So I'm putting together a dedicated smelter.

[AbitNutz]

I no longer want to mix up and flux my different alloys in my casting pots. I'll get a propane burner and tank. Buffalo Arms has a couple at reasonable prices. That leaves me with getting some sort of iron pot...can you folks point me at what kind and where to get one? I'm not exactly sure what I'm after...

Thanks...

[carbine86]

What sort of price range are you looking to spend and what capacity are you looking at

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[LAKEMASTER]

i use a white gas coleman stove and dutch oven. works wonderfully. i do 20 lbs a a time. total investment is ~ $15

i also use gasoline instead of white gas...........

[Soundguy]

a cheap walmart turkey fryer setup works fine.. they come with a aluminum stock pot and burner.

[TexasGrunt]

A cast iron dutch oven works like a champ. Academy or Harbor Freight.

Just be careful with the size. It's very easy to get one that holds enough lead to collapse an inexpensive stand.

[OutHuntn84]

Any old cast iron dutch oven will work out great. A good ladle was the hardest thing for me to come across without spending an arm and a leg. Found an all metal stamped ladle at walmart bent the cup portion parallel to the handle and bang had a smelting ladle.

[AbitNutz]

See, that's what I'm talking about. I have no idea what a dutch oven is....Buffalo Arms has a couple of nice looking propane burners. They refer to using a cast iron pot but they don't go beyond that.

OK, so a dutch oven is just the pot. H/F has a 12" one for like $29.00...

[country gent]

BAco also has lead pots that are cast steel or forgings not sure which. My small pot is one of their 30Lb versions. there are bigger there also. My big pot is the bottom of a 25lb propane cylinder cut off 2" above the bottom radious this pot hold just over 125 lbs of lead. I had an obsolete tank wrapped a layer of 2" tape around it so edges met with now wrinkles for a cut guide left the valve open for several weeks and washed twice with soap water. a hack saw and worked around the tank following the tape edge. I then cut a 3" ring same way to weld around to make a bigger base for it to set on, and act as a wind shield. With the rounded bottom I can ladle down to 5-6 lbs of lead, depending on ladle used. A cast iron pot in the 5-8 quart range is do able also. With cast iron give it a short time to heat up slow. Start burner low and slowly work up to full temp to reduce cracking risks. Cast Iron dosnt do expansion real good. It needs sometime to heat evenly as it comes up to temp.

[308Jeff]

I picked up a 6qt enameled dutch oven at Goodwill for $5.00

2/3 full is 65 pounds.

[Springfield]

Better to get a good heavy stainless steel pot at Goodwill. Haven't had it happen myself but others have had the cast iron pot break if hit hard, like accidentally hit with your ladle. My steel pots hold over 150 lbs with no problem and last forever, just make sure it is a heavy duty one, not some thin steel cheapie. Do NOT use the thin aluminum pot that comes with the turkey fryer, it is not up to holding that kind of weight with molten lead in it.

[Soundguy]

Do NOT use the thin aluminum pot that comes with the turkey fryer, it is not up to holding that kind of weight with molten lead in it.


Don't put 600 gallons of lead in it.. it works just fine smelting 'normal' man sized loads.

I've been using an aluminum stock pout for a while with -0- problems.

Remember.. you don't have to put all your lead in once and never ever load it again.. you can actually add lead to your pot in increments.

[Tazza]

It also depends on how much you want to melt at a time. Other people use old LPG/propane cylinders cut in half to use as a melting pot with a turkey fryer to heat it up.

If you know what end of a grinder and welder to use, you too could make a big melting pot setup.

Personally, i made a pot that i heat with wood. An old large LPG bottle section cut off and welded inside a piece of a 44 gallon drum. Throw wood underneath it, it doesn't take long to melt a good 200 odd kg.

Hopefully this link works: http://i903.photobucket.com/albums/ac233/tazza_/master%20caster/Melting%20Pot/20151031_153011.jpg

[Springfield]

I used an aluminum pot for a few years also, but was convinced by people here that I shouldn't. Look up the melting temp of aluminum vs steel. For the cost of a steel pot at goodwill I didn't mind the extra safety. Maybe your pot is better, my turkey Fryer came with a very thin pot, thinner than your typical stove top pot.

[Tazza]

Yeah, avoid aluminium, if the pot is full it will not melt, but when empty or adding to an empty pot they can melt.

Cast iron or steel only

[country gent]

Springfield, Look up the aluminum's melting point In comparison to the lead and lead alloies we are using. That's the big thing. On most aluminum pots lead temps are very close to the yield points of aluminum. Cast iron is good but requires a warming stage. Stainless steel is good but not as efficent transferring heat. Copper is thin and may not stand the weight when hot but does transfer heat very good. Steel pots are good and do transfer heat well. The propane tanks are steel and usually between 1/8" and 3/16" thick a good solid pot when cut apart. The loss of strength temps are much lower for some materials than the melting points are.

[Soundguy]

Yall must go crazy with your gas burners!

I've used aluminum stock pots on gas burners for years and have yet to ever melt one!

[Soundguy]

Al melts at 1220f... Roughly 2x that of lead. Who here is running 1100' pots?

Anyone who has worked aluminum knows it pretty much stays solid right before slumping.

[Tazza]

It's not the temperature of the molten lead, it's mainly when you have an empty pot and you are heating it up and haven't added lead yet. I know you'd have to do something really wrong for it to happen. With lead in the pot, you won't melt it unless you were heating it up with an oxy torch that can provide excessive localized heat, but a normal ring burner won't.

I always start with an empty pot and put lead in it before i start the fire, so even if it was aluminium, it wouldn't melt on me either. Just a safety thing saying it "could" happen

[rwadley]

Aluminum may not melt until 1200F, but it gets soft somewhere between 600-900F.

[Soundguy]

Sure, drops down to about 5000psi t-strength.

[Wayne R. Scott]

i use a white gas coleman stove and dutch oven. works wonderfully. i do 20 lbs a a time. total investment is ~ $15

i also use gasoline instead of white gas...........

This is exactly how I do it!

[LAKEMASTER]

exactly...........

thats why i do 20ish lbs of lead at a time. the through of my lead pot breaking a handle and spewing lead all over me is horrifying.


Don't put 600 gallons of lead in it.. it works just fine smelting 'normal' man sized loads.

I've been using an aluminum stock pout for a while with -0- problems.

Remember.. you don't have to put all your lead in once and never ever load it again.. you can actually add lead to your pot in increments.

[LAKEMASTER]

This is exactly how I do it!

im a professional cheap @$$ --- $10+ for a gallon of kerosene is too fancy for me. i go all out and buy premium too

[Soundguy]

exactly...........

thats why i do 20ish lbs of lead at a time. the through of my lead pot breaking a handle and spewing lead all over me is horrifying.

yup.. I used to use a small ci fry pan to melt for ingots, but the handle was too small to control the pot and lead likes to splatter..

[Springfield]

Whatever works for you. I personally like to save up all the scrap I buy/find/am given and melt it all at once. So I tend to be melting 500+ lbs in a session. No way am I going to do that 20 lbs at a time, it takes way too long. I started out with a Coleman stove and a single LEE ingot mould. Now I have a turkey fryer, a pot that holds 150 lbs, a 4 lb ladle and enough ingot moulds to pour 50 lbs at a time. I can do 500 lbs in less than 3 hours, and not have to do it again for many months. I'd rather spend my time casting, reloading and shooting with my family. Smelting is just a necessary evil, not a leisure activity. I have a nice 1/4" thick aluminum pot, feel free to come and get it for nothing. It worked great, but I prefer to err on the side of safety.

[Soundguy]

I rather like the smelting and alloying process as well as casting.

20# ? Heck, a frying pan will hold 20#. ;)

No way I'd use something like that.

However I have been at a buddies house and he had a cut fire extinguisher bottom, it had a crude spout formed from some of the side metal. He made a holder for it to set over his burner. Pitcher style handle. Worked great four pouring ingots.

[vrh]

I have a Bayou SP 10 propane burner. An old cast iron pot with a really old dipper that I use. Not pretty, but does the job.

[rr2241tx]

Bought the fish fryer and cast iron dutch oven at Academy. Drilled a hole in the lid to hold my lead thermometer. The wind shroud is the bottom of a 5 gallon shore can and extends above the level I generally fill the dutch oven. The wind shroud really improved the heating efficiency. The cut-out fits the diameter of the oven loosely enough that the pot can be lifted out to pour the dregs into a final pair of Lyman ingot molds. It will easily hold 80# of lead or alloy at a time. The ability to monitor the melt temperature simplified sorting out the zinc wheelweights, just watch until the thermometer gets to about 700* then skim off everything that isn't melted.
http://i.imgur.com/l21u2AQ.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/O3xkhFF.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/77v7fst.jpg

Before I set this up, I used a Duel Fuel Coleman stove for decades but when all our gas started being 10% ethanol it coked up the generator pipe so quickly that I had to convert it to propane and that really ran through the propane. This rig paid for itself in propane savings in less than a year.

[OutHuntn84]

I rather like the smelting and alloying process as well as casting.

20# ? Heck, a frying pan will hold 20#. ;)

No way I'd use something like that.

However I have been at a buddies house and he had a cut fire extinguisher bottom, it had a crude spout formed from some of the side metal. He made a holder for it to set over his burner. Pitcher style handle. Worked great four pouring ingots.

A pitcher style smelter; that sounds like a neat enough concept I might have to give it a try!

[Soundguy]

It was very neat.

Wasn't the little extinguisher like a car uses.

He welded on a flat strap handle very much like a water pitcher, and looked like he either left a tab on one side and rolled it for a spout, or welded the nozzle hole back on with edges.

Poured great ingots. His were about ? 2.5# rectangle ingots.

[lightman]

I'm like Springfield, I like to do larger batches. My pot holds over 400 pounds and I can melt in in about 20 minutes or so on my homemade burner. I run 7 of the Lyman style ingot molds and if the right buddy is helping, a couple of his too! The landing zone is a 1/2 X 6 inch flat bar. After 4 or 5 cycles the molds get hot enough that we have to wait for the lead to cool and by then the ole back is ready for a break! I need to be doing this in the next few weeks!

[BK7saum]

I've posted this before. I'm like Springfield in that I like to smelt/melt as much as I can quickly and get it over with. I have two pots that I use. One holds about 100lbs with a bottom pour spout and the other holds 500+lbs with a bottom pour spout. I pour 8lb ingots in 3" c-channel. My alloys are either range scrap, wheelweights or lead pipe. I started out with the 100 lb pot then made the big pot. If I'm mixing/alloying tin into an alloy then I still use the smaller pot for a 100 lb batch.

http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee467/BLK7mm/Mobile%20Uploads/20170120_212611.jpg (http://s1229.photobucket.com/user/BLK7mm/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20170120_212611.jpg.html)

A stack of 3.5 lb ingots
http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee467/BLK7mm/2013-02-06011457.jpg (http://s1229.photobucket.com/user/BLK7mm/media/2013-02-06011457.jpg.html)

[LAKEMASTER]

i wish i had a melting pot that held 150 lbs. if i had one id use it. my main concern is the spout system. i mean, im lifting my dutch oven upand pouring it into a mold. if i were setting a mold down and draining lead into it, itd be a different story.

[308Jeff]

The bottom spout idea is one that I've been wanting to put together.

Ladling lead out of a pot into an ingot mold stinks, and picking up and pouring an 80lb/several hundred degree pot isn't my kind of risky.

[farmerjim]

I do 200+ pounds in an old cutoff propane cylinder. Could probably hold 400 if I needed it. Use a dipper to fill ingot molds.

[Soundguy]

Weld a ling handle, and pivot pins on those smelt tanks, get your burner setup so the tank rests on 2 uprights that have a U profile top for the smelt tank to set in, plus a third leg on the handle end. Offset the pivot so that gravity holds it, or add a latch. Then lift handle to pour. Have a contoured spout on the pour end, and a raised platform for ingot molds and a splash catcher.

[Krieger82]

Got a cast iron dutch oven at a garage sale for 10 bucks and a used propane burner for 15 bucks. Just smelted 8 buckets of wheel weights with the set up. You can also just cut an old propane tank in half.

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[Bob in St. Louis]

Lots of good info here. I'm not happy with my first two "systems", so I'm looking for ideas.
My first was a cast iron pot that was an old school plumbers lead melting pot. It's fine on the stove, but there's no pour spout, the bale is too loose and there's no handle for the other hand to control the pour with. A pair of vice grips clamped on the lip made it easier, but "rigging" a pot is getting a bit too sketchy.
I had a buddy put the pot in his e-tank to clean it, and it revealed a crack in the bottom of the pot.
Ok. It's a decoration now.

Second attempt I used a brand new #5 Lodge skillet, but managed to crack it the first use.
The handle is also too small, and pouring 20# of lead while the heat is burning through my welding glove splashing lead all over made me realise this is going to work either.
Thanks all for the ideas!

[lightman]

I'm probably at the "lifetime supply" status with my lead stash, but like many others, I still jump on a deal if I find one. So my smelting days are getting fewer and fewer. I've been happy with my homemade burner and steel pot and ladle. But, if I were to start over, I would go a different route. I would build a bottom pour smelting pot, on a dedicated burner and I would make between 6 and 10 ingot molds. I would use something like 2X1 inch channel and a length that would match a small flat rate box. I've never sold lead, but I have given some away. That size would be easy to store and handle and will fit in most any size melting pot.

It helps that I have a shop with a welding machine, a torch and a metal saw. I've always been something of a builder, but not as much as a few of the Guys on here!

[country gent]

I like a big tank and doing 400lbs-500lbs a batch. my set up was actually quite simple for smelting a heavy frame to support the pot and heavy sheet metal shroud around it and most of the pot. In this frame were 2 grates one for the pot one for stoker coal and a blower coming in underneath. I got it going with coal under the pot and around it. With the blower it didn't take long to melt a pot of scrap ( usually range scrape and or wheel weights) I used a big ladle made for 2 hand use. I poured 4-5 lb ingots in gang moulds of 5 ingots each I had 8 of these made up. I poured the ingots when last was filled first was ready to dump and fill rotating thru them. I then would refill pot and while it was melting ID ingots to that batch with metal stamps Pot number and date for ID. I had batches of base 400-500lbs to work from. 3 pots a day was my limit though. The big pot also made making a desired alloy much easier and in a bigger batch all the same

[country gent]

For a pourable smelter. Cut the propane tank to resemble a Lyman, or RCBS ladle. in half on vertical centerline down to desired volumne of pot. and take that section out. In the radious on top drill and tap a 1/2 NPT thread and a 3" pipe nipple. then 2 hinge pins for it to swixel on welded at the pot edge. Weld a 3" handle to the side and make the frame to support it from the pins. Once molten set ingot mouls in place and tip the pot on its swivel to pour. The "hood" left on will reduce splashing and spills. If a faster pour is wanted got to 3/4" pipe nipple.

[Soundguy]

Lots of good info here. I'm not happy with my first two "systems", so I'm looking for ideas.
My first was a cast iron pot that was an old school plumbers lead melting pot. It's fine on the stove, but there's no pour spout, the bale is too loose and there's no handle for the other hand to control the pour with. A pair of vice grips clamped on the lip made it easier, but "rigging" a pot is getting a bit too sketchy.
I had a buddy put the pot in his e-tank to clean it, and it revealed a crack in the bottom of the pot.
Ok. It's a decoration now.

Second attempt I used a brand new #5 Lodge skillet, but managed to crack it the first use.
The handle is also too small, and pouring 20# of lead while the heat is burning through my welding glove splashing lead all over made me realise this is going to work either.
Thanks all for the ideas!

That 'no stress' cracked pot ( either of them ) can be welded. There are plenty of rod choices that work fine.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Thank you.
I bought it last weekend, so I'll just take it back. Suppose I should warm it slower next time.
I've got a MIG, but no stick.

[Soundguy]

I doubt that was they issue, CI handles heat well.

Look how fast a manifold heats...

[Bob in St. Louis]

That's a good point, and I "poo poo'd" the thought of that. But the guy at work that told me this is a collector of cast iron cookware (he's my "e-tank" guy).
I've never, ever, once, worried about being gentile with CI with regard to how fast it heats/cools.
Ok, I think I'll side with you. I'll get a new one, and continue to uses it as I've always used CI. We'll see. Thank you!