What Did You Smelt Today?

[6622729]

I'm making up 24lbs of as close as I can guess my way to #2 Lyman alloy (5% tin, 5% antimony, 90% lead). I'm using lead ingots of forklift battery intercell connectors, mono type still in letter form and antique Dutch Boy #888 wiping solder (40% tin, 60% soft lead).

Sort of like the "what did you do in the reloading room today?" thread, what did you smelt today?


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[triggerhappy243]

Beef stirfry..... Man was it good.

[Cowboy_Dan]

Tomorrow I plan to "smelt" my latest bucket of wheel weights. Offhand I would say 65% clip on, 10% stick on, 20% steel, 5% zinc. Free last time I changed my tires.

[bangerjim]

168472

These...................

Friday I plan to re-melt ~200# of pure lead sheeting into 1# ingots.

[triggerhappy243]

Nice... I love it.

[6622729]

I thought this thread would take off. I guess there are many more casters than there are people who smelt from scrap.

[triggerhappy243]

I gave up on wheel weights. Now I have a deal with an indoor range. Looks like I am getting about 1000 pounds per month. I am going to need a bigger pot.

[triggerhappy243]

Don't get me wrong, I still have a ton of w/w. but the supply is drying up.

[DerekP Houston]

I dunno, I don't smelt very often. I tend to do one large batch every few months or so, but it ain't particularly exciting.

[havfun]

tomorrow i will be smelting 100 lbs of wheel weights.

last week i smelted about 80 lbs of range lead 40 lbs of lead monotype and 2 lbs of tin made one really nice big batch.

that should hold me for a while

[Oklahoma Rebel]

cowboydan, you don't mean to smelt the zinc in with your alloy do you? it will cause a lot of problems. today I smelted a mix of 50/50 WW/PB, with 3% tin, and poured them into a csat iron muffin pan. I know have 58 ingots= about 125lbs @ a little over 2lbs each, have another batch ready when I get 35lbs of lead (pipe with the joints is what I prefer). have a good day, be careful! Travis

[John Boy]

I guess there are many more casters than there are people who smelt from scrap.
Good probability they are actively working or casting instead of answering to one of these 'What did you do today" meaningless threads.
PS: Smelts are running now and good eating:grin:

[bangerjim]

I thought this thread would take off. I guess there are many more casters than there are people who smelt from scrap.

EVERYBODY re-melts scrap. Not rocket science....just lots of heat and the re-melting of lead from one form to another. (not actual smelting of ore at all) I do it on a weekly basis..... hundreds of pounds normally. Nothing to brag or write about. Just part of the hobby.

Casting, loading, and gun-smithing.....are an art! Those threads stay around for a while with tons of comments.

banger

[Cowboy_Dan]

cowboydan, you don't mean to smelt the zinc in with your alloy do you? it will cause a lot of problems.

No, but I set them aside and when I have enough there is a member here who will trade for them. I think he uses them to make cannon balls. Thanks for looking out, though.

[randyrat]

I was ready to send you lead for real Smelt, ya the fish. Dang it, I missed the run this year.


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[triggerhappy243]

I smelted an 85 pound bucket of range lead yesturday. and had a small thin ingot of what i was puzzled about. after clearing off all the copper and crud, I tossed it in..... and it instantly popped up to the surface like a rubber duck, I snached that puppy outa there real quick. I knew right then what it was. yep a zincer. caught in time.

[Hammerlane]

168745 Another Day at the Salt Mine

[6622729]

168745 Another Day at the Salt Mine

Wow! Pictures like that are very motivating.

[RoadBike]

I conducted my first-ever smelt today, range scrap. Bottom line, no problems, and 51 pounds of lead.

I wore long sleeves, jeans, cap, boots, welding gloves, and a face shield, and given my location in Louisiana, I was completely soaked in sweat at the conclusion of this endeavor. Jeans were sticking to me etc.

Here's a shot of my smelting equipment. Dutch oven is 12" x 4", and the burner is a Bayou Classic Jet burner.
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z90/gearloose_2007/IMG_1135_zpshokn855t.jpg (http://s194.photobucket.com/user/gearloose_2007/media/IMG_1135_zpshokn855t.jpg.html)

Here's a shot of moulds and cooling equipment, two 1/2" deep aluminum foil pizza pans from the dollar store filled with water. As I filled moulds, I very carefully placed them into the water to cool. I had a wet towel on the grass onto which to empty the moulds. That all worked pretty well. Ingots popped right out onto the towel.
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z90/gearloose_2007/IMG_1136_zpsysjqlzrc.jpg (http://s194.photobucket.com/user/gearloose_2007/media/IMG_1136_zpsysjqlzrc.jpg.html)

After removing jackets, I fluxed 3X with pine sawdust and then with Gulf Wax.

Lead temperature initially was 750F, so I decreased the fuel flow a little and got it down to around 700F.

As I was filling ingots, I noticed a slight "golden" hue atop the lead and fluxed again with Gulf wax. This hue kept returning. I'm hoping I didn't skim off some tin!

I had left the muffin tins outside to rust and had no trouble with ingots releasing from them; however, these tins are a little flexy with all that weight. Unfortunately, they had a layer or layers of pine and whatever other pollen accumulated in them. The resulting ingots were a bit dirty looking. I think I like the commercial moulds better.

Here are the final results. At least I got the first done. Given the self-imposed tension in this endeavor and the heat/humidity, I was as worn out as I am after a 65-mile bike ride, perhaps more so.
http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z90/gearloose_2007/IMG_1140_zpsbgtxexng.jpg (http://s194.photobucket.com/user/gearloose_2007/media/IMG_1140_zpsbgtxexng.jpg.html)

My filling technique left something to be desired. Some of my ingots ain't too pretty.

Toward the end of the run, I cast a couple of boolits, Lee 358-148-WC, for the sole purpose of hardness testing in a few days. These boolits WILL NOT appear the the Cast Boolits Hall of Fame. Neither my mould nor my ladle were hot enough, but at least I got something to test.

I learned that one can put way too many boolits in the pot at the beginning. It was taking forever to melt. I stopped the burner and scooped out about half of what was there, and I could see some melted lead in the pot. One the reduced mass melted, I skimmed jackets and added the remainder that I had earlier removed. I knew they were dry, and there were no issues.

I learned that an assistant would be nice. My cooling area was a few steps away from the melting area, and when I got up to place moulds it was a pain.

I snipped all fully enclosed (jacketed/plated) scrap boolits with a 24" bolt cutter a few weeks ago. No problems with squirting lead.

Glad that's done. I've got a lot more range scrap and a bunch of wheel weights that need to be processed. Hopefully, my technique will improve.

[lightman]

Its a learning process. Your next one will go smoother. All in all it looks like a job well done. And yeah, having a buddy to help makes it go a lot quicker. My burner is sized so that the rim of my smelting pot is about 32 inches high. I can hold my ladle about waist high, fill it up, take a step and pour. No bending over or stooping. I usually have a buddy that dumps the molds and it is pretty much a continuous process.

[Budzilla 19]

While at the local tire shop today, (bought some tires and wheels for my hot-rod diesel truck) I asked the young man there, "How about some wheel weights?" Sure says he, so I ended up with 32 lbs of coww's, and iron and the occasional zinc, all in all, 27 1/2 lbs of cleaned wheel weights alloyed with 3% SN, added to the stash!! Free is always a plus, and a supply of some more as they come available!! It happens every now and then. Oh, I almost forgot, made a heck of a deal for some tires for my dually truck too!

[taco650]

Yesterday I did about 25lbs of COWW's.

[Trapperscott]

I smelted 1058 lbs of clip on wheel weights today. About 6 months accumulation. I smelt in 350 lb batches and have 8, 5 gang ingot molds that I built myself. My back hurts now!!

[Michael J. Spangler]

Smelted a batch of pure today. Mostly roofing lead and a couple ingots one from a plumber one chunk off of a huge pig and a couple small ingots marked doe run.
They were pretty clean compared to what I've been working with. Besides the rubber tape stuff here and there they were spotless. Couple handfuls of pine shavings. Stirred with a few strips of shingles and a bunch of wax before pouring.
I'll have to weigh the total to see how I made out.
I made a bunch of partial ingots up. So when I'm matching the alloy weight for weight with COWW I have some small nuggets to get the weight as close as possible.


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[6622729]

Smelted a batch of pure today. Mostly roofing lead and a couple ingots one from a plumber one chunk off of a huge pig and a couple small ingots marked doe run.
They were pretty clean compared to what I've been working with. Besides the rubber tape stuff here and there they were spotless. Couple handfuls of pine shavings. Stirred with a few strips of shingles and a bunch of wax before pouring.
I'll have to weigh the total to see how I made out.
I made a bunch of partial ingots up. So when I'm matching the alloy weight for weight with COWW I have some small nuggets to get the weight as close as possible.


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So, you're sampling the smelt then adjusting with tin or antimony to mimic COWW?

[Michael J. Spangler]

This batch I was just making into "pure" ingots. I make the smaller ingots so when Its time to put it in the bottom pour I can adjust my alloy.
I used to pour all muffin tin ingots but realized it was tough to match my alloy 1:1 because the ingots were not the same weight. I would search through looking for ingots that matched.
So now I can grab a few of each and if I need 2 more ounces of pure lead to make the blend I want I grab a small ingot and I'm spot on.


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