Oak sawdust good flux?

[Yodogsandman]

I got some range scrap for the first time this weekend and want to smelt it down. I had a lot of wood chips, pine needle and grass mixed in. I filled a 5 gallon bucket with water and slowly dumped the scrap in. Almost all of the offending matter floated and I just skimmed it off the top. I then spread some out on my 1/4" "hardware cloth" sifter. I ran water from the garden hose (reduced to 1/2") over them and cleaned the dirt off, removing rocks and plastic shot hull, etc. I did this in small batches to clean thoroughly. So now it's time to smelt it all down. I have parrafin for my normal flux but, I want to try sawdust because it's cheaper. Is sawdust from oak OK to use, I've only seen references to using pine sawdust?

[RickinTN]

Yes, Oak is fine. Be sure it is dry. Add it, let it smoke and begin to smolder, light it if you like, and stir. You should end up with just clean ash on the top. Wax will reduce oxidized metal back into the melt, but it won't flux.
Good Luck,
Rick

[el34]

Another option is hamster litter, $2.57 at Walmart. It's highly compressed, one bag fluxed about a ton of lead for me. And I constantly keep a layer of it floating in the bottom-pour casting pot.

113584 113585

[bangerjim]

Any carbon-based DRY lifeform will work for flux! Sappy pine is the best.


bangerjim

[Yodogsandman]

I have almost unlimited access to mixed oak sawdust with some fir in it for free.

I'd never heard that paraffin wasn't a good flux...thanks. I've also used up a bad case of Lyman 50/50 lube, TCA bore butter and Crisco for flux. They all seemed to work. Well, I guess I had my druthers about the paraffin wax, maybe it didn't seem to clean things up as good as the others. I hadn't used it to smelt and make ingots. I only used it to flux the alloy that I mixed from clean ingots that I smelted...wow....15-20 years ago. Back when I could get plenty of COWW for free. I thought I had a lifetime supply!

[Handloader109]

Not telling you anything you might not know, but you have WET lead. Make sure you put into your pot when it is cold and then slowly heat up to allow the water to boil off. Don't add any more while lead is melted, if you have more than one pot of scrap, let pot cool between melts. Be safe!
And any wood chips are fine.

[cbrick]

Yodogsandman, here's the info you need on fluxing, see chapter 4. You'll find the entire book very enlightening but chapter 4 explains your questions on fluxing very well in plain English.

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_textonly2.pdf

Rick

[sqlbullet]

In my humble opinion, you washed away good flux and traded it for wet and therefore dangerous lead.

But, I am making a couple of assumptions. I assume you aren't going to put range scrap directly in your casting pot, but rather refine it first in a dutch oven or other suitable container, converting dirty lead into clean ingots, ready for said casting pot.

If that is not your plan, then by all means you want to get the gunk out. Personally, I wouldn't want range scrap in my bottom pour even after washing it, but to each his own.

As mentioned, you now have wet lead. You either need to bake it in your SO's oven at 250° for a couple hours or you need to only put it in a cold pot and heat. Wet lead + hot pot = very, very bad things.

As far as oak, yeah works fine. Any sawdust works fine. Pine smells nice, that is the only advantage.

Edit: I realize that I may have come off a little abrasive. Not my intention to offend you. Just offering my opinion.

[Garyshome]

I use the stuff under my table saw. May be oak may be pine doesn't make much difference

[bangerjim]

Do not wash anything you going to smelt. WW's range lead, pipe, etc. The smelting process and the heat will get rid of ALL dirt and grime. Even hunks of granite will float on molten lead!

Just throw it in DRY.......DRY~~~~! And let it melt, skim off the crud, and flux 3X with saw dust. I use a bit of wax in the dust the 3rd time to help reduce better. Stir a lot with a DRY wooden paddle/stick/handle. Again......stir VERY well a lot!

All will be clean. All will be well.

bangerjim

[Yodogsandman]

No worries, I planned on heating the scrap starting from a cold pot, for each smelting cycle. It rains here about twice a week so, the scrap was damp to begin with. I waited as long between rainy days as I could before scavenging so I wasn't lifting and sifting so much moisture. By pre-cleaning the scrap, I reduced about 1/4 of the volume in the buckets.

Thanks for the link to Frixells book, I think it was also in the Cast Bullet reference on lead alloys. I hadn't taken the time to read it, yet.

Why not use it in a bottom pour pot if the scraps been cleaned? I did have a bunch of "pure" lead once that caused me fits because it kept clogging the spout, badly. I had to really heat it up with a propane torch for a while and then use a wire to unclog it. It had a bluish, rainbow sheen to it. I just used it with the smelt pot and ladle for fishing sinkers after that.

[plainsman456]

I use it and to me it smells better that pine.
It even makes me want to get some BBQ,it makes me hungry.

[slohunter]

plainsman, ditto!

[bangerjim]

I use it and to me it smells better that pine.
It even makes me want to get some BBQ,it makes me hungry.

If you want real BBQ smoke, do what I do and use either alder, cherry, mesquite, or hickory! Can you say DINNER! I use whatever woods I cut in my wood shop.....but ABSOLUTELY NO pressure treated, laminates, particle or flake board.

I think burning oak smells a bit like burning garbage. Depends on the species of oak, I guess. I have only tried red oak.

banger

[plainsman456]

Live oak cured for 3 years before getting cut up.

I save for special casts and use the shavings i get from the high school wood shop,the b-in-law is the instructor.[smilie=w:

[Yodogsandman]

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon smelting down COWW. The oak sawdust seemed to work out good. Glad I was outside, it got pretty smoky. At the end of the WW, I tried some of the range scrap. Wow, was there a lot of garbage in there. You could hardly notice the lead was melting out of the jacketed hulls at all. Each pot only yielded 8 ingots. The COWW had yielded 20 ingots for each pot full. Now...to figure out how to mix a cheap alloy with it for general rifle plinking loads. I have some 20-1 mix that I'll probably add tuit, maybe 75/25. I picked up a Lee 311-115F for plinking to save on lead. Maybe tonight I'll mold some up.

Thank you all for your advice!

[bangerjim]

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon smelting down COWW. The oak sawdust seemed to work out good. Glad I was outside, it got pretty smoky. At the end of the WW, I tried some of the range scrap. Wow, was there a lot of garbage in there. You could hardly notice the lead was melting out of the jacketed hulls at all. Each pot only yielded 8 ingots. The COWW had yielded 20 ingots for each pot full. Now...to figure out how to mix a cheap alloy with it for general rifle plinking loads. I have some 20-1 mix that I'll probably add tuit, maybe 75/25. I picked up a Lee 311-115F for plinking to save on lead. Maybe tonight I'll mold some up.

Thank you all for your advice!

That is why, unless you getting the range lead for totally free, it is not really worth the money, time and fuel to melt it down, especially FMJ's. I quit doing that a long time ago! Some have reported back being able to sell the CLEAN (important) empty jackets to scrap yards. Your location will determine that. Check it out with your local scrap yards.

banger

[Yodogsandman]

Yup, 6 days for my back to stop aching, too! Must be good exercise! I was certainly hoping for more cast boolits in the scrap. I figure I've shot a half a ton of boolits right there and with my COWW levels getting low, I'd like some of it back!

[cdngunner]

I use what ever my chainsaw leaves behind...usually Oak, Ash or Maple.

Just finished turning 100lbs of "pot ingots" that I got for $55.00 into more manageable "LEE" ingots....got another 150lbs coming that I scooped up for free from an elderly feller who is moving.

Life is good.

[Baryngyl]

I been using wood pellets for a pellet stove, I have about 1/3 of a bag of them from an old stove that does not work so thought I would try them, a new bag is around $4.00 to $6.00 depending on where you get them and should last a very long time.




Michael Grace