finding household items to flux with

[45pro]

So i just realized i am out of tea light candles, which i normally flux with in my lee pot. It currently does NOT drip, which i think is in part due to me fluxing well when i smelt and not using sawdust in my lee pot to flux. I dont want any of it sinking down to the bottom and getting wedged in the hole. I use sawdust to smelt but candles to flux in the pot because it seems cleaner. What else can i use to flux in my pot that i may have laying around the house? I have the urge to make some BOOLITS!!

[Wolfer]

Crayons. The little woman used to work at a daycare and she brought me home a big bag of broken crayons. I just break off about an inch and stir it in paper, boogers and all. Works great and doesn't flame as easy as parrifin. My old homemade lube was a Johnny bowl ring mixed with one cake of parrifin and that works good too.

Don't spit tobacco juice in it though, it doesn't work!

[45pro]

Crayons. The little woman used to work at a daycare and she brought me home a big bag of broken crayons. I just break off about an inch and stir it in paper, boogers and all. Works great and doesn't flame as easy as parrifin. My old homemade lube was a Johnny bowl ring mixed with one cake of parrifin and that works good too.

Don't spit tobacco juice in it though, it doesn't work!

Perfect! thanks!

[Sasquatch-1]

Beleive it or not I have used solder flux. :-?

[Shiloh]

Lube scraps and leftover candle ends work well as well. The perfume in the candles can be a little overpowering.

SHiloh

[SlowSmokeN]

I like to use oatmeal as I eat it for breakfast every morning so it is always around.

[kodiak1]

Borax

Ken.

[fcvan]

+1 on the crayon, parafin, but my favorite of late has been used ground walnut from my vibratory case cleaner. I tried it based on a comment here on the website. I was quite pleased how it worked for casting in my Lee 10lb bottom drop and when smelting large pots of alloy. Frank

[Longwood]

Make a spoon like this one , and sawdust will never be a problem.
But then I never use the heavy sawdust that sink to the bottom of a lead pot.:kidding:
The only way I get burnt wood in the bottom of a pot is when I used a stick.

[bearcove]

I'd like to see the sawdust that will sink in a pot of lead.

Must be part gold

[Elkins45]

Vegetable shortening is a fantastic flux, and as an added bonus it smells like chicken frying.

[zxcvbob]

I generally use lard. Or old brass tumbler media (mixed corncob and walnut)

Used motor oil when I'm reducing really oxidized dirty scrap and slag from previous batches. In this case, I put a lid on the pot and burn the heck out of it.

[TNFrank]

I use a bit of Gulf Wax to flux with. Just be sure to light it up so it won't smoke so much. You can get a box at WalMart or just about any store pretty cheap and one block will last a long time. You can also use it to lube the pins and spur plate on your mold as well.

[fryboy]

i've read in many places that a potato works , i've tried a few slices and it does , beeswax and rosin are my favorite two fluxes , wax of any kind works well tho and any carbon based item will work ( some just better than others )

[flipajig]

Saw dust for me. I like Misquite smells like BBQ

[MT Gianni]

Look outside and grab a tree limb. Use a fresh 1/2" diameter piece to stir with. Motor oil, cooking oil, and other oils would work also.

[geargnasher]

Rolled oats or cornmeal works. So does ground coffee, but it stinks badly.

If you're using a grease/wax/oil, you aren't FLUXING. Reducing oxides back to pure metals yes, but removing impurities like calcium, aluminum, iron, and zinc you are not. You need carbohydrates to do that, one reason why sawdust is so effective. Sawdust and stirring with a stick both fluxes and reduces.

How anyone cannot find sawdust is beyond me, Pat Marlin has California Flake Flux for sale cheap, and any cabinet shop will be more than willing to fill your bucket with hardwood shavings/chips from the shaper tables. Pencil shavings work too.

The potato thing is interesting, I'll bet if you can find unsalted potato chips they'd work pretty well.

Gear

[runfiverun]

gianni beat me with the cooking oil.
bacon grease makes the kids and dog come see what's up...
this is just as a reducing agent in the pot, for outside fluxing that's a different story.

[Cadillo]

For a long time I used parafin in various forms, and later transitioned to crayons, which kept me happy for a long time until I tried some coarsely ground sawdust, which is the best thing I've used by a long shot.

I bought a lot of monotype from an ad posted on the forum and was fighting a losing battle getting it to fully blend into my melt until I tried the sawdust.

SHEER MAGIC

A few month ago, I was at the pet store getting my Lab's monthly ration, and got enough coarsley ground cedar chips to last me for years for a paltry sum. Between that and the sawdust that I've since been given, I'm set for life.

Sawdust equals no flare up, no stink, and a very clean smelting or casting pot. The cedar smells really nice too. I use a ladle and an iron dutch oven. And no, I do not smelt and cast using the same pot.

[303Guy]

Do not, repeat, NOT use a wooden kitchen stirring spoon! You'll be the dog box for a week! No, make that a month!:mrgreen:

And in case you are casting in the kitchen there woods which smell pretty good when used for stirring. Those that don't have frying pans attached via the little woman's hand! If you do find a piece of wood that sinks in the molten lead you'll be rich! However, best not change your practices since what ever you're doing works - don't fix it! In other words, don't do what I do! [smilie=1:

A stick is actually quite handy for cleaning the insides of the pot. Even the pouring spout from the inside when it won't stop dripping. Bamboo skewers are pretty good for getting right inside the spout. Go slow with the sticks so they really bubble.
If you wet them first they get really interesting!:bigsmyl2:
I cover the melt with sand or kitty litter so nothing happens - but try try this at home!

[olafhardt]

When I was a kid my dad taught me to use sugar. I also use scratch grain chicken feed.

[Sasquatch-1]

If you are looking for cheap stirring sticks , check the paint department at Lowe's or Home Depot the next time you go. I take one and snap it in half lengthways and it works great in my little Lee 10lber.

Also I keep a little piece of stiff small guage wire that will fit up the spout for when it starts to drip too much. I put a small ramkin under the spout open it up and slide the wire in and out several times to clean. Be careful and use a pair of pliers to hold the wire.

[blackthorn]

Once or twice I cut a small piece off the end of a potato and pushed it under the surface of the alloy very carefully. It bubbled, sort of like the alloy was boiling. Seemed to work O.K. but I don't think I would like to shove a big piece under there!

[Certaindeaf]

Mangled but lubed boolits. It happens!

[Longwood]

If you are looking for cheap stirring sticks , check the paint department at Lowe's or Home Depot the next time you go. I take one and snap it in half lengthways and it works great in my little Lee 10lber.

Also I keep a little piece of stiff small guage wire that will fit up the spout for when it starts to drip too much. I put a small ramkin under the spout open it up and slide the wire in and out several times to clean. Be careful and use a pair of pliers to hold the wire.

I read about using sticks last year but soon noticed they leave pieces of carbon in the mix. I hated the fact that they clog the valve and I also did not like the chunks of carbon in the bullets.
As soon as I stopped using sticks the problem went away.
The suggestions to use them keep popping up every time someone says flux but they caused problems every time I tried them, so I quit.
Sawdust, pet bedding, wood pellets or pretty much anything else that burns work beautifully.
If I decide it need a little bit of improvement, I add a little bit of Paraffin .
If I coat the stir spoon with melted paraffin, I can then get paraffin down into the lead where it will do the most good.
I have cast nearly 200 pounds of bullets since I improved my methods and never have problems with my Lee pot dripping and I don't see junk in the melt, valve or worse, bullets any longer. I had a piece of wire for unclogging the valve, but it has been lost now that I never need it.

[Milsurp Junkie]

Table sugar.

[Longwood]

I'd like to see the sawdust that will sink in a pot of lead.

Must be part gold
Not gold,,, it is caused by using a stick.

[Rockchucker]

+1 on the crayon, parafin, but my favorite of late has been used ground walnut from my vibratory case cleaner. I tried it based on a comment here on the website. I was quite pleased how it worked for casting in my Lee 10lb bottom drop and when smelting large pots of alloy. Frank

I have bags of the used walnut media left over and never threw it out, Seems like it would work great for flux, has anyone else had good results with this?

[JohnFM]

I've seen a lot of comments here by people using new or used walnut or corncob media.
All seem to say it works as good as anything else.
I burn wood and there's always heaps of saw chips out by the wood pile.
I use them smelting really filthy piles of WW's.
But. I also have canning paraffin around and always old candles.
A piece of that tossed in does a good job for the final clean up. Seems to get rid of the last dregs of unburned carbon after scraping the pot and leaves a nice clean mix without all the infernal specs floating around.

[zxcvbob]

I have bags of the used walnut media left over and never threw it out, Seems like it would work great for flux, has anyone else had good results with this?

Yes, it works good, but not as good as sawdust (don't know why it would be any different.)


But. I also have canning paraffin around and always old candles.
A piece of that tossed in does a good job for the final clean up. Seems to get rid of the last dregs of unburned carbon after scraping the pot and leaves a nice clean mix without all the infernal specs floating around.

Lard or shortening (or bacon grease, or...) works a little better than wax and doesn't flare up as bad. I think the difference is the glycerin in the fat takes longer to burn off and that makes it easier to gather the last bits of dross together cuz it's wet. Try it and see, and if you don't like it that's OK too.

[Sonnypie]

I have bags of the used walnut media left over and never threw it out, Seems like it would work great for flux, has anyone else had good results with this?

Bare in mind that USED media also has other debris in it. Might be nasty, especially to inhale. That was pointed out to me when I asked about it.

I DO use new Lizard Litter from Petco (http://www.petco.com/product/102881/Zilla-Ground-English-Walnut-Shells-Reptile-Bedding.aspx) as my flux.
It is clean, it is uniform, and a little goes a long, long way.
Plus, it is a hardwood, so it burns down slowly.
I got a 10 quart bag of it to use in a vibratory tumbler. I've since got an STM for that. But still have a small tumbler.
But once I tried it as a flux, I was sold on it for that.

I tried wax once. I wasn't to happy with the resulting bonfire in my shop. :shock:

I have a 55 gallon drum on my sawdust collection system. But that stuff has all sorts of glues and resins in it from processed woods.
So the ground (clean) walnut shell is my choice.

[JohnFM]

Hardly ever eat bacon anymore, this damn old age thing, but I'll try some crisco next go around. Still got about a 100 #s of WW to finish cleaning up.

[ku4hx]

At one time or another, I've used various common products for fluxing. Some even worked fairly well.

Beeswax, bullet lube, Gulf Wax, Candles, toothpicks, cooking oil, butter, nasty clip-on wheel weights, sawdust (cut to order), motor oil, gun oil, sewing machine oil, bits of Hickory chips for grilling/smoking and other stuff I'd just as soon forget about.

[cf_coder]

I use a handfull of Mesquite leaves. They fall by the garbage bag full every winter. I keep a bucket of it by my smelting pot... The rest goes to the compost bin. Composted mesquite leaves also makes one heck of a soil amender as well. :D

[10 ga]

Shreds out of the household paper shredder! 10 ga

[Longwood]

I used Paraffin, Bee wax, and bullet lube for about 15 years but when I came here and read about so many other things that worked,I tried some of them.
The shavings from Mahogany worked but stunk.
Alder pet bedding from Walmart worked good and did not stink very bad but is rather expensive for as far as it goes.
Then I recalled what happened to some of the wood pellets for my pellet stove that got wet. They fell apart into little pieces of wood which is not really sawdust. It is much courser, less dusty and easy to handle and use after it is thoroughly dried.
Around $5.00 for 40 pounds (a life time supply) at many Home Depot type stores and some Walmart stores.
I am completely sold on it plus a little Paraffin(big candle I bought at a Goodwill for 25 cents).

[303Guy]

... they leave pieces of carbon in the mix. I hated the fact that they clog the valve and I also did not like the chunks of carbon in the bullets.That's an unexpected observation. It just goes to show. My pot would leak and drip before I used sticks and stuff and I did not get carbon bits in my boolits so I just assumed there would never be any problems. Learn a new thing everyday.

[geargnasher]

To make the sawdust or similar a more effective flux, one must expose as much of the melt to it as possible. Stirring with a stick helps this, and cleans the dross and scum off off the sides of the pot like magic. DON'T scrape the bottom of the pot with a stick, this will slough off ash and carbon below the melt where it is trapped by the weight and surface tension of the molten alloy. Scrape the sides and stir, but scrape the bottom with a spoon if you must. Normally, it isn't necessary to ever clean the bottom unless you force trash down there somehow like poking solid ingots through molten alloy or the aformentioned stick treatment.

Another good way to expose the metal to the flux is put a 1/4" layer of your favorite ground woody substance on top and then pull up spoonful after spoonful of alloy from the bottom of the pot and drizzle it through the charring flux. I did this to a pot of unknown-composition wheel weight lead recently and saved the skimmings from three cycles of fluxing/skimming in a row. The first and second cycles had a silvery ash that looked like cigarette ash, the last cycle looked like coffee grounds even after being left in the pot for twice the time as the others. I had cast with the alloy first, the whole reason for the fluxing was it filled ok but the boolit surfaces looked rough and patchy. After fluxing three times with sappy yellow pine sawdust and pouring the alloy through the charring layer over and over again, the alloy cast like certified Lyman #2.

Gear

[geargnasher]

That's an unexpected observation. It just goes to show. My pot would leak and drip before I used sticks and stuff and I did not get carbon bits in my boolits so I just assumed there would never be any problems. Learn a new thing everyday.

I've had ash inclusions before, sometimes the size of a pinhead. I cleaned the pot and quit scraping the bottom with a stick, it never happened again. Junk trapped under the melt (including oxide dross which doesn't melt at casting temperatures) can and will migrate to the spout of a bottom-pour and end up as visible surface defects (and hidden inclusions) in your boolits.

Gear

[Longwood]

:bigsmyl2:I took Gear's advise and made this ladle with a condiment cup to do what he said and it works great.

OK guys,,,,
I had not thought much about it when I posted this photo but, the reason the scraper with the flats is so black is because as I scape the bottom and sides of my pot and it gets hot, I start rubbing it on the big candle then slowly dipping it deep into the melt.
That causes a roiling boil like the stick does and I know the paraffin is getting down to the bottom because if I pull out the spoon before it all burns off there is still melted paraffin on the spoon.
It is quite plain to see from the photo. how much carbon, is generated by that trick.
{Pat on back}
I am not sure but I think I may of thought of it, but,,,, there is a good posibility that I read it hear first.
My casting experience goes soooo much smoother that it used to before I came here.
Even a Monkey can do it.:bigsmyl2:
Thanks a million to all of you guys. Especially the mouse.

I don't eat much meat, but I am thinking of buying some bacon or scraps from a butcher friend, just to render for some good smellin fat.
I also like to use it when I am tapping holes in metal, it makes me drool.:bigsmyl2:
My neighbors can't see what I am doing so I have a ball sending over alternating clouds of paraffin then wood pellet smoke when the sun is out and the weather is nice and warm.:veryconfu
Keep em confused, I say. Time for clouds of the pleasant smell bacon cooking mixed in.

[303Guy]

Now that you mention it I have had pin prick like surface defects. I put it down to mold dirt at the time. Couldn't see anything in the pin holes. But my bottom pour died a good while ago now and I still miss it.

[popper]

Use a putty knife for mixing and scraping. It doesn't cool the melt, melt doesn't stick to it, the flat blade scrapes crud from the bottom real well. Plane off a bunch of curls from the scrap trim and 2x4 in the garage. First time I tried SD, I got it from the HW store, it was plywood/MDF dust and had rosin chunks that really screwed up the melt and clogged the nozzle.

[Bambeno]

One of the odder things I have used is Oak leaves in the fall/winter.