Why do my cast boolits smell funny?

[Motor]

My brother and I cast some boolits tonight. There was a mix of old bullets a couple lead battery terminals and our normal lead/linotype mix.

The boolits cast just fine and are 12bhn according to the Lee hardness tester.

The funny thing is they smell like the scent that they add to natural gas. Any ideas to why ?

Motor

[knifemaker]

Could it be a sulfur type smell that may have came from using lead battery terminals?

[fryboy]

sulfur ? aka rotten eggs ? lead as a rule seems to often be found in nature with sulfur , also no idea what you used to smelt with but something to consider ... when working around things that have a umm aroma ,especially a clingy aroma, that smell often stays in me snooter for awhile , usually until i take a hot shower and clean my sinus cavities out , the umm rotten egg order from natural gas is also a very low ( but odoriferous ) parts per million and i've smelt it in old lines/appliances long after they've been clear

[Motor]

I water quench and when I first spread them out on a rag I could smell it. I didn't think much of it but then I sized them all with a Lee push through size die and let them collect in the Lee hopper. When I took the lid off of the hopper it hit me again. This is when I realized it was the boolits that smelled.

You guys are right though it could be from something that was in the bucket or even on the rag or from the mix. It's just weird because it's the first time I've had this happen.

Motor

PS: After powder coating I can no longer smell it. :)

[LAGS]

I had a Batch of ingots that got left outside in a bucket a few years back and the bucket got filled with rain water.
They got forgotton for months, and the water got moldy.
When I melted the ingots after they were dried out, they had a really foul smell like a cat litter box.
The bullets smelled too, but not as bad as the lead in the hot pot.
I guess lead is like a sponge for odors.

[Motor]

LAGS. Funny you mentioned ingots. I did notice my brother put a ingot in the pot that was in a box that we haven't used before. Maybe it was something in the ingots.

Motor

[bedbugbilly]

Isn't that what they make FreeBreeze for? :-)

As far as smelting & casting and ending up with a . . . ummm . . . "clinging odor". A trick I learned years ago when I wass on the fire department was after a run where you got into a lot of smoke, etc. that would "cling" to your hair, etc. - I would take a shower and wash my hair with Listerene Mouthwash. Sounds silly but it works. Wash it in that and then follow up with soap or shampoo. You never get the smell out of you fire coat or night pants but on my clothes, I'd throw in a small bottle of Coke during the wash cycle. That will usually take out odor as well as grease, heavy dirt, soot, etc. Folks look at me funny when I tell them that but it works and doesn't leave any residue, etc. on either your clothing or in the wash tub of the washer. We learned that trick many many years ago when we would work on equipment on the farm - greasing tractors, dozers, etc. Somebody put my Mother on to that little trick and it does work.