armoredman
12-10-2007, 06:49 PM
So, I get my 10 pound Lee pot into action in the ventilated garage. Actually was better than the back porch, think I'll do this from now on. Four 1 pound ingots dropped in, recast from the last session about 3 weeks ago or so. Melted, fluxed with wax, surface was mirror bright and clean quickly. Good.
Started casting, no issues, good rhythm, havin' fun. After I started building up a pile of sprues, decided I coud see if dropping some in would drop the temp to a point it would affect casting. Nope, not a twitch, so every so often, I'd grab the spoon, scoop up a bunch, and place them, (not DROP), into the melt. Now, mind you, I can't SEE the melt, it's low in the pot, and I am crosslegged on the concrete in front of the pot. I am dropping the sprues on a towel, where some minor wooden splinters dropped from the mold whacker, (unsure what the technical term is), and I scoop them up with an old stainless steel tea spoon. At the end of casting, when the wife says out of the blue it's time to go to PetsMart, ( yep, all done, lemme clean up... :( ), so I look into the pot to see if I should dump into a ingot mold, or leave it.
I am staring into the open cone of an active volcano. Piles of red glowing stone like formations above red glowing lava looking melt, and sparking flashes on the edges next to the pot. ***??!!?!? I know I scraped that puppy clean, and it looked just fine when I put it away AND got it out! I scraped out the slag, and it cooled off to look like sawdust mixed with lead, or something like that, but brown slag. All the boolits came out perfect, no imperfections from weird stuff, but I am very curious what the heck THAT was! The pot cooled off to a sawdust color inside, both on top of the hardened lead, and the inside wall of the pot. What the heck did I do, looked GREAT when I started...
Sooo, how DO you clean a Lee 10# production pot?
Started casting, no issues, good rhythm, havin' fun. After I started building up a pile of sprues, decided I coud see if dropping some in would drop the temp to a point it would affect casting. Nope, not a twitch, so every so often, I'd grab the spoon, scoop up a bunch, and place them, (not DROP), into the melt. Now, mind you, I can't SEE the melt, it's low in the pot, and I am crosslegged on the concrete in front of the pot. I am dropping the sprues on a towel, where some minor wooden splinters dropped from the mold whacker, (unsure what the technical term is), and I scoop them up with an old stainless steel tea spoon. At the end of casting, when the wife says out of the blue it's time to go to PetsMart, ( yep, all done, lemme clean up... :( ), so I look into the pot to see if I should dump into a ingot mold, or leave it.
I am staring into the open cone of an active volcano. Piles of red glowing stone like formations above red glowing lava looking melt, and sparking flashes on the edges next to the pot. ***??!!?!? I know I scraped that puppy clean, and it looked just fine when I put it away AND got it out! I scraped out the slag, and it cooled off to look like sawdust mixed with lead, or something like that, but brown slag. All the boolits came out perfect, no imperfections from weird stuff, but I am very curious what the heck THAT was! The pot cooled off to a sawdust color inside, both on top of the hardened lead, and the inside wall of the pot. What the heck did I do, looked GREAT when I started...
Sooo, how DO you clean a Lee 10# production pot?