First time smelting today. Advice?

[45pro]

Ok, I just got back in from my first smelting. Overall it went pretty good, took about 40 min to melt about 50 lbs of wheel weights on the Coleman camping grill. I scooped the clips out, and used sawdust from lowes for flux. For some reason my sawdust never caught fire, but did turn black while stirring it in and had a few red ashes here and there. I done that twice, after skimming the dross off for the second time I started pouring Lee ingots and muffin ingots. The only thing I'm concerned about is that I didn't flux well enough.(sawdust didn't catch fire like I saw in videos.) what happens if you cast bullets that aren't fluxed well? Tomorrow I plan on casting for the first time, and I believe you flux in the pot again before you start casting. Advice?

[williamwaco]

Ok, I just got back in from my first smelting. Overall it went pretty good, took about 40 min to melt about 50 lbs of wheel weights on the Coleman camping grill. I scooped the clips out, and used sawdust from lowes for flux. For some reason my sawdust never caught fire, but did turn black while stirring it in and had a few red ashes here and there. I done that twice, after skimming the dross off for the second time I started pouring Lee ingots and muffin ingots. The only thing I'm concerned about is that I didn't flux well enough.(sawdust didn't catch fire like I saw in videos.) what happens if you cast bullets that aren't fluxed well? Tomorrow I plan on casting for the first time, and I believe you flux in the pot again before you start casting. Advice?


You are fine.

Whether or not the sawdust catches fire depends on several things:

How hot was the metal?
What kind of wood did it come from?
What kind of sap was in the wood?
Was it plywood full of glue?
How large were the chips?
How much wind was blowing?

When I smelt I usually flux three times but very little is accomplished by the third fluxing.

Here is the key to your question. You will flux again after melting those ingots and before casting. You will get some more dross.

After casting half a pot,you will refill it with new ingots and flux again.

Fluxing during the smelting phase is necessary and will result in cleaner ingots. It will not remove the need to continue fluxing during the casting process.

Since you are a newby. Here is a hint. Before adding your sawdust, drop in a piece of paraffin or scrap candle half the size of the last joint of your little finger. It will smoke immediately and profusely. If it self ignites, your temprature is above 650 - 700 degrees. If it doesn't you can light it yourself to eliminate the smoke.

In the olden days this was one of the standard tests. Nobody had thermometers during those days. The paraffin test was used as a thermometer. If it ignites, you are ready to cast. if it doesn't wait five minutes and try again.

That method worked for millions of reloaders for over a hundred years. BUT. Now that I have a thermometer, I know that I will get better results at around 600 degrees. Paraffin will not self ignite at that temprature.

Welcome to the club. Bring your friends.


.

[SlowSmokeN]

Great advice William.

Thanks

[runfiverun]

i throw some wax in there with the charred sawdust.
and if it don't catch, i light it on fire.

[cf_coder]

A lit match, judiciously thrown into the smoking and smoldering cauldron of liquid metal will help that process along quite nicely. :-) My first round of smelting I threw in some dead leaves from my Ash tree in the backyard. They needed a bit of help as well. Lit match, bowl of fire, stir and skim the dross and ash ashes.

[Jkallen83]

congrats on ur first......im fairly new to the casting world also...i actually hadnt been doing anything to flux my lead. get it good and hot and stir and most floats to the top and i scrape it off...periodically through my casting i have to scrape off a little more, but for the most part ive had no problems....not sure how that would go for very dirty lead but mine has not been too bad..

all my castings come out great, im having a blast... ive had NO issues what so ever when it comes to casting. when my lead gets really low and im about out, it can get a little trashy and its hard to pour into the mold, thats when i stop, clean it out and usually by then stop for the day, or add more lead...

dont worry about ur fluxing ur bullets will come out fine im sure....unless ur looking for "perfect" weighted bullets for superior accuracy and weighing each bullet, i wouldnt worry about it...i aint had a single problem with none of my casts...accuracy is great.

im having a blast with casting lead bullets... everyone will have their own opinion, listen and take the parts that work for u. ive got alot of help from this forum and it all worked out..

[DrCaveman]

Ill say too that I've had pretty noticeable results with each flux I've tried, whic has been Lyman alox, sawdust, and Johnson paste wax. I'm new and probably cannot tell the difference in very subtle ways, but each has left me with a smooth, homogenous slick of shiny metal.

The only thing I am concerned about is that I may be skimming off excess alloy (tin &antimony) but my hardness measures ok and more importantly, my boolits have shot great out of my assembled cartridges. But I would love to get to the bottom of the fluxing necessities, and the benefits of burning off the smoke or igniting the media. Since I cannot tell any difference so far, can someone enlighten me on what to look for in "better" fluxing?

[Max Brand]

Congratulations on your first smelt. There's nothing like the smoke and stink that goes along with it is there? I use my old walnut media with a ball of paraffin thrown in for good measure (see smoke and stink above) to encourage a good burn and ladle off the dross which I collect and when I have enough I re-smelt it. A lot of good alloy gets thrown out with the dross sometimes.

[MikeS]

When you flux the lead, along with removing any dirt from the molten alloy, you're also getting any oxidized tin & lead to go back into solution in the alloy. Once the bulk of the dirt is removed, when you flux the alloy again you should get to the point that the flux leaves just a small amount of dust like substance on top, and once removed you should have a nice shiny looking pot of lead. I generally use a wax based flux when I'm smelting, and a wood based flux for when I flux the lead before casting. As has already been said, if the flux doesn't self ignite then you can light it with a match if you want to. It's better to smelt at a low temperature so you can skim out any zinc weights you might have missed when going thru the wheel weights originally. Don't worry if your ingots aren't as well fluxed as they could be, you'll be fluxing them again once they're melted down in the casting pot.

[45pro]

Thanks guys, im going to try to cast today. I'll let you know how it goes!

[Bret4207]

Ya know, I used waxes for years to flux, complete with towering infernos of flames, etc. I see no reason to go through that anymore. Get it melted, get the saw dust, ships, whatever in there, stir it around for a good long while. That black charcoal-y stuff is what you want. Scrape the sides and bottom of the pot, get everything loosened up. Then let the krap start rising to the surface and skim. That's about it. I like to stir with a stick whether fluxing while rendering down WW or in my casting pot. No flame is needed.

[44man]

Keep your smelting temp at 600* and toss all that does not melt.
Flux does not have to be on fire, just stir the sawdust in with a spoon.
The only reason I light wax on fire in the casting pot is to keep smoke down in the garage.
The fire itself does nothing.

[runfiverun]

the fire creates a layer of carbon monoxide on top of the alloy allowing the oxides to return to the alloy.

[para45lda]

That's what I thought

There I go thinking again

[44man]

the fire creates a layer of carbon monoxide on top of the alloy allowing the oxides to return to the alloy.
Sounds good, but carbon has to go into the mix, not on the surface.

[williamwaco]

Keep your smelting temp at 600* and toss all that does not melt.
Flux does not have to be on fire, just stir the sawdust in with a spoon.
The only reason I light wax on fire in the casting pot is to keep smoke down in the garage.
The fire itself does nothing.


DITTO.

But I do not use matches. I use those little trigger activated butane candle lighters you get at the grocery store for a buck.

I can leave them out on the casting table forever and not have to worry about the weather.

.

[Bret4207]

the fire creates a layer of carbon monoxide on top of the alloy allowing the oxides to return to the alloy.

I've heard that idea before, No offense intended, but we'd need some sort of lab type environment for that to work, the CO is going to get dissipated with the breeze and air currents. As soon as we start stirring it's gone with the wind for sure.

[Arkansas Paul]

Keep your smelting temp at 600* and toss all that does not melt.


Not trying to hijack a thread here, but what if the temp is higher than 600 and a few things that are not lead melt? Is this a problem?
I don't have a thermometer so I don't know how hot my furnace is, but wax lights on fire fairly quickly, so I guess it's well above 600. I cast my first bullets today and they look pretty good. I've got them sized and lubed, ready to load. They filled out nicely and went through the sizing die very well. I'm just wondering how big a deal it is if the melt was too hot and has something like zinc melted in.