Trashed a 10" Dutch Oven Today

[Alan in Vermont]

I lost the use of the dutch oven I was smelting in today. Lifted it off the burner to pour out the last of a batch and found lead stalagmites down around the burner orifice. Only one way lead can get in there, from directly above.

After it was emptied I turned it over and sure, enough, there was a lead stalactite right where the makers mark is cast in the center of the pot. As it cooled the crack grew until it was 5" or so long, bisecting the bottom of the pot.

It might be repairable but I'm not about to chance it. At some point I will fabricate a steel pot but in the interim I'm using a real melting pot of about 35-40 pounds capacity. Quite a slowdown from the big pot (70+ lbs)but all I can do is keep plugging away with it.

Right now I just want to get the range scrap haul melted down and put on the shelves. I've been either digging or smelting five days out of the last seven and I'm getting a little dragged down. There is good weather forecast for a few more days but at this time of year I could find my sorry tail smelting in the snow with little notice.

[williamwaco]

Your sorry tail will be a whole lot happier smelting in the snow than digging in the snow.

Dig while the sun shines.


.

[Alan in Vermont]

The digging part is all done. Now it's down to smelting the "ore", 15 buckets of it, most of them to heavy to lift comfortably with one hand, some aren't even polite enough to quiver. Thanks given for hand trucks, all I have to do is tip the buckets enough to slide the platform/foot/metal plate at the bottom under them.

Once this run of smelting is done there's about 300 lbs that need to be alloyed and put on the shelves as well.

I'm hoping this range scrap will cast good as-is, if it does I'm set for mild to medium loads for a very long time.

I was talking to a buddy the other day and we were thinking how, back when we were both shooting a lot, we never had any real stash ahead. It was a big score to get a bucket of WW. We also never had any great quantity of boolits ahead either. He's got most of a bucket of Keith 44s and about a half bucket of 38 WCs sitting on his floor and I have pretty well to 200 lbs of 45 and 38 SWCs along with a few hundred 44 and 41 SWC. He isn't shooting at all and I'm not doing as much as I planned on when I set about to get back into casting last winter. At the rate it's going somebody is going to get a hell of a deal on lead and boolits from my widow.

On top of that I'm almost starting to get a fetish going to keep increasing the stash. Strange critter us humans are.

[williamwaco]

The digging part is all done. Now it's down to smelting the "ore", 15 buckets of it, most of them to heavy to lift comfortably with one hand, some aren't even polite enough to quiver. Thanks given for hand trucks, all I have to do is tip the buckets enough to slide the platform/foot/metal plate at the bottom under them.

Once this run of smelting is done there's about 300 lbs that need to be alloyed and put on the shelves as well.

I'm hoping this range scrap will cast good as-is, if it does I'm set for mild to medium loads for a very long time.

I was talking to a buddy the other day and we were thinking how, back when we were both shooting a lot, we never had any real stash ahead. It was a big score to get a bucket of WW. We also never had any great quantity of boolits ahead either. He's got most of a bucket of Keith 44s and about a half bucket of 38 WCs sitting on his floor and I have pretty well to 200 lbs of 45 and 38 SWCs along with a few hundred 44 and 41 SWC. He isn't shooting at all and I'm not doing as much as I planned on when I set about to get back into casting last winter. At the rate it's going somebody is going to get a hell of a deal on lead and boolits from my widow.

On top of that I'm almost starting to get a fetish going to keep increasing the stash. Strange critter us humans are.

Aren't we though!

[Jack Stanley]

So your widow doesn't have to go through all that , you probably should increase your shooting time . When I retired a couple years ago I decided to start loading and shooting all the oddball lots of bullets I'd made over the years . It's taken two years with very little casting along the way but I'm to the point where most of the oddball lots are gone .

Jack

[375RUGER]

If you know someone who has some Ni-Fe electrode and knows how to do it without splitting it in half, your oven can be repaired.

[Alan in Vermont]

I thought about welding it up, but only briefly. The crack continued growing as the pot cooled and finally stopped almost all the way across the bottom. It's awful thin, especially where the trademark was cast in, and has been subjected to way more extreme heat cycling than it was ever intended for. When I think of where molten lead would go were it to fail catastrophically the potential for horrible burns is too great for me to mess with repairing it.

[Dale53]

Considering that a new cast iron Harbor Freight 12" Dutch Oven can be had for less than thirty dollars, that's the way I would go.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=Dutch%20Oven

I have done a couple of thousand pounds (more or less) in my Harbor Freight Dutch Oven and it is still going strong.

FWIW
Dale53

[Alan in Vermont]

Considering that a new cast iron Harbor Freight 12" Dutch Oven can be had for less than thirty dollars, that's the way I would go.

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=Dutch%20Oven

I have done a couple of thousand pounds (more or less) in my Harbor Freight Dutch Oven and it is still going strong.

FWIW
Dale53

Thank you, Dale! That is certainly a viable option to making a pot.

[Harter66]

I broke my Dutch oven a couple of weeks ago as well. Then I tripped over an old school aquaintance that works at a mine. He's getting me a couple of the freon cans to make a new melt pot. I figure I can make a bottom pour fitting and a needle and seat. I might be on a pipe dream too.

[legend]

Our local propane dealer has cut in two propane bottles he sells sometimes......yours might also.

[Miata Mike]

I found a stainless pressure cooker at the local St Vincent DePauls thrift store for $7.00. Works well and will hold more than 60# which is almost more than I care to load up the Coleman camp stove with.

[Dale53]

I have no doubt that a steel pot is superior to a cast iron pot. However, availability is an important quality, also. If you know someone who understands how to SAFELY cut apart a propane tank, that has reportedly worked very well. However, getting out the residual gas so you don't have an explosion is not necessarily, "simple"...

The Harbor Freight dutch oven that I use has about the right size for the common turkey/fish fryer (I got my fryer on sale from Bass Pro). Cast iron will not stand much abuse. No banging on them and no dropping them. However, given a bit of care (which I try to do with ALL tools) they should last a long, long time. Mine has a "working weight of metal" of about 120 lbs - it'll hold more but I prefer not to fill them to overflowing... The price of less than $30.00 was and is very attractive to me.

fwiw
Dale53

[farmallcrew]

It sucks loosing your best dutch oven to a burner. Hahaha glad it worked out in the end.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

+1 for fix the Pot...Cast is easy to fix,with the correct welding electrodes...find a welder that will work the crack with a grinder and weld Her Up..I won't go into the type Rod...a welder will know what you need....I can weld everything from the Crack of Dawn , to a Broken Heart !!!IMHO.... Good Luck

[Bullet Caster]

If'n shippin' wasn't so high, I'd send you mine. But then I wouldn't have anything in which to smelt lead, if I ever got any. BC

[Starvnhuntr]

If I was you I would go to the thrift store and buy a stainless cooking pot. I bought one about ten years ago when I first started smelting ad it's still as good as new. probably done a couple tons at 50 lbs. at a time. cost under 10 bucksl

[WilliamDahl]

The 20 lb (i.e. BBQ grill size) propane (LPG) tanks are acceptably heavy walled for making into a smelting pot. They are normally rated over 300 psi. They are heavier walled than the freon tanks. The LPG companies often do not bother to hydro test them when it is necessary and instead just toss them or sell them to the metal recycler as scrap steel. The valve will screw off and you can then fill it up with water to flush the remaining LPG out of it. Empty the water and start cutting. The metal is thick enough that even if you are a crude buzzbox stick welder (like myself), you can weld it without blowing through the steel.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have the refridgerant tank cut in half. It holds more then I would feel comfortable putting on my burner. If you see an airconditioning repair man check with him. The tanks are not refilled and are thown away. The only problem is you will have to fabricate handles for it. I bought a couple of u-bolts to put on the side. I also have a cheap SS stock pot I picked up at Big Lots for $12.00 and an 8" cast iron skillit that I picked up cheap for small batches..

What brand was the dutchoven that cracked.

[Lloyd Smale]

I had a couple cast pots crack on me. I dont think welding would work well on something with such a wide heat cycle temperature range. Id guess it would just eventually crack again. Anymore i use a stainless steal stock pot you can buy at walmart. Seems to work just as well and is even bigger then the cast pots ive had. Mines been going strong for years now.

[Flinchrock]

I thought about welding it up, but only briefly. The crack continued growing as the pot cooled and finally stopped almost all the way across the bottom. It's awful thin, especially where the trademark was cast in, and has been subjected to way more extreme heat cycling than it was ever intended for. When I think of where molten lead would go were it to fail catastrophically the potential for horrible burns is too great for me to mess with repairing it.

I agree completely!!

[mold maker]

I've used 2 cast pots from yard sale, and flea markets, for over 30 years, without cracking. Are my pots better or have I just been lucky?

[fatnhappy]

Count yourself lucky Alan. This story could have ended very badly.

I too use a dutch oven for smelting. I also have a 20 lb LP tank with the top cut off and a couple handles welded on. In this case I'm using a 50# plumbers pot. I have a couple of those but prefer using the flat bottomed dutch oven.

http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h152/lhsjfk3t/003-5.jpg

my 10" dutch oven
http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h152/lhsjfk3t/102_0316.jpg

[Alan in Vermont]

+1 for fix the Pot...Cast is easy to fix,with the correct welding electrodes...find a welder that will work the crack with a grinder and weld Her Up..I won't go into the type Rod...a welder will know what you need....I can weld everything from the Crack of Dawn , to a Broken Heart !!!IMHO.... Good Luck

Well, I'm about as good a welder as anyone I know and I won't screw with often heated cast. It's bad enough when it's something non-critical like an exhaust manifold but if this thing split catastrophically it would dump mucho (like 80# worth) of liquid metal right down where my feet are.

The thin steel stock pot I got at Wally-Mart did pretty good for the four full loads I ran through it. It's too thin to last long but it got everything I needed done done.

I will fab a steel pot over the winter. I don't have any need for one at this point as I don't have anything to smelt and I mixed over 300# of alloy the other day. If I go berm mining next summer I will need a pot but even then I can store the "ore" in covered buckets until I get enough to make smelting it worthwhile.

Sasquatch, that DO was a Lodge, I wire brushed the bottom today and could read the trademark just fine. For now it's going to make a great "hot bucket" to drop dross and ash in.

[Mooseman]

I agree with You Alan, Having welded cast iron in the past with everthing from NI-CI rod , Missleweld, and torch Brazing manifolds etc. It isnt worth the risk where Hot lead is concerned and safety. Good Dutch ovens can be found for affordable prices.
Another option is a cutoff piece of steel pipe the diameter and height you want and weld a 3/8" plate bottom on it and some Bent rod handles. Just as good as cast and less likely to break or crack in your lifetime.

[possom813]

I remember my first lead pot, fondly...It was an old centercap from a truck that we scrapped. It was about 5" across and 6" deep and fit, nicely, into the center hole on our fish cooker stand. Clamped an old pair of vice grips on the rim and I was off making fishing weights.

Now I use a 2qt cast iron pot that I bought for 5 bucks at an auction. Use it to smelt and a Lyman electric pot for casting.

[Harter66]

I blew out my 14" Dutch oven about 6 weeks ago. Last weekend I found a water service pressure tank tank dumped in the desert I'm going to have a look at its insides and if its serviceable build a bottom pour smelting/melting pot out of it. Its about 80gallons but has bullet holes limiting it to maybe 10 safely. It looks clean at the holes half way up so I'm hoping it'll be good at the top where the air valve goes in.if not well I have a very large dross/slag bucket and a new trash can for the shop.

[Dale53]

I have mentioned this before, but it won't hurt to bring it up again. Do NOT drop your cast iron pot. Do NOT bang on it. Treat it gently and it'll last almost forever. Treat it badly and it WILL fail.

Just a bit of caution, good people. Burns are BAD!!!

FWIW
Dale53

[HeadLead]

My first casting attempt ended with a failure of the pot I used. I had almost 30# of lead and wheel weights loaded up and melted and I was cleaning off the dross when the bottom of the pot let go! Fortunately the portion of the pot that let go opened up away from me, so the molten mixture flowed away from my feet and body. I moved quickly to avoid the spray of the hot stuff and was amazed I suffered no burns.

The cooled lead/ww mix was all over my drive way. I used my scraper for my garden to loosen the cooled metal in large pieces and was able to save almost all of the mix. I squeezed it into smaller pieces and melted it down in my Lee Pro4-20.

I now use a large steel pot picked up at work that works well and makes me a lot more comfortable. Not sure why the bottom let go, I saw no indicators that the pot had been damaged. Possibly to much weight for the bottom to support.

Salute! :drinks:

[WilliamDahl]

My first casting attempt ended with a failure of the pot I used. I had almost 30# of lead and wheel weights loaded up and melted and I was cleaning off the dross when the bottom of the pot let go! Fortunately the portion of the pot that let go opened up away from me, so the molten mixture flowed away from my feet and body. I moved quickly to avoid the spray of the hot stuff and was amazed I suffered no burns.

The cooled lead/ww mix was all over my drive way. I used my scraper for my garden to loosen the cooled metal in large pieces and was able to save almost all of the mix. I squeezed it into smaller pieces and melted it down in my Lee Pro4-20.

I now use a large steel pot picked up at work that works well and makes me a lot more comfortable. Not sure why the bottom let go, I saw no indicators that the pot had been damaged. Possibly to much weight for the bottom to support.

I doubt that it was too much weight for the bottom to support. Besides, it would normally be sitting on the burner and the burner stand would be supporting the weight. More than likely, just a defective casting and it would have happened even if you had not been using it for lead smelting. It would have been rather unpleasant for it to have happened inside your house with the pot full of oil for frying also... Might have been a fire hazard...

I have a few pieces of cast iron cookware that I use for deep frying or stir frying. I routinely hit the metal spoon on the side of the pot to knock stuff off of it when I'm stir frying. I have never had a failure of a cast iron pot.

[Shiloh]

I lost the use of the dutch oven I was smelting in today. Lifted it off the burner to pour out the last of a batch and found lead stalagmites down around the burner orifice. Only one way lead can get in there, from directly above.

After it was emptied I turned it over and sure, enough, there was a lead stalactite right where the makers mark is cast in the center of the pot. As it cooled the crack grew until it was 5" or so long, bisecting the bottom of the pot.

It might be repairable but I'm not about to chance it. At some point I will fabricate a steel pot but in the interim I'm using a real melting pot of about 35-40 pounds capacity. Quite a slowdown from the big pot (70+ lbs)but all I can do is keep plugging away with it.

Right now I just want to get the range scrap haul melted down and put on the shelves. I've been either digging or smelting five days out of the last seven and I'm getting a little dragged down. There is good weather forecast for a few more days but at this time of year I could find my sorry tail smelting in the snow with little notice.

Wise choice. Is this per chance one of the Chinese pots available??

Shiloh

[Alan in Vermont]

Wise choice. Is this per chance one of the Chinese pots available??

Shiloh

I have no idea where it came from, don't even know just how it came into my hands, other than it has been kicking around here for years. It is a "Lodge" brand pot so it's not necessarily cheap junk,, well it is now, junk at least.

The crack started right where the trademark is cast in, dead center of the bottom. There is about a 2" area right in the center of the support. I think that is there so there is nothing to interfere with the burner flame and with the pot centered on the burner the flame would hit, full blast, right where the trademark is. The way the trademark is sunken into the flat bottom of the pot, and then the raised script cast there I suspect the trademark area to be quite a bit thinner than the metal around it. That might have caused the center to get extremely hot and may be why the trademark has a "sag" in it. If it got hot enough for the iron to be just weak enough the stretch a bit under load that might have caused a small crack to form and then grow under the effect of the heat cycling.

At any rate it's history now. The cheap, steel stock pot I used to finish out this smelt won't last long but it did all I needed. At this time I don't see the smelting setup getting any use until way late nexy summer, when I get a stock of "ore" built up from mining the outdoor range berm. In the meantime I'll watch for a reasonably stout, 10" dia, stainless steel stock pot.

With the tank now hooked to a solid base and using a 10 qt. pot the whole assembly is a bit too high for me to work out of comfortably. My bad left shoulder has been on a pain rampage ever since I raised the working height, not being nice at all. I'm thinking seriously about going to a fryer type burner on a low stand where I don't have to use the shoulder muscles to lift the ladle. As long as I keep the lifting down low, where I'm using my bicep for the lifting and not having to "shrug" the shoulder up to get a few extra inches I think it will be much more pleasant.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Using dutch ovens for smelting or casting works for some folks, but sometimes there are problems with cracking and metal failure. There are a few causes or conditions related to that. The bottom center where the logo/trademark of the various makers ,especially if it is a large and deep one is where the metal is the thinnest...and most likely to let go. It is also where, if the pot is overheated that the bottom will warp and many do, so you have a vessel that won't sit flat and will rock or wobble. Secondly CI is primarily intended for cooking/baking and either is not in the temperature range(by a good margin) used for casting or smelting...especially where a large quantity of molten alloy is being heated by a high temp heat source. CI also doesn't like being heated up high-quickly and doesn't like being cooled quickly either. Both are a source of stress. Another source of stress for CI is being struck, tapped or whacked when hot. Back in the day when ladle casting was the norm, cast iron casting pots were of a thicker gauge than dutch ovens and held a lot less alloy so they usually didn't crack. As for welding CI, it is not an easy task in view of the heat slowly-cool slowly constraints. My one experience with that involved the following; I had found a dutch oven that once had three legs. It would have been a collectors item, but some bright soul didn't like the legs so s/he cut them off. I wanted to restore the item so I fashioned three legs of the correct size and shape and found a local welder to do the job. He got them attached and within minutes came a series of loud "bangs" and with each one a wide crack opened up in the bottom in different directions. The bottom of the vessel was totally destroyed. Too rapidly heated up? or cooled down? Wrong welding material? I dunno... The pot was tossed...not at all salvageable. The use of a vessel other than CI for smelting, made of a metal such as stainless steel is probably better and safer as well. LLS

[HeadLead]

I doubt that it was too much weight for the bottom to support. Besides, it would normally be sitting on the burner and the burner stand would be supporting the weight. More than likely, just a defective casting and it would have happened even if you had not been using it for lead smelting. It would have been rather unpleasant for it to have happened inside your house with the pot full of oil for frying also... Might have been a fire hazard...

I have a few pieces of cast iron cookware that I use for deep frying or stir frying. I routinely hit the metal spoon on the side of the pot to knock stuff off of it when I'm stir frying. I have never had a failure of a cast iron pot.

Ya Know, I never considered it that way, but darn it, you are right. Makes me feel better about the whole thing now.

Have a great day!

Salute! :drinks:

[WilliamDahl]

Ya Know, I never considered it that way, but darn it, you are right. Makes me feel better about the whole thing now.


I use a "banjo burner" with natural gas instead of LPG. Most of the turkey fryer burners have a higher pressure center flame whereas the banjo burners have a large number of smaller flames, so I suspect that they heat up the pot more evenly and as such, it would be less subject to stress cracking.

[dickttx]

I am slowly accumulating items to start casting. I see the cast iron pots mostly with legs. Are these in the way? Should I look for one without legs?
I was in Tractor Supply the other day and noticed they had one (with legs) for $17. I didn't look but would guess it was chinese. I presume, like everything else, there are inferior quality ones.

[MT Gianni]

I am slowly accumulating items to start casting. I see the cast iron pots mostly with legs. Are these in the way? Should I look for one without legs?
I was in Tractor Supply the other day and noticed they had one (with legs) for $17. I didn't look but would guess it was chinese. I presume, like everything else, there are inferior quality ones.

There is nothing wrong with using a legged dutch oven for casting/smelting. The cheapness in a oven generally is finish issues, ie too rough to cook well in. Just make sure that you tag it lead only.

[375RUGER]

I am slowly accumulating items to start casting. I see the cast iron pots mostly with legs. Are these in the way? Should I look for one without legs?
I was in Tractor Supply the other day and noticed they had one (with legs) for $17. I didn't look but would guess it was chinese. I presume, like everything else, there are inferior quality ones.

Cut the legs off with a grinder if they are in the way. Probably won't be in the way if you will use it over a flame though.

[ChuckS1]

Tractor Supply has a 6" cast iron Dutch oven for $15.

http://tsc.tractorsupply.com/nav/cat3/giftshome_kitchen_cookware/0

[tomf52]

A hunk of 6",8" or 10" well casing cut to the desired height with a 1/4" plate bottom takes very little time to make and is indestructible.

[WilliamDahl]

It's going to depend upon the flame height of your burner and what you what type of load bearing surface is above the burner. If it gets in the way, either modify the load bearing surface or just grind the legs off the cast iron dutch oven. They'll grind off easily and it should not affect the structural integrity of the pot any (unlike what *can* happen if you weld cast iron improperly).

[WilliamDahl]

A hunk of 6",8" or 10" well casing cut to the desired height with a 1/4" plate bottom takes very little time to make and is indestructible.

Welded correctly, yeah... Welded *incorrectly*? Well, you'll never complain about a Lee bottom pour pot dripping again... :)