Dakine
08-12-2012, 11:45 PM
Hi all, I'm completely new to casting and have only made a few ingots so far. I'm hoping to get some advice and see what kind of trouble I might save myself from!
I saw a post saying use a pea sized chunk of wax as flux, and I'll have to go get the instructions that came with my Lee 20# but I think that might be what they recommended too, however today I noticed someone saying do NOT use wax, use sawdust and a wooden stick as a side/bottom scraper. So this leads to some questions...
How much sawdust? a spoonful?
will it ignite like the wax does?
stir it or just sprinkle it on top?
what else should I know about "fluxing"?
I've done 3 sessions so far and learned a LOT! the first one played hell with me and took all day because I didn't have a wind break setup for it, also I had problems with getting the temp right so that I wouldn't also melt the zinc WW because I was starting from a totally empty pot.
I've learned that having the bottom with at least 1/2 inch if not even more from the previous session is worth a couple hours or more of my life to do something else with, it heats up almost instantly relatively speaking compared to putting a stack of WW into an empty pot.
Also, I've learned that tongs work, but are less than ideal for removing the steel?? clips from the WW. I was using a pair of craptastic BBQ tongs that had some rust on them (therefore being useless for cooking, there's a limited market for tetanus around here) anyway, today I drilled about 20 holes into a $3 stainless steel spoon from the grocery store and bent the angle on it, and now it's a great clip strainer! So much faster and easier.
I've got almost 40 1lb ingots so far, and maybe another 30-35 lbs. of WW to go through before I need to order more... any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
I'll be starting on pouring .45 boolits soon, and I'm doing research and deciding exactly how I want to get into swaging. I'm currently deciding if I want to move into 9mm --> .40 or 22lr --> .223 first. Anyway, I'll be making more posts in the swaging section regarding that...
Thanks in advance for any help that might be offered!
-Dak
I saw a post saying use a pea sized chunk of wax as flux, and I'll have to go get the instructions that came with my Lee 20# but I think that might be what they recommended too, however today I noticed someone saying do NOT use wax, use sawdust and a wooden stick as a side/bottom scraper. So this leads to some questions...
How much sawdust? a spoonful?
will it ignite like the wax does?
stir it or just sprinkle it on top?
what else should I know about "fluxing"?
I've done 3 sessions so far and learned a LOT! the first one played hell with me and took all day because I didn't have a wind break setup for it, also I had problems with getting the temp right so that I wouldn't also melt the zinc WW because I was starting from a totally empty pot.
I've learned that having the bottom with at least 1/2 inch if not even more from the previous session is worth a couple hours or more of my life to do something else with, it heats up almost instantly relatively speaking compared to putting a stack of WW into an empty pot.
Also, I've learned that tongs work, but are less than ideal for removing the steel?? clips from the WW. I was using a pair of craptastic BBQ tongs that had some rust on them (therefore being useless for cooking, there's a limited market for tetanus around here) anyway, today I drilled about 20 holes into a $3 stainless steel spoon from the grocery store and bent the angle on it, and now it's a great clip strainer! So much faster and easier.
I've got almost 40 1lb ingots so far, and maybe another 30-35 lbs. of WW to go through before I need to order more... any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
I'll be starting on pouring .45 boolits soon, and I'm doing research and deciding exactly how I want to get into swaging. I'm currently deciding if I want to move into 9mm --> .40 or 22lr --> .223 first. Anyway, I'll be making more posts in the swaging section regarding that...
Thanks in advance for any help that might be offered!
-Dak