Lead sticks to SS ladle

[Ido356]

Hi, I am a newbe, and have a question.
I went to wallyworld and bought some SS condement cups for ingot molds and a SS ladle to fill them with. I also bought a slotted spoon from the $1 store to remove jackets from the smelt.

I'm smelting in a cast iron skillet over a bottle gas fish fryer, the slotted spoon has no lead sticking to it and the ladle does. I am thinking that the ladle is not SS.

Is the ladle Stainless Steel if lead sticks to it?

I want to thank everyone on this site for your in-put and your time, I have been reading stickys, searching topics and have learned lots form all of you, Thanks.

[Jim]

Is the lead sticking to the ladle causing a problem? If so, describe what's goin' on so we can help you.

[Ido356]

Me being new at this I'm not sure but it seamed like the melt was clean, skimmed off with the slotted spoon, and when using the ladle the melt got sluggish and dirt.

I have a slotted spoon and a bunch of cups that nothing is sticking to, and then I have the ladle.

[dnmccoy]

Anyway you can snag a pic?

[runfiverun]

it's heat.
just swirl the ladle around in the mix for a minute to warm it up.
the spoon warms up fast because it's thin.
you'll probably pull some more gunk off the sides of the pot too.

[Jailer]

Yup, get it hotter and you won't have the problem your experiencing.

[madsenshooter]

Hope your ladle has a handle!

[MBTcustom]

You need some sawdust in your melt. It keeps lead from sticking to everything.

[Ido356]

Hope your ladle has a handle!

mad, I don't think it could be a ladle with out a handle,lol.

Thank for the advice, I just didn't want a cheapo ladle ruining my lead.

[montana_charlie]

Smelting in something as wide shallow as a skillet allows your alloy to lose heat ripidly to the atmosphere.
A stainless ladel, being pretty thin, doesn't hold a lot of heat when it's out of the smelt.

When you immerse the 'cooling' ladel back into the 'barely staying melted' metal in the skillet the alloy touching the ladel drops to the slush stage and sticks to the ladel.

A container with a four or six inch diameter and (perhaps) four inches deep will melt easier, and stay melted better when using the same heat source you have now.

CM

[Ido356]

Thanks, montana charlie, I believe your explained exactly whats going on.
I do have a 8 or 9 inch cast iron pot I plan to use for casting the boolits, I wanted to keep that pot clean of all the crude that comes with the range lead.