Flux Material

[roarin 54]

I'm just getting into boolit casting, I have been melting my scrap lead in a cast iron skillet on a coleman campstove and making ingots. I have been experimenting with different fluxing materials i.e. paraffin wax, candle wax, plumbers flux, and axle grease. I have heard of people using sawdust and collected some on a job site today. I will be giving it a try this weekend as I still have a lot of scrap lead to form into ingots. I got to thinking, I have a lot of corncob media that I'm getting ready to throw out, but instead of discarding it I would like to try it out as a fluxing agent. Does this sound feasible, has anyone tried this before? I would appreciate any input from experienced casters.

[Catshooter]

roarin,

I use a half inch dowel. I rub it along the sides and the bottom of my pot. Since I live in Florida and it is very humid here when I first put the dowel into the lead I sheild the pot with my gloved palm. The dowel will spit a little for the first few moments and then it's fine.

Using a dowel produces very little smoke, fluxes the mix well and will easily dislodge whatever is beneath the surface. While it's true that most everthing in the melt is lighter then lead, lead is so dense that it's easy for items to get stuck below the surface. The dowel brings them up nicely.

I've been using the same dowel for about a year now, so they're cheap to use too.

Welcome to the site.


Cat

[geargnasher]

Go here, read the chapter on fluxing, it will tell you the REAL story and remove all mystery/superstition from the process, and you will have the confidence that knowledge gives to determine what to use.

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

Gear

[plainsman456]

The cleaning media will work as well as sawdust/wood chips.
They are cheaper than buying stuff like grease or flux,in my opinion.

[lbaize3]

I am an old time caster that was taught to use canning wax to flux my wheel weights. After joining this forum I started reading about using sawdust to flux. Then I read Fryxell's book and started using sawdust and wood shavings from my plainer to flux my melt. The wood shavings after burned black seems to work even better than sawdust. Won't use anything else now....

[Bullet Caster]

Thanks for that post Ibaize3. It started me to thinking about flux again. I've tried sawdust as I always seem to have some on the floor of my shop but didn't think it did much. I've since found my wood plane and think I'll give the wood shavings a try. I've got some old cedar blocks left when my fence was installed and I'll try shaving off some for my next casting session. Maybe you've led me to a fix in my flux. BC

[geargnasher]

I recently tried using shavings from a paddle bit by drilling holes in a few sappy yellow-pine scraps, it smells better than the dozen-odd other woods I've tried from my buddy's cabinet shop. Router or shaper chips are good, so are the fine shavings from the planer. Chainsaw debitage is good too.

Gear

[BeeMan]

I've settled on a hardwood dowel to scrape and stir, followed by wood shavings from a planer on top of the melt. The shavings provide charcoal which protects the surface of the melt as well as anything.