Remelting Dross

[mattd]

After fluxing with sawdust I have various forms of dross.....lots from smelting everything - WW, Shot, Roof lead, Range lead, etc. I have some from fluxing my alloys when ever i make a new batch or reheat a batch. And I always have thrown it in the same bucket. That bucket was getting heavy so I gave a go at melting it down and maybe recovering some lead out of it. For maybe 10lbs of dirt I got 1 or 2 of lead. And what i skimmed from that, as well as all the other smelting I did that day, went back in the bucket for the next time it gets heavy.

I'm thinking about it now tho, and maybe that's not a great thing. All that old flux, full of bad stuff, is adding a higher concentration of bad stuff that needs to be dealt with. So should I keep the bucket going and flux it a bunch more then usual when I melt it down, or just toss it.

[bangerjim]

You will have very little Sn in there from what you describe you melted. You probably can reclaim a few pounds of almost pure lead, but is it worth all the fuel and time to gain a couple pounds?

I typically throw my dross in a bucket, but I re-melt alloys with high Sn and Sb contents and recover stuff that is far more valuable than just plain old Pb.

Do what you feel is best, but consider the time and $$ to access that tiny bit of lead. Take than fuel $$ and buy some pure in ingot form from here!

banger

[konsole]

Find something like this at a thrift store, just much bigger...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LDR-501-3115-1-5-16-Inch-Metal-Strainer-/181632013939?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a4a1c9673

dump the dross in it, shake it like crazy over another container, and the small clumps of metal from that dross will stay in the container and all the other misc junk will fall through into the bucket underneath. I found a container thats about the size of a dogfood bowl and has about 50 holes that are about 1/8" diameter each. Or perhaps a paint can with alot of holes drilled into the bottom, and you can use the lid to keep stuff inside when shaking it.

[country gent]

Im going to try putting the dross from my pot into a big screen collander and sitting it under the garages eve spout. Im thinking a few rains should wash most of the carbon and such thru leaving the alloys in the screen

[bangerjim]

Find something like this at a thrift store, just much bigger...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LDR-501-3115-1-5-16-Inch-Metal-Strainer-/181632013939?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a4a1c9673

dump the dross in it, shake it like crazy over another container, and the small clumps of metal from that dross will stay in the container and all the other misc junk will fall through into the bucket underneath. I found a container thats about the size of a dogfood bowl and has about 50 holes that are about 1/8" diameter each. Or perhaps a paint can with alot of holes drilled into the bottom, and you can use the lid to keep stuff inside when shaking it.

Watch breathing the dist from that! It is toxic with various oxides of lead and other things in it!

banger

[bangerjim]

Im going to try putting the dross from my pot into a big screen collander and sitting it under the garages eve spout. Im thinking a few rains should wash most of the carbon and such thru leaving the alloys in the screen


The run-off will be toxic. Make sure you do not have any fruit trees or vegetables growing where that run-off goes. They will absorb it into themselves and you will be eating Pb and not know it.

[country gent]

Only thing around that downspout is an old woodchuck hole

[NavyVet1959]

For the "chunkier" dross, I often just toss it in the smelting pot when I'm doing the next smelting. If the dross is just a fine powder, I've probably gotten all the lead out of it that's possible and it gets tossed.

[lwknight]

I never got enough usable lead from reprocessed dross to be worth messing with . I use a screen dipper to get all the sizable junk out and then a solid spoon to skim the rest.
I tried to reduce " the rest " with flux and stirring , working it diligently but still came up with so little that I decided from now on, It all gets tossed.

[NavyVet1959]

I once took all the wheelweights, clips, etc that I had skimmed from the smelting put and ran a hot pot to see what I could get out of them. Managed to end up with very clean steel afterwards and a small amount of zinc that was probably alloyed with a bit of lead in the bottom. Definitely not worth the effort.