benifits?

[mrblue]

So i got my lee furnace this week and am wanting to get going. However watching and reading the forums it appears a lot of you first use another means to melt and remove impuritys. I guess whats the point in smelting multiple times with two different means. What is the disavantage of using that method and not just using my single furnance

[BK7saum]

Is your Lee a bottom pour?

[BK7saum]

The problem is that if you put wheel weights or dirty lead in a bottom pour, the crud ends up in the valve and you have a Lee "drip o matic".

If you are starting with clean alloy and not smelting various scrounged lead, the Lee is fine from the get-go.

[David2011]

If you're fortunate enough to scrounge wheelweights they will probably be accompanied by dirty oil, grease, tire lube, labels, used snuff and all sorts of bad stuff. The wheelweights will smoke heavily when melted and are best reduced to ingots outdoors in a cast iron or stainless pot over a flame. Casting from the clean lead is much easier on a bottom pour furnace and produces only a little smoke. Lots of us cast indoors- that being a relative term ranging from in the garage with an open door to fully enclosed rooms. Fluxing produces some smoke but it's easily dealt with using a range hood or other improvised ventilation. As mentioned above, if you start with clean ingots there's no need to smelt.

David

[44man]

Keep crud out of the pot even if you ladle pour.
Pots are small and not good to smelt large amounts of lead anyway. You want to make ingots fast, not 10 to 20# at a time. Do you want to fool with 500# of WW's in a 10# pot?
I use a large cast iron pot on a plumbers stove powered by propane and do it outside. 1# ingots are cast clean and only then do they go into the casting pot.

[Kraschenbirn]

As has been stated, casting from 'clean' alloy...'specially from a bottom-pour pot...will solve a number of problems before they occur. For smelting, a simple cast-iron (or steel) pot and a Coleman stove will do to get you started. Melt down your wheel weights, skim off the clips and trash, flux thoroughly, stir with a wooden stick (a hardware store paint stirrer will do just fine), and flux again before pouring your ingots. Finally, flux and stir your bottom-pour pot before you begin casting...and flux the melt again every time you add ingots.

Bill

[OLPDon]

Mrblue
The way you need to look at it if you don't want it in your cast boolit don't put it in your casting pot.... i.e. You really need a smelting pot to get the crud out..... Keep your casting pot for casting even if you don't have a bottom pour....
Crud has a way to find its way were you don't want it, there will be enough things to worry about when you cast, as you will soon seen. But that's one of things that makes it so much so fun and addictive making a better boolit.
Don