Ceder wood chips = a very lean pot

[62chevy]

Had smelted lead pipe last year and early this year and that stuff was dirty. Needles to say cast boolits was a real pain too so dumped the the rest in those little stainless steal pots from Walmart and cleaned the cast iron pot out. Thought it was clean but after adding the COWW I bought from Jetsfan and then adding the ceder chips I noticed the pot was even cleaner, it took most of the crud out of the pours of the cast iron. [smilie=w:

[tazman]

Good, useful information. Thanks for posting

[Daffy]

Not sure if the smoke from the cedar will cause the same issue but the sawdust from it will make you want to use a coat hanger to clean your sinus'.

[62chevy]

Not sure if the smoke from the cedar will cause the same issue but the sawdust from it will make you want to use a coat hanger to clean your sinus'.

Yup it sent the Wife packing but I kinda like the smell.

[w5pv]

If it will send Granny Woman packing,I have a log about ten feet long and about eight to ten inches in dia.Never mind she has been around too long to send packing.

[Bullshop]

Since we homeschool and there is a lot of pencil sharpening going I use the shavings from the sharpener. Most if not all pencil wood is cedar. It works well in this shaved form.

[Smoke4320]

yes cedar dog bed shaving work very well .. A approx. 2.5' tall 2' wide 1' thick bag form the pet store is about $8.00 and will last a very long time

[62chevy]

If it will send Granny Woman packing,I have a log about ten feet long and about eight to ten inches in dia.Never mind she has been around too long to send packing.

That would do it too, lol. But ya have to call her great-granny as we have 3 of them little rascals.

[DR Owl Creek]

I gotta tell a little story on myself...

Last summer, I was smelting a bunch of WWs that I'd had sitting around for years. I tried various types of fluxes: paraffin, wood chips, saw dust, etc. I even had a jar of Marvelux, which I never used and eventually ended up giving away. For me, it seemed like the saw dust produced the cleanest melt, but I ran out of it.

I read somewhere (don't remember where, but it might have been a Glen Fryxell or a Rick Kelter article on the LASC website) that said darker woods (walnut, oak, hickory, cherry, etc) had more tannins and gallates in them, and that these woods chemically produced a better flux. I bought some hickory chips like for use in smoking stuff on the grill, but they were really big, and way TOO HARD. I couldn't even break them up easily, and I was in a hurry to git-r-done, soooooo....

I put some in an old cheapy blender, one of those with the plastic pitcher. First batch ran fine. Second batch CRACKED the plastic pitcher - so I got out a roll of my favorite silvery colored duct tape, and wrapped it good. Fourt or fifth batch shredded all the nylon gears inside.

The "blended" hickory sawdust was actually the best flux I've tried so far. IMO. Overall, the "process" for making it may not have been one of my better ideas, but another plus was it gave the whole neighborhood a nice hickory-smoked smell too.

Dave

Proverbs 14: 24

[zxcvbob]

A chainsaw does a fine job of turning a big piece of wood into small chips for fluxing. The bar oil even helps a little. If you ever cut up a walnut or oak tree, save a grocery bag or two of the sawdust. (cottonwood OTOH isn't worth picking up)

[Old School Big Bore]

My loading lab is also my woodworking, gunsmithing and any-project workspace, so pine sawdust is there for the sweeping. I just have to remember to sweep up & bag the clean stuff before I saw/sand/rout any treated wood. You do NOT want to burn that stuff and be in the same county with the fumes.

[madsenshooter]

If tannins and gallic acid are what you're after, there's a species of oak here in Ohio that develops galls, aka oak apples. Fresh ones are growing this time of year. They're very high in gallic acid, good medicine actually. I haven't used any as flux, I actually don't understand much of the things people use. The whole point of fluxing is to reduce the oxides, carbon doesn't do that, hydrogen does though. I generally use citric acid as a flux, you can watch the metallic portion of the oxide go back into the melt.

[leeggen]

I save a bucket of cedar chips evrytime I cut a red cedar down. They really work great and smell good. Much better smelling than oil and such.
Cd