JWFilips
02-16-2013, 07:01 PM
I Decided to re-smelt a bunch of bullet alloys I have here today. This was brought on by last weeks fiasco of a really dirty bullet alloy messing up my casting session & pot. Since all were small amounts I didn't fire up my big smelting set up but decided to use a small 10 lb cast iron pot on a 1100 watt hot plate. I started out with last weeks dirty alloy Well I got that one done pretty well ( I hope) I had 8 lbs of that left. Then I decide to re-smelt two 4 lb ingots of solder mix that I got years ago from my father-in-law who used to build HAM radios. I remember him cleaning up all the drips and wicked up solders from building & tearing stuff apart. Threw everything into this little "Solder" melter to recycle it. Well he is gone awhile now but I have those ingots ( Along with that little electric pot and a bunch of 60/40, 50/50 & 40/60 spools of his solder) If I were to guess ( I also posted this here awhile ago) the ingots would come in at around 50/50 (every kind in the mix). I also re-smetled one 5 lb ingot of plumbers lead which I believe cause my issues last week when I put it in my casting mix! All in all I think I was able to clean up everything well and now they are in a smaller to use "Mini Muffin" form So All in all I did about 4 small volume smelts today which actually thought me a whole lot about the process. While my first smelt was about a month ago with 50 lbs of wheel weights ( very humbling & scary for my first attempt) but doing these small batchs I got to understand and learn what was going on in each batch & I think it was a better learning experience then on big pot full! With the small smeting pot I got up close and personal since it was less overwheming then 50 lbs of melted metal at 700 degrees
The only question I have is one batch ( the 50/50 reclaimed solders) When I fluxed with sawdust for the first time and started mixingit in I got some bubbles coming up from the bottom of the pot. At first I got worried about trapped water or something and vacated the pot area but as I got braver I saw that they just bubbled up randomly from the middle of the pot, Stirring & scraping didn't make a difference They still kept bubbling up every so often.
Keep in mind I was only using a hot plate & my thermometer never got higher then 650 deg
Just wondering if any one else sees bubbles in their smelt pot from time to time?
The only question I have is one batch ( the 50/50 reclaimed solders) When I fluxed with sawdust for the first time and started mixingit in I got some bubbles coming up from the bottom of the pot. At first I got worried about trapped water or something and vacated the pot area but as I got braver I saw that they just bubbled up randomly from the middle of the pot, Stirring & scraping didn't make a difference They still kept bubbling up every so often.
Keep in mind I was only using a hot plate & my thermometer never got higher then 650 deg
Just wondering if any one else sees bubbles in their smelt pot from time to time?