lightman
03-29-2017, 10:10 PM
Many of you may remember a few post I made a month or so back about cleaning up around my shop and the wheelweights that I found. Well I finally got around to smelting them. A couple of different buddies came over and we spent two different days around the smelting pot.
This is my burner and smelting pot.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1286.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1286.jpg.html)
This is the pot and burner sitting on a sheet of plywood. The two white barrels are the landing zone. The eight 5 gallon buckets in front are between 1/2 and 3/4 full. The pot is also about 1/2 full. All clip-on wheelweights.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1288.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1288.jpg.html)
This is a better picture of my landing zone. Seven Lyman style molds on a piece of 1/2 X 6in steel plate, sitting on a 2X8. I usually sit behind this to dump the molds.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1291.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1291.jpg.html)
This is the staging area where the finished ingot is stacked until it cools.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1293.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1293.jpg.html)
This is one of my buddies and a former co-worker that wants to get into casting. He just joined the forum under the name "Biggin". I hooked him up with the ladle!
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1294.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1294.jpg.html)
This was the first days yield. I started moving these to a milk crate before I remembered to take a picture but there was another partial layer. We melted 6 of the 8 buckets for a total of about 640#.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1297.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1297.jpg.html)
The second day a different buddy came by to help and he brought a stack of sheet lead to smelt. We melted my remaining 2 buckets for a total of 273# and his totaled about 128#. Roy is working the ladle while I dump the molds, move the ingots to the staging area and monitor the burner.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1304.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1304.jpg.html)
Finally, Miller Time! My total for both days was 923# of clip-on ingots. I had 1-1/2 five gallon buckets of clips. While sorting I missed about 12 weights that were either steel or zinc that came up with the clips. Roy had 128# of sheet lead ingots. All in all, I'm tired but happy!
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1309.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1309.jpg.html)
This is my burner and smelting pot.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1286.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1286.jpg.html)
This is the pot and burner sitting on a sheet of plywood. The two white barrels are the landing zone. The eight 5 gallon buckets in front are between 1/2 and 3/4 full. The pot is also about 1/2 full. All clip-on wheelweights.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1288.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1288.jpg.html)
This is a better picture of my landing zone. Seven Lyman style molds on a piece of 1/2 X 6in steel plate, sitting on a 2X8. I usually sit behind this to dump the molds.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1291.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1291.jpg.html)
This is the staging area where the finished ingot is stacked until it cools.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1293.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1293.jpg.html)
This is one of my buddies and a former co-worker that wants to get into casting. He just joined the forum under the name "Biggin". I hooked him up with the ladle!
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1294.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1294.jpg.html)
This was the first days yield. I started moving these to a milk crate before I remembered to take a picture but there was another partial layer. We melted 6 of the 8 buckets for a total of about 640#.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1297.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1297.jpg.html)
The second day a different buddy came by to help and he brought a stack of sheet lead to smelt. We melted my remaining 2 buckets for a total of 273# and his totaled about 128#. Roy is working the ladle while I dump the molds, move the ingots to the staging area and monitor the burner.
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1304.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1304.jpg.html)
Finally, Miller Time! My total for both days was 923# of clip-on ingots. I had 1-1/2 five gallon buckets of clips. While sorting I missed about 12 weights that were either steel or zinc that came up with the clips. Roy had 128# of sheet lead ingots. All in all, I'm tired but happy!
http://i788.photobucket.com/albums/yy164/PTheodo/IMG_1309.jpg (http://s788.photobucket.com/user/PTheodo/media/IMG_1309.jpg.html)