First smelt

[Seeker]

Well, I finally got around to it. I sorted carefully and am confident that i got all the zinc out. Also, I started skimming the clips off just as it come to a complete melt. Then I fluxed with wax and finally pine sawdust. The lead was super clean as I was pouring these ingots. Sure was fun and can't wait to do it again. This is the results. couple of questions though. First, are the ingots always a dull frosty color? and what really happens to the lead if a zinc weight gets melted into the batch?

138695

[Oreo]

The frostiness of the lead has a lot to do with temperature of the melt when pouring the ingots and a little to do with the antimony content. The dull gray is normal but you should be able to easily scrape through to a shiny silver using any old steel edge.

Zinc contamination depends on the percentage of zinc in the melt. One or two zinc ww in a 100lb melt and you probably won't even notice. As the amount of zinc increases you get to a real obvious mess that won't cast well- boolits or ingots. It's a problem that is mostly over stated as long as you put forth the effort to sort out what goes into the melt pot.

Your ingots look good!

[Mitch]

Looks great.I agree with oreo the alloy of the lead will look different in ingots or boolits.now you will be hunting more lead lol.you aer how hooked enjoy and post some info of new boolits

Bob

[Seeker]

Thanks guys...you are right, I'm hooked and already seeking more wheel weights. Now I'm gonna throw a pic. 3 doors up in the cast boolits section of some I just cast with these ingots. It felt different somehow than when I was casting boolits with some other alloy that I have.

[bangerjim]

Ingots can be a vaariety of colors and finishies. Pure lead can be any color of the rainbow depending on you hot you get it!

COWW's will be dull gray most times. Don't worry........be happy. I have gone up to 5% Zn as a test and all it did was need more Sn for fill and bullets were a tad lighter in weight. This worry of "OMG......one zinker spoiled my whole 100# re-melt" is totally bogus.

Now get out there and cast some of those bad boy boolits!

bangerjim

[Eddie17]

I thought I have read here, to smelt first with sawdust, then use bees wax as a flux to reintroduce tin and antinminy!

[bangerjim]

I thought I have read here, to smelt first with sawdust, then use bees wax as a flux to reintroduce tin and antinminy!

When re-melting your COWW's and other dirty lead, flux 3x with pine sawdust. Stir VERY well. You can use some parafin the 3rd time if you wish, as a reducer. I do.

I only use BEESWAX in my casting pot to reduce the Sn back in. Almost instant mirror-like surface! Sawdust makes too much mess and I have seen it get down in the bottom pour spigot. Have no idea how but it gets in there!!!!! Stick to beeswax.

[RogerDat]

Nice looking ingots you have there seeker. The melt temp impacts the mold temp, both by how hot the melt is and also by how long you let the ingot cool, the mold and ingot are trying to balance at the same temperature as long as the lead is in the ingot mold. Both melt and mold temperature can impact the outer surface appearance.

I see a difference between using two molds and three with homemade angle iron molds. Depending on the number of molds being used the hot lead is in the mold for a different amount of time before being dumped as an ingot, once dumped the mold is air cooling for a different amount of time as things are positioned for the next filling. Also see a difference between first fill (cooler mold) and later fills after mold heats up.

[konsole]

With wheel weights the clip-on ingots will consistently have a brighter and more frosted look then the stick-on ingots, kind of a matte grainy finish.

The stick-on ingots will consistently have a darker and more mirror finish then the clip-ons and you should see the occasional strip of rainbow colors that pure lead can have.

Also if the ingots are atleast an inch or so tall with the top of the ingot having an area of atleast 5 inches or so you will see the stick-on ingots cave in on top, while the clip-ons will have no or hardly no noticeable cave-in. The ingots sometimes cave-in enough that the lead will show some cracks around the cave-in.