Casting boolits outside.. safety question ?

[juatMatt]

it's probably been discussed numerous times, but do you cast outside with a fan or without a fan? Is it safe enough to just cast outdoors? or do you still use a fan to blow the fumes away from you?

[swamp]

I cast outside and do not use anything for extra ventilation. Usia;;y a bit of breeze.
swamp

[sigep1764]

Usually cast in the opening of the garage. No issues as of yet that I know of.

[Wheelguns 1961]

I cast in my garage with the door open. I think you will be ok if you just don’t put your face over the top of the pot.

[juatMatt]

i cast outside on my balcony.. no fan but it's usually breezy and I sit back from the pot.. i just started casting and was wondering if there were any long term effects from the lead fumes.. i learned another lesson today about casting, don't cast with bare feet. lol

[Winger Ed.]

Anywhere is fine, wait for a breeze, use a fan, whatever. Just stay up wind of the smoke and fumes coming off the pot.
No matter how clean or dirty the alloy is--- none of the fumes are good for ya.

One guy posted pictures awhile back casting away on his kitchen stove under the vent-a-hood.
That won't work for everybody. I think he is single.

If you have a dirty, stinking mess, ya might want to wait until late at night too.:bigsmyl2:

[fredj338]

I cast in the garage, sometimes door open. I smelt outdoors, that is where all my serious fluxing is done. While casting, I just stir with a wooden paint stick as flux. Its been working fine for decades.

[stubshaft]

No fan or ventilator needed when outdoors.

[gwpercle]

Smoke from fluxing , or from anything , is the thing you don't want to breath .

When I have a lot of scrap lead sheathing , range scrap and /or COWW I go outside , set up the jet burner and big cast iron pot there . You will flux with wood shavings and wax so it will be smokey , don't breath the smoke - set up a fan to direct the smoke away ... cast little ingots , mine are with Wilton Mini-Muffin Pans .

Now ... when I want to cast boolits , I use Lee electric Magnum Melter pot , open doors at each end of shop and window ... and small fan blowing from right , pot side towards open door on left. You will still flux a time or two but not as much smoke will be produced ... the fan blows any smoke away but more importantly it helps with the Louisiana Heat & Humidity ...it's October and 82 degrees ... you don't want to know what casting is like in June - July and August Louisiana Heat ...
Its Brutal ...so you turn on the fan and cast untill the first symptoms of Heat-Stroke set in ... turn off the pot & fan and go inside the house for some A/C !
Gary

[dannyd]

The fan is for me, it's hot in Florida.

[Shanghai Jack]

Smoke from fluxing , or from anything , is the thing you don't want to breath .

When I have a lot of scrap lead sheathing , range scrap and /or COWW I go outside , set up the jet burner and big cast iron pot there . You will flux with wood shavings and wax so it will be smokey

I sometimes use sawdust for flux. Ran out the other day and looking around I found some pecan shell pellets for my smoker. Threw some in - mega smoke and good smelling boolits at the same time.

[groovy mike]

I cast outside. No fan, but stay out of the smoke.

[Hick]

I cast in my sun room. Near a window I can open and let the breeze flow through. The real question is what you are melting and how hot you get your pot. If you use clean alloy and only heat it just to the point where you can cast the fumes are very minimal. I find that when I keep the temperature to the lowest that will still cast I don't get much dross formation, so I don't need to flux much, and that helps.

[Land Owner]

I cast boolits from a 20# pot inside a 2-car garage. Adequate ventilation is provided through a box fan that draws from the pot to the garage door, adjusting and accounting for outside wind direction, and have experienced no apparent problems in this fashion using crayons, candle wax, or sawdust as flux. Melting 100# alloy batches, is done outside, on the driveway.

[waksupi]

I cast inside, no fan. We aren't boiling the lead. If you are smelling something, it is either your flux, or the odor of the steel in the casting pot.

[dondiego]

I cast inside, no fan. We aren't boiling the lead. If you are smelling something, it is either your flux, or the odor of the steel in the casting pot.

Same here out on the enclosed porch. I may open a window in the summer but I only use clean ingots and rarely flux. I clean, flux, and pour ingots out in the pole barn near the big open door.

[ukrifleman]

I have been casting bullets and smelting ingots for over 50 years, always outside.
I decided to get a blood test last year to check for any lead contamination and the results came back normal.
ukrifleman.

[35 Rem]

I cast many thousands of bullets with my roommate in college in our dorm room. We were much too low budget to even think of wasting money on a fan. (You can't shoot a fan and any money spent to buy one was no longer available to spend on shooting. :) ) Our dorm room had two windows and on the opposite side of the room there was a door that opened out into the hallway. We would open both windows and the door and let the smoke flow whichever way the wind was blowing that day. Also back then we didn't do any of this sissy "smelting" either. Dirty wheel weights went directly into the pot and fluxing was done often using Lyman Alox lube. Smoke would billow either out the window or into the hallway shared by everyone else on our floor. Never had even one complaint either. Guys would stop by our room and watch in fascination as the silver liquid filled the mold then almost instantly cooled and was dropped as a bullet. The only tools we had were a Lee 10lb pot and a Lyman lube/sizer along with Lee molds for the various bullets we were selling. Did dabble with pan lubing for a bit but was way to slow for selling batches of 1,000 at a time.

Nowadays I do usually melt raw wheel wights into ingots so there is less fluxing when casting but not always. I also cast in my garage with no real ventilation, but it has a 12-foot ceiling and I keep the attic stair partly open, so smoke does tend to drift out there.

I did have a lead test done recently as part of my regular checkup and had no abnormal levels of lead at all.

[gc45]

Been casting for 50yrs at least, I just open the shop large doors setting my pot on a table just inside out of the rain..