LittleBill
01-15-2013, 07:46 PM
After a long time of collecting all the stuff I needed, or thought I needed, I finally got to doing some casting today. It was my first time ever. I started with a small bucket of wheel weights I obtained from my local mechanic a week or so ago when I was in there having my oil changed. Overall things went fairly well, and I ended up with 24 ingots of approximately 1 lb each. I've also got maybe 10 lbs or so of lead left in the pan. I do have some questions for those who are more experienced (which is probably almost everyone here).
I started out with an old frying pan that Mrs. LittleBill let me have, an old turkey fryer base, and some basic tools. Below is a picture of my very first casting.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/FotoBill/leadingots03_zps9cc2fe99.jpg
On the second, I had to throw all my ingots back in and remelt them, as I was a bit of a hasty bear, and turned them out before they were cool enough to maintain their shape. They looked kind of funny, like cake that hasn't baked all the way through, or really gooey brownies.
I didn't seem to have any problem with zinc weights. I found a few that did not melt, and one was marked Fe, so I am assuming it was steel or iron. In any case, it was easy enough to pick out the ones that weren't melting along with the clips and other dross. I weighed the bucket when I first obtained it, but with my record keeping skills and memory, I have no idea how much I had in the way of raw materials when I started. [smilie=1: I examined all the waste, and figure it did not amount to more than two or three pounds of material.
Now for the questions. I got lots of pretty colors while the lead was melting down. I assume that was a manifestation of impurities. Remembering some of the posts here, I used some wood shavings for flux. I have enough to flux about five or six tons of lead at any given time. :mrgreen: That seemed to help, but even stirring it in did not help keep the lead looking nice and lead like for very long at all.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/FotoBill/leadingots02_zps3ddec970.jpg
I also had some fancy powdered flux I bought when I bought my furnace for casting the boolits themselves, and that seemed to work about the same as the wood shavings. So question #1. Is the colored stuff lead with impurities? It seemed to melt back in while being stirred around, but reappeared immediately.
Question #2. Do these impurities harm the final product? Do I need to be concerned when I melt the ingots down for the actual casting of the boolits themselves?
Question #3. What do most of you use to cool the ingots you have turned out, or for the mold while they are cooling to the point where they can be released? I thought a block of wood might suffice, but I was wrong. I have a toasted block of wood from the ingot mold, as well as one slightly darkened one from the cooling ingots.
I think that should do it for now. If I missed something, or someone has some helpful info that I did not think to ask about, please feel free to let me know. I am not proud.
I started out with an old frying pan that Mrs. LittleBill let me have, an old turkey fryer base, and some basic tools. Below is a picture of my very first casting.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/FotoBill/leadingots03_zps9cc2fe99.jpg
On the second, I had to throw all my ingots back in and remelt them, as I was a bit of a hasty bear, and turned them out before they were cool enough to maintain their shape. They looked kind of funny, like cake that hasn't baked all the way through, or really gooey brownies.
I didn't seem to have any problem with zinc weights. I found a few that did not melt, and one was marked Fe, so I am assuming it was steel or iron. In any case, it was easy enough to pick out the ones that weren't melting along with the clips and other dross. I weighed the bucket when I first obtained it, but with my record keeping skills and memory, I have no idea how much I had in the way of raw materials when I started. [smilie=1: I examined all the waste, and figure it did not amount to more than two or three pounds of material.
Now for the questions. I got lots of pretty colors while the lead was melting down. I assume that was a manifestation of impurities. Remembering some of the posts here, I used some wood shavings for flux. I have enough to flux about five or six tons of lead at any given time. :mrgreen: That seemed to help, but even stirring it in did not help keep the lead looking nice and lead like for very long at all.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o159/FotoBill/leadingots02_zps3ddec970.jpg
I also had some fancy powdered flux I bought when I bought my furnace for casting the boolits themselves, and that seemed to work about the same as the wood shavings. So question #1. Is the colored stuff lead with impurities? It seemed to melt back in while being stirred around, but reappeared immediately.
Question #2. Do these impurities harm the final product? Do I need to be concerned when I melt the ingots down for the actual casting of the boolits themselves?
Question #3. What do most of you use to cool the ingots you have turned out, or for the mold while they are cooling to the point where they can be released? I thought a block of wood might suffice, but I was wrong. I have a toasted block of wood from the ingot mold, as well as one slightly darkened one from the cooling ingots.
I think that should do it for now. If I missed something, or someone has some helpful info that I did not think to ask about, please feel free to let me know. I am not proud.