Been Saving All My Dross Scrapings

[RedRiver]

Been saving all of my dross for the past 6 months and got about 25 or so pounds so I put it all into the dutch oven and cleaned and fluxed it all up really good.

This was dross from my 20 pound Lee casting pot as well as my big cast iron smelting pot. Everyone says how you can overcook the tin out and it just goes into the dross, I thought that too. My dross was from wheel weights, pure lead, lead pipe, roofing lead, window came, pump seals, chilled shot, an old soup can shaped block and even Lyman #2.

Had my dross tested and it came back surprising.

Pb - 98.6%
Sb - 1.4%

No tin in my dross at all, and there were times when smelting when I thought it got so hot that the tin left the melt and drossed out.

Once again, take it as you will, but I'm not seeing where the tin will dross out at all.

[GhostHawk]

That is good information to know Red.

Like you I save mine throughout the year. Use it to start my pot when I smelt down and make a batch of alloy. I see a lot of fine grayish brown powder come out of it. But nothing I have ever been able to do has turned that back into melt again. Sawdust, bullet lube, bee's wax, paraffin.
Propane torch, nothin. So I don't worry about it much. But I do know that I get some alloy in with the scrapings, and it is worth it to me to hang onto it and reclaim all I can.

Not going to worry about the tin anymore though.

Good post Red, many thanks. How you been?

[308Jeff]

Great info. Thank you.

[lightman]

I've never saved this stuff. Maybe I should. It just never seemed to be enough to be worthwhile, but I'll stop in the street and pick up a wheelweight laying at the curb! Need to rethink, I guess!

[kenyerian]

Always saved mine. Never had it analyzed though.

[RedRiver]

I used to toss it in the trash. Bit with antimony in it, I will save it up and use it somehow. I really don't have a use for it. Maybe I will put it up for sale. I only use Lyman, clip on and pure.

[RedRiver]

I've never saved this stuff. Maybe I should. It just never seemed to be enough to be worthwhile, but I'll stop in the street and pick up a wheelweight laying at the curb! Need to rethink, I guess!

I got twenty pounds out of mine. It was nasty looking stuff before it was cleaned

[RedRiver]

That is good information to know Red.

Like you I save mine throughout the year. Use it to start my pot when I smelt down and make a batch of alloy. I see a lot of fine grayish brown powder come out of it. But nothing I have ever been able to do has turned that back into melt again. Sawdust, bullet lube, bee's wax, paraffin.
Propane torch, nothin. So I don't worry about it much. But I do know that I get some alloy in with the scrapings, and it is worth it to me to hang onto it and reclaim all I can.

Not going to worry about the tin anymore though.

Good post Red, many thanks. How you been?

Been good. Baby will be here in a few weeks, she is getting to the always in pain part. Heck she has to stand away from the sink doing dishes. Haha.

Nice weather this weekend.

How are you?

[Ateam]

I save all my dross and add it back into a coww smelt once it reaches liquid and just before I add my sawdust (cedar planer shavings actually).

The first time I de-zinked a contaminated batch of lead I was unhappy with how heavy the sulfured dross was so I refluxed with sawdust and stirred. I ended up with the usual ash and these sort of pellets of what I guess to be zinc sulfate with little to no lead loss. I now do this to all unknown lead that ends up in my smelter, I like how the "grain refined" material casts and hardens even if there was no zinc in it to begin with. Sorry to wander off topic.

[10 ga]

I resmelt mine then toss in with the clips and stuff in an old refrigerator or AC shell and sell to the recycler for the 3 to 5 cent a lb for steel now. 10

[RP]

I save mine from the casting pot and toss it in with what I am smelting, So much easier to flux in my smelting pot due to the size.

[GhostHawk]

Been an expensive year. Dishwasher died, was replaced, washing machine died, got replaced. Last week my 20 year old AO Smith 50 gallon nat gas water heater sprung a leak. Got replaced.

1187 dollars later I have lots of great hot water, and am totally broke.

But no complaints. Still better than the alternative.

[RedRiver]

Always something. Always!

Would be nice if a guy could go two months without a repair on something.

[RogerDat]

I save mine, in two different bread loaf pans. One is mostly stuff I skim while casting ingots or bullets. Tends to be better grade stuff since a lot of that is from making alloy. Clean up drips, bad bullets from inspection, stuff off of ladles all go in the better stuff. The other is essentially heavy ash. More of that tends to come from large batches of pipe or sheet lead with lots of oxidation and "garbage" on the surface. COWW smelting skim goes in with that. Now because I make no sense I generally tend to melt them both down together when I do melt them.

I use a piece of 2x2 as a pestle to crush the molten metal beads from the ash and to force the bits of lead down to the bottom of the pot so they can join the puddle. Varies a bit in quality but always pretty decent 5 or 10 lbs. of lead a couple of times a year. The ash skimmed off of this pot is very much lighter than it was before hand. I tend to throw it in with those little moon shaped pieces from the almost empty smelting pot which always seem to be left over. Or at least have been left over since I became wise enough to not pick up a really hot and rather heavy cast iron dutch oven to try to dump out the last little bit. Now I just slide something under one side to make that last little bit run to the opposite side and let it harden there as a half moon shape. I do write on that what was in the pot but never seem to dig it out when doing that "flavor" of alloy.

I make one big block, get it tested, plug it into the alloy calculator as "custom" and it all gets used. Did I mention I include floor sweeping if they have shiny bits, so yes I'm cheap I guess but what the heck all those bits and pieces add up to $$$.

[skeettx]

I do not understand, all the stuff that I get from a major smelting operation is just either metal clips, hollow bullet jackets, or ash and trash
No lead in the dross, where are y'all coming up with this much lead in the dross??
Mike

[RogerDat]

Do a 500 lb. batch of making alloy and there will be some surface oxidation, I skim it off, crush against side of pot with stick to drive some lead out of it but some lead remains. I'm trying to go through large batch in 120# chunks so I'm not going to futz around too much trying to drive all the lead and tin oxide back into the melt. Little wax now and again, work it with a heavy wood paint stirrer. but I'm putting in clean lead ingots and I'm there to make 10# slabs so not going to mess around too much.

It was simple I skimmed "ash" but when collected in a large batch the ash was too heavy to be plain ash. From then on I keep it. Then I start throwing in bits and pieces of other clean up or drips, before you know it another block-o-lead goes under the bench for later testing.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

when I started I had lead in my dross that I could recover, now all I use is sawdust and I don't get any, except the stuff that sticks to the ww clips, I save that to melt