compass will
03-23-2008, 09:10 PM
Had some extra time today, So I fired up the equipment I been putting together. Decided to cook some stick-on wheel weights, then throw in some pipe I had.
Everything went as planned. wheel weights were not cleaned (tons of tape) so the pot started smoking. I lite the pot and smoke cleaned up, but temp climbed real quick. I was afraid that I would melt any zinc that might be in there.
Quickly I scooped out the zinc, I was amazed at how many weights I pulled out! I need to do a better job sorting. Added the pipe, then I fluxed with a long square wood stick until the end started to be black. Lots of Dross came out, skimmed it off but it still kept coming up, so I added some 3 or 4 oz of used motor oil. (used diesel motor oil). It started smoking, then lit, but I stirred it in, man a ton of crap came to the top (was this crap from the used Diesel motor oil?) Tried to get all of it off with ladle (note to self: get large spoon, ladle don't work for skimming).
I think "this is easy". I poured into these two silver muffin pans from wally world. Great, 24 down but I still got more lead in pot! waited until the first tray was hard, I can't get the ingots out! I destroyed both sets of pans by pealing the tins off the lead. The lead had soldered itself to the pans. Managed to save a couple long enough to fill them again and empty the pot.
Need to find some cast pans. Still got 3 buckets of WW left to go.
I still got time since I don't have a pot or mold, and Midway is out of stock on everything I need.
Everything went as planned. wheel weights were not cleaned (tons of tape) so the pot started smoking. I lite the pot and smoke cleaned up, but temp climbed real quick. I was afraid that I would melt any zinc that might be in there.
Quickly I scooped out the zinc, I was amazed at how many weights I pulled out! I need to do a better job sorting. Added the pipe, then I fluxed with a long square wood stick until the end started to be black. Lots of Dross came out, skimmed it off but it still kept coming up, so I added some 3 or 4 oz of used motor oil. (used diesel motor oil). It started smoking, then lit, but I stirred it in, man a ton of crap came to the top (was this crap from the used Diesel motor oil?) Tried to get all of it off with ladle (note to self: get large spoon, ladle don't work for skimming).
I think "this is easy". I poured into these two silver muffin pans from wally world. Great, 24 down but I still got more lead in pot! waited until the first tray was hard, I can't get the ingots out! I destroyed both sets of pans by pealing the tins off the lead. The lead had soldered itself to the pans. Managed to save a couple long enough to fill them again and empty the pot.
Need to find some cast pans. Still got 3 buckets of WW left to go.
I still got time since I don't have a pot or mold, and Midway is out of stock on everything I need.