Cast iron pot project

[Lead melter]

I have been made a gift of two cast iron sauce pots. The largest will hold slightly more than a quart, while the smallest will hold about a pint. These pots have no lips for pouring.

Each pot is about 3/16" thick. I wish to keep the smaller as is in case I ever decide to ladle cast, but the larger is intended to be a smelter. In this pot I would like to install some sort of nozzle to pour alloy into my ingot mold. Cast will not bend without cracking, it's too thin to weld, brazing will be very difficult, and attaching a spout with bolts will not allow a good seal.

My only other idea is to drill and tap the side near the lip, then seat a hollow bolt with the head shaped to contour with the inside of the pot, or find some way to secure a piece of copper tube through the side to act as a spout.

Any ideas or procedures?

[Calamity Jake]

Save yourself the time and trouble and just dip it in the ingot molds, A lot safer that way.

[boommer]

Just dip it! you slip and you have a night mare on your hands.

[454PB]

On one of my home made pots, I just used a grinder to put a 3/4" semi-circular pour spout at the top on one side.

[JohnSmiles]

I agree.
Just dip it for now.
Neither pot is really large enough to fuss with for smelting.
I would wait until you get a larger pot and then go with a bottom pour modification.
At least 2 gallon capacity anyway.
But thats just me.
I currently have a 2 gallon(8 qt) cast iron pot with lid, and am still looking for a larger tank/pot to put a bottom pour spout on myself, just for smelting and homogenizing alloys into ingots.

As I said, thats just me.

[mooman76]

I agree too with dip it. I have a 1 qt pot and I've been using it for years as my pot for ladle casting. I have a 2qt for smelting.

[Texasflyboy]

At the 500F plus temperature range needed for lead work, a cast iron pot will crack if struck or dropped accidentally.

A worst case scenario will dump all the lead in the pot if the crack cleaves the pot in two. A less than worse case scenario will drip molten lead all over the area.

In the past I used cast iron pots, mainly salvaged cookware. Three cracked pots later, with the last one splitting in half with over 20 lbs of molten lead in it convinced me to go the plate steel route.

Most cast iron cookware was made to operate in the sub 400F range. And a lot of the cheap chinese cast iron cookware has little or no quality control on the metal used to cast the pots.

FWIW...