Smelting Session From Hell!

[Alan in Vermont]

This has turned into the week from hell as far as smelting and mixing alloy.

I had been waiting for some more pleasant weather to smelt, finally got it Monday so I set out with great expectations.

Got all set up, out in a neighbors field so the smoke wouldn't bother anyone, got the plumbers pot gassed up and wasn't getting enough heat to melt but a couple inches in the pot. Not good! Emptied the pot so I could get the pot off the burner and burner off the tank (this is the style where the burner mounts directly on the tank valve).

Removed and cleaned the orifice, put it all back together and no improvement. After fooling with it a while I figured out that the excess flow gizmo in the valve was shutting down if I turned the valve on to quickly. It was passing enough gas, in taht condition to make a small flame but not nearly enough. Once I figured out how to open the valve without tripping the excess flow I was in business and got a couple hundred pounds cleaned up.

Had fairly hard rain Tuesday morning. Once that stopped I was back at it again only to discover (with about 1/2 pot worth melted) that the tank was down to empty again. Obviously should have filled it again but it "sloshed" like there was quite a lot in it before I started. I did a quick cleanout of the jacket material, poured a couple dirty ingots, and got the tank filled again.

My normal smelting routine is to start with a little lead in the bottom of the pot, add "ore" in small batches as it melts, then skim off the jackets and add another layer. I leave all the ash from the plywood bits until I have the pot full, then I pull off most of the ash, add some clean sawdust, stir and scrape the pot, then skim and start ladling (is that a word?) out into the ingot molds.

This time I got most of the pot filled with liquid metal and there was a "What is that silver stuff on the ground?" moment.

That "silver stuff" was nice clean metal spewing from a tiny crack that had opened in the bottom of the steel pot I was using. Pretty much a panic situation as the lead was dropping out of the crack, onto the tank and spattering off onto the ground. I got a pan under it catch it as it fell, then scooped out enough to get the pot light enough that I could lift it off the burner. I dumped that, jackets, ash and lead into the one big ingot mold I have, 4, 19# ingots. In this case have 4 ingots full of crud that will have to be melted once again.

Yesterday was my day to mow the range, by the time I got that done it was 90° with a heat index of 98° and threatening thunderstorms. I put the project on hold at that point.

I picked up a stainless steel pot this morning. I'm not impressed with the thickness of the material but any I found that were thicker are some sort of aluminum core with only a thin stainless sheet on each side. It should hold up to a couple days worth of smelting/alloying and I will find, or make, something adequate after this current circus is over.

More thunderstorms showing on the radar right now and showers for tomorrow but the weekend is looking like decent weather and moderate temperatures.

This absolutely sucks as I have 180# to alloy to complete my end of a swap for shot and 120#+ to send out for the Gray Wolf benefit. I started with 7, level full, 5 gallon buckets of ore, with all the dubbing around I've only finished two of them and started on a third. AAARRRGH!!!!

[Defcon-One]

Cheer up, any day melting lead is better than a day at work! Also, some guys can't even find any lead to smelt.

I hope it gets better over the weekend!

[chsparkman]

Sure wish I had 35 gallons of ore to deal with. No way to mine that much around here.

[shadowcaster]

Yeah, when Murphy helps.. he usually helps a lot!

You may want to built a pot. It will be heavy enough to not fail on you, and you can customize it to the size smelter you want. I do up to 400 pounds at a time with the bottom pour I built.

Shad

[fredj338]

Stop messing with ss pots & get a good cast iron dutch oven. I would also go with a remote burner & separate tank. Murphy's law always comes up.

[Alan in Vermont]

Stop messing with ss pots & get a good cast iron dutch oven.

You mean like the "Lodge" brand one that cracked when I was using it last fall?

[evan price]

I use a three gallon ss stockpot. No cracking.

[mold maker]

Well, now we are scared of cut gas tanks, cast dutch ovens, and should stop messing with SS. Not everybody has access to welding equipment, or can have it commercially made.
Should we just throw up our hands and give the lead away?
I'm using the same cast pot I got 20 years ago. I don't bang on it or spot heat it. It's melted literally tons of lead, and is as clean as when I rescued it in rusty condition at a fly market.
I read on this forum that first one and then another had had their pot crack, so I gave $8. for another pot and found a lid in someones trash. I picked up 2 out of date gas cylinders to cut as needed. I hunted for 8" pipe without success.
So now I have a total of 3 dutch ovens, and 3 uncut gas cylinders, while still using the first one I ever had.
The extra equipment takes up more space than what I use.
While I agree that todays cheap SS pots may not be the best for smelting, an older heavy one will do just fine.
Moral to all this is use what ya got till you have reason to replace it. But whatever ya use, treat it gently.

[GaryN]

Well, now we are scared of cut gas tanks
Ummm, what wrong with cut gas tanks. That's what I use and I like it. I cut it myself and the first time I used it I melted 800 pounds.

[Bigslug]

Words of experience:

"Heavy cast iron"

"Always have two propane tanks on hand, one of them always full"

[fryboy]

i made one out of ye olde style propane tank but wasnt entirely satisfied with it ( so i was still on a quest ) i then made one from a freon tank , it has a rounded bottom but i cut a strip from the top to tack weld to the bottom ( both heat shield and anti-tip device ) yet that left me still not quite satisfied so ... with my eye out ( as always ) i found another smaller freon tank - a refillable one ( as opposed to the disposable one i tried earlier ) it didnt hurt that it was free :P this one is much heavier ( erm and alot older ) and already had a rung around the bottom , except for huge smelts it's just about ideal for my uses ( i'd have to get a jet burner with more btu's to even fill this one up ) id post a foto but it says it's a invalid file ??
i do like cast iron but as you've noted it can and has cracked before and wile rotometals casting putty may hold it together for a smelt or two ...i dont and wouldnt trust it that far




81809


i cut it with a sawzall , you can see the older and larger propane pot on the left

[Alan in Vermont]

Words of experience:

"Heavy cast iron"

"Always have two propane tanks on hand, one of them always full"

After having one cast pot, which I thought was pretty heavy, crack completely across the bottom, I am sceptical about using another one. Had that old one broke up either side I could well have covered my ankles and lower legs in hot metal. I would bet that having around 100 lbs of liquid cascade onto the rounded top of the tank it would have spread far and wide.

At over $200 for a dedicated plumbers pot tank having the second one would be more of a luxury than I can justify.

I'm going to hit one scrap yard which usually has a bunch of stainless "stuff". I have seen short pieces of tube with what looks like 11-12 ga. stainless but not sure of any of it has been big enough for what I want. 10"Ø x 6" tall is my hoped-for size, I think propane tanks are 12+"Ø which could be made to work but would require an overhaul on my heat shield.

I need a pot that will handle up to 120# or so. When I mix alloy I use 100# of range lead with additions of foundry type, tin, and pure lead to get whatever my target alloy is. I do at least three batches of that, mark each batch with spray paint, then add them to the casting pot in rotation to even out any minor variations between the batches.

[Alan in Vermont]

Finally got a day with no rain, first one since Wednesday, when it was too hot to even consider wrapping up in protective gear.

The 12 qt. pot from wally world seems to handle the heat acceptably, for the short term. Only downside is that it is close to 10" tall and that makes it inconvenient to ladle out of. So, since the burner is a little bit high to begin with and the pot being extra tall it is right where I have limited range of motion and strength. After about three hours my funky arm was wanting to cramp up when I was ladling and the tank was getting low so, with 200 or so pounds of ore left I shut down for the day.

I was getting 75-80 lbs of output per hour once I got the procedure worked out. I had to remelt the "dirty" ingots I had poured at the sudden end of the last session when I had to empty the failing pot and just dumped everything in it into molds. I melted those from the top, with a weed torch, until I got some melt on the bottom of the new pot. Then I would add a couple inches of ore on top of the ash/jacket layer. Once that melted I would remove some of the jackets and add more ore. When I got about 6" in the pot I would ladle off most of it, leaving 1/2-1" of liquid and start over.

Had my first bursting bullet today. I've had some pop when they got heated in the past but they only hopped around in the pot. This one came out of the pot like, well, a bullet. I use a hard hat with hearing protectors(they cover the ears against hot metal quite nicely) and a face shield. This one hit hard enough to jolt the face shield fairly hard, would have probably hit me right between the eyes on the bridge of my sniffer.