Lead Melting in large pot

[chambers]

47673
Melted some WW this weekend in my pot I build last winter. Pot is made from stainless steel, bottom pour, turkey fryer burner under pot, created a heat shield around pot to let heat out on side away from operator, rolling table to allow ingots trays to be positioned by outlet nozzle. I think I more than doubled or trippled what I could do in the past. Thought I would share as I used multiple ideas from here to construct. Poured about 350# of ingot, ran out of lead to melt.

[trappst]

All I can think of it the old style typewriters with the carriage that had to pushed to the left at the end of the page!

VERY NICE!!!!!

[xd4584]

I've been considering this for smelting. What did you use for a valve?

[fcvan]

wow, fancy. The last time I did bulk smelting I used a propane stove, a metal coffee can, a stainless ladle, used ground walnut for flux, and my ingot mold. I did 150 lbs a lot faster than I thought it would take. The smelting rig above is high tech compared to what I'm used to. Nice work! Frank

[chambers]

The valve was a combination of an taped round stock and a mating piece on the bottom, made a plunger assembly, the large spring pulls the mechanism toward the bottom when not in use. There is a little bit of leakage but I use the elbow threaded on the out to direct flow and turn up when not in use, works ok.

[xd4584]

Can you post some pics of the valve set up? I'm planning on making one like this over the winter