First Smelting and Casting Today

[bsczar1]

Well, I finally done did it. After somewhere between 1.5-2 months of reading and collecting supplies I smelted down about 15 lbs of scuba lead today just so I'd have something to put in my Lee 10# pot. I only fluxed once with sawdust. I wasn't quite sure when the dross stopped and I was just getting skinned over lead, so I didn't work it too much, I just did enough to have a learning experience of casting 10 lead muffins. There are still two muffins in the tin because they didn't want to come out. I'll use the torch to melt them out (loosen them up) when I'm ready.

I then put 3 muffins into my casting pot-just pure lead-no tin. This whole exercise was just to get the movement down of filling, breaking, dumping, and repeat, as well as get a feel for pouring, to play with the temperature control, and observe how mold temperature affects the boolits. Everything I did tonight went back into the pot. I used a 2-cavity Lee 452-190-SWC. Without the tin I had some issues with fill out, but I learned a lot today. At first I had a few that I didn't even fill completely, in other words I stopped short. I noticed that as the mold got hotter it started filling out better, and they looked so-so, but they never really got perfect. I didn't really expect it to without tin. At one point the lead was at 760*, but I found a setting that kept it at about 660*. I also just used the mold as I got it (it's an older used mold), so perhaps cleaning it could help.

All-in-all it was a good experience today, I do have a pewter belt buckle to melt down so I can put portions of it in to make a better alloy, but I figured I'd play around a little bit to get my form down, and then I can get serious about function. Thanks to this site I was somewhat confident that I could do it without ever seeing it done in person, but as with everything it will still be a continuous learning experience.

[220swiftfn]

Welcome to the madness........... BWUAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!



Glad to hear that all went well, BTW, scuba lead could be just about anything, so you might want to try that mold again with the alloy as-is. (Aluminum molds heat up and cool down rather fast, so I'd suggest casting like the house is on fire and look at them later, I'd be willing to bet that the fill-out will be fine).......


Dan

[Budmen]

Good deal The first bullet are always fun. Just for reference if you read this site before oyu would know these things probably

1 Rototmetals good place for alloying materials
2 Sawdust isn't the best I found pure beeswax to be better
3 Keep you molds clean I refire my Lee molds everytime I use them
4 regulate your mold temp with a water soaked rag
5 Everyone starts with allot of remelts add tin regulate mold temp they will fill perfectly

Hope this helps but you probably already knew all that The most important thing is to remember saftey! Gloves face shield or saftey glasses and a long sleeve shirt or apron. Believe me hot molten lead to the face is no fun. Watch for moisture in your pot and lead to be melted just a little water makes a big explosion. And HAVE FUN its a great fofilling pass time and if you hunt there is nothing more satisfying then bringing down a animal with your own load and a hand cast bullet

[birdadly]

Congrats! You should be able to feel that good feeling of accomplishment quite often going further in this hobby. Maybe it was just the 'new experience' for me, but smelting, casting, loading, test shooting, then revamping loads and shooting again... each step so far has made me feel that excitement every time something works out! 2 calibers down (not perfect yet) but hopefully many more to go.

Good thinking just doing test runs, nothing wrong with that. Being comfortable definitely is important, as well as confident. As Budmen said, safety is even more important than confidence though so never forget about that one. I had a VERY minor lead explosion once from putting my skimming spoon into my smelting lead. It was either too cold or found some condensation somehow and just a few splatters flew up. That was enough to tell me I don't want to experience anything worse.

Not that I have near the experience of many here on the site, but if you have any questions for a somewhat local guy, just hollar at me anytime! -Brad

[Shiloh]

I've tried everything and the las few sessions were scrap boolit lube.

[bsczar1]

I finally cast actual boolits tonight!! Now I understand the satisfaction (and resulting obsession) that comes with casting your own because I experienced it tonight. I Lee-mented my new 452-228-1R because the front boolit didn't want to drop out, now it seems to be working pretty good. I am using Lucas Semi-synthetic 2-cycle oil as a sprue-plate lube, and I ended up with about 100 to 120 boolits that I still need to inspect and then run though the Lyman 450. However, I do not have a top punch for the round nose, #374, I only have a #424 for a TC or SWC, so I need to get that before I can size and lube.