Pot dross discard or keep?

[Motard]

Marry Christmass all. I have a stupid novelty question: every cast session I end up having a half pot (scarce) of dross removed from skimming and fluxing. Original alloy is not dirty nor badly oxidized and come from ingot i make myself melting, fluxing and pouring pure lead, www, shotgun lead and other. Nevertheless I always flux twice or thee time a casting session. first when I start and then when I add ingotts.
Now I am keeping the dross and looking to ad it to the lead nex time I prepare my alloy and ingotts. Is this wrong?

[Retumbo]

I save it up all year. Once a year I throw it in a pot with 3 or 4 big candles. Put everything on the stove. The lead will sink below the liquid wax while most other stuff will float. Throw in a couple hand fulls of saw dust and set her on fire. I turn off the heat and let it burn itself out. After cooling you have a hunk of lead on the bottom and ashes and junk on top. I discard the krap and remelt and flux what is left. I end up with three or four lb ingots of tin rich alloy.

[MrWolf]

My smelting is about 150lbs of ww at a time. I just put the dross from the previous smelting into the next batch.

[Hardcast416taylor]

In the dross you have lead, tin, antimony, copper and other trace metals. As has been already stated just add it back in on the next melt.Robert

[John Boy]

I save it up all year. Once a year I throw it in a pot with 3 or 4 big candles. :holysheep
Properly fluxed dross should not have any lead in it! Might want to drill holes in the side of a SS spoon for the Pb to drain back into the pot. The only dross that goes into my tuna fish can is black ash and then into the garbage can! :grin::grin:

[scottfire1957]

I toss it with the clips and other ****.

[Seeker]

My smelting is about 150lbs of ww at a time. I just put the dross from the previous smelting into the next batch.
That's what I do with it also.

[runfiverun]

that's a lot of dross.

I get maybe a couple of table spoons full when I decide to clean my alloy in the 40 lb casting pots. [about every 5-6 sessions]
I usually throw it down into a metal bucket and run it through the next time I melt ww's.
I generally end up with more dust and junk than lead but it only takes a few minutes while the other pot is melting so it's no big deal.

[RogerDat]

Dross I had gunned after doing a batch melt of all the dross from making several hundred pounds of ingots and a some bullet casting was tin rich. From the casting pot I get much less but I'm assuming it is tin rich as the tin oxidizes faster than the lead. Even though it is not a lot of dross from casting pot it is not any trouble to dump it into the can right next to the burner.

I have not done WW's in a while but when I did the dross from one batch went into the next batch. Most of what I have done more recently has been scrap lead of one sort or another so less dross and I'm less inclined to feed the stuff into the next batch as it is probably something different than the dross. So I save it and will feed it in the next time I do WW's.

[scottfire1957]

Dross I had gunned after doing a batch melt of all the dross from making several hundred pounds of ingots and a some bullet casting was tin rich. From the casting pot I get much less but I'm assuming it is tin rich as the tin oxidizes faster than the lead. Even though it is not a lot of dross from casting pot it is not any trouble to dump it into the can right next to the burner.

I have not done WW's in a while but when I did the dross from one batch went into the next batch. Most of what I have done more recently has been scrap lead of one sort or another so less dross and I'm less inclined to feed the stuff into the next batch as it is probably something different than the dross. So I save it and will feed it in the next time I do WW's.

SN rich, but what was the weight? Not the dross, but the SN. Enough to be concerned about?

[Retumbo]

Properly fluxed dross should not have any lead in it! Might want to drill holes in the side of a SS spoon for the Pb to drain back into the pot. The only dross that goes into my tuna fish can is black ash and then into the garbage can! :grin::grin:

I generally do a lot of COWW. so when smelting I get dross and some lead when i skim the top. Not so much dross from casting. I usually end up with a coffee can or two.

[cajun shooter]

If you flux with the proper material while smelting and then again while adding ingots to your pot, you should have nothing but a black ash with very little if any lead, tin, or any other metal in the dross. It sounds as if some of you may be removing the tin from your pots from improper fluxing. I never have anything but throw away in my dross. My results are the same as that of John Boys.
I've used many products to flux with since I started to learn my casting in 1970-71. I feel my best results have been achieved with a spruce sawdust that is a little coarse in size. It also smells better than the other products. I've read on this forum where many members use old oil and transmission fluids for this chore. I would caution those who do this to research what is in this type of fluxing product. Many members have stated that they use the sawdust that comes from Lowe's , Home Depot, and other types of stores that cut lumber for the public. I will just say that you are playing with danger while using this material as they cut treated lumber also. It's all mixed in and treated lumber fumes may kill if enough is taken in. Later David

[lightman]

When I do multiple smelts I add the dross to the next one and when at the last one toss the leftovers. Tests that I have seen show this to be high in tin, but like others have said, if you are fluxing it should only be trash.

[Kosh75287]

Kinda off-topic, but does zinc (Zn) end up in the dross? If there is a significant amount of it in the melt, is there a way to mitigate the effects of Zn contamination in a melt, besides diluting it in buckets of more lead?

[Retumbo]

Generally you sort out your zinc weights either by hand or when they float on top of the lead. Zinc is not the end all and up to 3-5% will not do a heck of a lot to your bullets. You need to add a little more tin to help these bullets fill out properly.

[bangerjim]

Toss it. I have tried re-melting/refining it and a total waste of time and energy for the little silver metal you get back. And you do not even know what is in the ingots you derive from that mess.

I have bigger fish (and ingots) to fry than trying to get blood out of a stone.

banger

[upnorthwis]

When I get enough to fill a cast iron pot, it goes in the wood stove until cherry red. Can usually get another half pound out of it and you can't make a bad Cowboy bullet.

[Motard]

Lot of info here. Thanks alott

[JSnover]

If you're doing it right, your dross will be lightweight, dark-colored and dusty. There's no harm throwing it back into your pot, just in case, but I prefer to stand upwind or wear a dust mask whenever I work with that stuff.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It needs care. You might be able to get some good lead out of it - it depends how it was formed and collected - but lead oxide is a lot more easily absorbed as a poison than metallic lead, and being a lighter powder, more easily gets where it shouldn't. What you will eventually have to dispose of should be strictly segregated. In particular I wouldn't want to heat lead far above ordinary casting temperature.

[pete501]

Offer your dross on swap & sell, you will find out if it is worth saving.

[John Boy]

DIY Rosin Flux Compound ... http://makezine.com/2012/06/14/diy-solder-flux/

[Mitch]

I don't keep the **** from the fluxing with sawdust.It just that the **** you do not want>Now the stuff I take off the top after the sawdust treatment I keep in a separate old metal 2lb coffee can.When it is full I get 5 to 6lbs of lead.i have no clue what the content is alloy wise.I just put it in a big batch of alloy the next time around.I was told to do this when I first stared casting.I think it is a good idea just in case one gets things a bit hot or just think they may be taking tome tin out of the mix then you still have it for another batch

[MaryB]

I use it to make counterweights. Made one for the roll up door on my deck shed so it is easy on my bad back. Made a pair for my friends garage door(old style solid door that tilts back and up, heavy beast!) using dross from the super dirty wheel weights I was given. Tossed the clips in the mold and started dumping the dross in. He left it in the mold(2" steel pipe) and attached it to cables that counter balance the door weight.

[JSnover]

I've rendered my dross down to the point where it was nothing but dusty, gritty ash, very lightweight, after several years of melting and re-melting. I assumed it was pretty toxic stuff so I mixed it into a bucket of quick-crete and used it as a doorstop in the shed. Didn't seem right to just dump it outside or toss it out with the trash. I figured any small amount that leached form the surface would not be enough to hurt anyone and the rest would be pretty well contained.

[twc1964]

When i first started casting, i skimmed way too much stuff off the top and after i had twenty pounds of it i decided to smelt it but just get the dirt out this time. I make about 13 ingots that had a hardness of over 24bhn. Lots of tin and antimony im thinking. It sure came in handy hardening up real soft stuff.

[Nose Dive]

I too save mine for a period of time. When I have a smelt pot load, I rerun it with plenty of flux. I don't get a great deal of anything really usable for shooting, but do get some material for line sinkers...that kinda stuff. I toss WW clips from the out set...no need to rerun them.

So, is it worth the time and money? Well, probably not, but I make myself feel like I am not wasting any usable material.

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[RogerDat]

After 700# batch of COWW's, printers lead, and plain pipe the dross plus the drips and dribbles from casting those ingots and about a thousand bullets filled 2 large coffee cans with dross, this yielded about 5# of lead and a bread loaf pan of fine ash. I'll get the ingot gunned and mix it into a casting batch based on what it is.