too, as you can tell from the pics. The mold I got, TL 356-123-2R appears to be freindly to short chambered guns (is that the right terminology?). I reload primarily for a cz 75 SPO1 phantom and have to use short OAL 1.095 and below. I hope this will correct that.... I will report back after the range.
I have tumble lubed in the Lee Liquid Alox, and it is just a touch sticky after 24 hours, so I will probably pick up some Johnsons paste wax to blend it with. I also heat treated half of them at about 425, I know a lower temp than 450, but according to some peoples research it should kick up the BHN to around 14-16. I'll shoot some air cooled, and some heat treated checking accuracy/leading.
If you enjoy shooting and reloading I highly recommend casting. You can make bullets 10 times cheaper than you can buy easily, and it's fun!
If anyone has some loads for cast boolits in the 115-124gn range with 700x, Red Dot, Titegroup, HP-38 I would love the tips!
Any other tips or pointers are much appreciated, sorry I got verbose....
Now to head over to Wiljens flashlight group buy, if I'm honest it probably got me joining CB a week sooner! [smilie=w: