Stirring Lead with Copper Wire

[justindad]

I had 4 lb of stick on wheel weights in my Lee dipper pot, which had only been lightly fluxed once with saw dust during the schmelting. So I fluxed it again and things seemed cleaner than expected. Then I figured I would stir a ground wire from 14GA residential wiring in the pot. I noticed a copper & purple sheen develop on the top of the molten lead, but I also noticed more slag building up. I then coated the wire in Felix lube while stirring in more pine shavings (hoping to dissolve in copper), but it seemed I was generating more dross than anything else. After a bit of stirring, small pea-sized round balls of dross formed. When I scooped off the dross, the surface still had a copper-purple sheen and it would solidify on my dross spoon, instead of rolling off like clean lead does. I poured the lead back into the ingot mold, and I can’t tell any difference in the ingots. The lead in the cooled dross still has a purple hue, but not the ingots.
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Does anybody know what happened here? Was the copper precipitating out, or does cleaning wheel weights take a bit of time stirring, and stirring, and stirring?

[NyFirefighter357]

The purple is signs of over heated lead while the gold is signs of over heated tin. Stiring the pot loosened crud along the sides & bottom as well as the high temp produced more dross.

[Winger Ed.]

Not related to the Copper. That's pretty much just normal oxidation of the different parts of the alloy.

[beshears]

Copper melts at 1984 F. You wont get it to melt into lead.

[unclemikeinct]

If you can find a way. Do your smelting & heavy fluxing in a big cast Iron Dutch oven pot, or similar on a diff heat source. Using your bullet casting pot to smelt is not good form. We put aside an afternoon or two every few years just to blend up our alloys & cast clean ingots. This makes life of the bullet caster so much cleaner & easier. Then I stamp those lil hockey pucks. "WW" for the old school wheel weights. SN1 is scrap WW plus one pound of pewter scrap per 40lbs. SN2 is for WW & some range scrap w 2 lbs of pewter per 40lbs. Keep it Simple. keep it clean. Those 40 lb batches that get cast into ingots get fluxed twice, once w/ candle wax & then w/ candle wax & hardwood sawdust. I hope that helps you. uncle mike

[justindad]

The purple is signs of over heated lead while the gold is signs of over heated tin. Stiring the pot loosened crud along the sides & bottom as well as the high temp produced more dross.
Is there a meaningful amount of tin in SOWW? This stuff seem to be about pure lead.


Copper melts at 1984 F. You wont get it to melt into lead.
There’s a few threads in here about dissolving copper into lead, by first coating the lead in solder. Not melting, but dissolving.


If you can find a way. Do your smelting & heavy fluxing in a big cast Iron Dutch oven pot, or similar on a diff heat source. Using your bullet casting pot to smelt is not good form. We put aside an afternoon or two every few years just to blend up our alloys & cast clean ingots. This makes life of the bullet caster so much cleaner & easier. Then I stamp those lil hockey pucks. "WW" for the old school wheel weights. SN1 is scrap WW plus one pound of pewter scrap per 40lbs. SN2 is for WW & some range scrap w 2 lbs of pewter per 40lbs. Keep it Simple. keep it clean. Those 40 lb batches that get cast into ingots get fluxed twice, once w/ candle wax & then w/ candle wax & hardwood sawdust. I hope that helps you. uncle mike
The dipper pot is my pre-clean pot, and I move clean lead via ladle to my bottom pour. There’s other reasons for this two-pot system.
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How long do you flux for? Would it be extreme to spend 30 minutes stirring saw dust into lead with a wooden stick?

[Winger Ed.]

Would it be extreme to spend 30 minutes stirring saw dust into lead with a wooden stick?

I stir pretty hard and especially on the sides and bottom.
I stop when crud quits floating up. I never timed it, but it seems like about like a minute or so.
If the melt is pretty hot, that stuff wants to float up, and you just need to give it a little boost.

[gwpercle]

Heating you alloy to the point where you see the rainbow colors isn't doing your alloy any good . The excess heat is just over cooking it ...notice all the dross ... you are cooking out some good stuff .
Copper melts at 1900+ degrees F ...the Lee Magnum Melter will never get that hot .
Use a thin wooden stick (paddle) to stir with ...the wood acts as flux as it chars .
I start my melting with the Lee Control knob set on #8 and as the pot melts move it to #7.5 and start casting there ...when boolits get frosty I drop back to #7.25 and cast around that setting ...
It is usually right at a very light frost surface on the dropped boolits.
Read the Sticky " From Ingot to Target : A Cast Bullet Guide For Handgunners " every chapter is a great read but the chapters on bullet alloy , melting and casting and fluxing are very informative ...
especially the part on fluxing ... it gives you the low-down on what works and why it works .
Gary

[Rickf1985]

And there is no way, nor is there any need, that you are going to get copper into your lead. Contrary to popular belief, not Everything you read on the internet is true.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[RickinTN]

As has already been stated you won't get copper to melt in lead. You may however get it to dissolve. Dip a small stranded copper wire in molten tin before you stir it in your mix. I think you will find it does indeed dissolve. No need to overheat your pot.
Rick

[beagle]

Sorry, there is a way to induce copper into a melt in a roundabout way. Lot of the guys here have been playing with this procedure for years for higher velocity cast bullets. You can't induce pure copper into the melt as the melting temp's too high, but you can add babbitt allow with copper content to your melt and the copper increases surface tensile strength and allows higher velocities without cast bullets stripping the rifling./beagle


And there is no way, nor is there any need, that you are going to get copper into your lead. Contrary to popular belief, not Everything you read on the internet is true.:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Rickf1985]

Sorry, there is a way to induce copper into a melt in a roundabout way. Lot of the guys here have been playing with this procedure for years for higher velocity cast bullets. You can't induce pure copper into the melt as the melting temp's too high, but you can add babbitt allow with copper content to your melt and the copper increases surface tensile strength and allows higher velocities without cast bullets stripping the rifling./beagle

Ok, I stand corrected. Never really thought about the Babbitt connection. But is there any real way to keep track of what you are alloying? And if you are going to start heading towards copper to prevent fouling then where is the cut off point where casting your own bullets equals buying FMJ bullets? Last time I looked Babbitt was not cheap. $9.00 lb. at Rotometals right now for Babbitt with copper.

[beagle]

Well, that it a problem with the percentage. Repeatability. I make in big batches and use only for special applications like .222 and .30/06 if I want to run them hot.
Advertise on Swappin and Sellin and you'll pick some up. The addition of one bar to a 20# batch usually does well and that don't run the cost up very much. Felix got me into this years ago and it works. He was a past master at benchrest cast tricks. Left the range now. Good man! /beagle

[bangerjim]

The rainbow colors are a sure sign you are way too hot, as said by others above! If you want Cu in your alloy, buy Cu-containing Babbett alloys to mix in. Cu will make your boolits a little tougher, but not harder. Using CuSO4 (root killer) will add Cu to your alloy, but stirp all the Sn an Sg out! You then have to add them back in. Not worth the time and effort. Only time I ever used CuSO4 was to remove a large amount of Zn from a messed up melt someone gave me.

All in all, it is not worth the hassle to try to add Cu to any boolit soup you make.


Amazing how pure COWW's (right off the wheel!) have satisfied 99% of us for many generations. Mabe just a touch of Sn added for hard-to-fill molds.

banger

[justindad]

With respect to the colors being caused by heat… I melted these wheel weights with a cast iron skillet in a fire pit. Sometimes, the lead got so hot that it looked watery as I cleaned off the dross… but no colors then. I figured the reduced viscosity (as scientifically measured with my calibrated eyeball) indicated things were too hot.
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Was the watery lead very hot? I did not get colors then.
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Stick-on wheel weights are nearly pure lead and sound like butter when they’re dropped. Do these have enough non-lead elements in order to make colors?

[justindad]

I remelted the ingots today at low temperature (Lee dipper pot at setting 4 for 20 minutes). Some copper floated to the top, so I let it cool down and there was an obvious copper colored skin on top of the lead (see picture below), along with purple from the previously overheated lead. The surface of the solidified lead was not flat like typical 92-6-2 lead, and there was even a crack in the middle.
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Then I heated the pot at the lowest setting for 20 minutes. A hole opened up at the surface, meaning there was a void underneath. The surface was solid, so I rubbed 60/40 solder wire (rosin core) over the copper colored areas, which melted in some places. Then I turned off the pot and everything cooled. Then I remelted at low temperature. Now liquid, the copper skin remained so I lightly dabbed more solder wire across the copper areas until the copper color was gone. I fluxed with a stick. After cooling, there’s no more copper color but light reflects differently. It’s still not flat (sinks in the middle), but there’s sheets or lines on the surface that do not align with how I scooped off the dross. The cooled rosin dross is black & hard. I think I have copper in this SOWW lead. I’ll let fly some 9mm pills around 1,000 fps and see if I get any leading. If that works, I’ll request the XRF scan from BNE.
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Here’s the picture with what I believe is copper that precipitated out of the lead.
297845

[Castaway]

When lead solidifies, it shrinks, that’s why you’re getting the “hole” in the middle of the alloy. Someone else might address the color, but I get the same when melting roof vents. I think it’s the result of lead oxides as the temp heats up, but until someone with more knowledge speaks up, that’s only an opinion

[fredj338]

I remelted the ingots today at low temperature (Lee dipper pot at setting 4 for 20 minutes). Some copper floated to the top, so I let it cool down and there was an obvious copper colored skin on top of the lead (see picture below), along with purple from the previously overheated lead. The surface of the solidified lead was not flat like typical 92-6-2 lead, and there was even a crack in the middle.
*
Then I heated the pot at the lowest setting for 20 minutes. A hole opened up at the surface, meaning there was a void underneath. The surface was solid, so I rubbed 60/40 solder wire (rosin core) over the copper colored areas, which melted in some places. Then I turned off the pot and everything cooled. Then I remelted at low temperature. Now liquid, the copper skin remained so I lightly dabbed more solder wire across the copper areas until the copper color was gone. I fluxed with a stick. After cooling, there’s no more copper color but light reflects differently. It’s still not flat (sinks in the middle), but there’s sheets or lines on the surface that do not align with how I scooped off the dross. The cooled rosin dross is black & hard. I think I have copper in this SOWW lead. I’ll let fly some 9mm pills around 1,000 fps and see if I get any leading. If that works, I’ll request the XRF scan from BNE.
*
Here’s the picture with what I believe is copper that precipitated out of the lead.
297845

I doubt that is copper. As noted, over heat lead & you will see that blue color.
No, stick on ww are almost pure lead, no tin.

[Wayne Smith]

Yup, you are probably looking at pure, or close to it. Those colors are a common confusion but are the result of light reflecting off the various oxides of the lead.

[yeahbub]

If your intention is to add copper to the alloy, you'll have to start with a high-tin content. The easiest way I know to do this is to start with melted tin, goop up the copper wire with soldering paste and put it into the tin to get the tin to bond with the copper. Once that happens, stirring the tinned copper in the molten tin will dissolve the copper into the tin, making it a copper-rich alloy. This, by the way, is a good reason NOT to use the late lead-free plumbing solders on your electronics. The soldered copper wire will be reduced in diameter at the joint and weakened.

[justindad]

I believe there’s no copper in there. I was kinda hopeful because the copper coloring would form while I was fluxing with sawdust & lube. At best, the copper wire might be doing a good job of pulling out impurities from the wheel weights. I casted a few hundred boolits, and not a single inclusion… clean stuff.