Big Day at the Smelter...with pictures.

[Dale53]

It was at least a BIG Day at the Smelter for me! My brother came over and this afternoon we did slightly over 600 lbs. We took BIG ingots and made little ingots out of them:

My brother with the set up.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1768.jpg

This shows the large ingot (85 lbs) right after it went into the pot.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1767.jpg

This is the ingot as it is just about to sink out of sight.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1771.jpg

Here is my collection of ingot moulds. The two large ones are made of 2" angle iron by a welder friend and they are about 6" long. They make a 3lb ingot.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1769.jpg

It was a glorious half day of GOOD WORK! 550 lbs of this is 8% antimony. I will add 92% pure lead and nearly double my bullet metal. Just before casting, after it is in my RCBS pot I will add 2% tin. That'll give me an equivalent to WW's and should produce 1000 lbs + of pistol bullet metal. And THAT, my friends, is GOOD!:drinks:

Incidentally, that dutch oven is a six quart cast iron item available (today) at Harbor Freight for $20.00 plus shipping. That will hold 150 lb +. That is about all that I suspect my Turkey Fryer will handle ($39.95 at Bass Pro on sale). After the first ingot which took about 30 minutes it only took 15 minutes or so for a 80+ ingot to melt. It is important to leave 2"-3" of molten lead in the pot for a quick transfer of heat. Handling those big ingots is not without its dangers. Aside from the fact that they are HEAVY, it would be VERY easy to have one slip and splash molten lead all over the place. Needless to say, we WERE careful.

Dale53

[2TN Mules]

Now I see how the big dawgs do it. Great post!

[Dale53]

2TN Mules;
I don't know about the "Big Dawgs" comment. It's more like a "tired dawg":mrgreen:. I WILL say this, tho', it is VERY satisfying to have this behind me. Those big ingots were a bit intimidating for a worn out old man, like myself:mrgreen: Now, after the bad weather is behind us, I will start to work on my old stash of "junk" lead and the rest of my Wheel weights. No rest for the weary[smilie=1:.

Thanks for the kind words.

Dale53

[keeper89]

Makes me wish for some big lumps to melt.........congrats, that really is a GOOD day:drinks:

[cohutt]

Only one mistake i see- you didn't post any pics of your resulting ingot stacks. :mrgreen:



http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc020.jpg

[kendall yates]

85 pounds is a hell of an ingot.

[Dale53]

cohutt;
You're correct. I may take a few shots of the stacks (actually several milk crates full along with a five gallon metal can full). I'll post them if I do.

Kendall;
There is a long story connected to those large ingots (62lbs-85 lbs). They came directly from a lead refinery. I doubt that there will be any more available to me. They came from a VERY generous cast bullet member who directed me where to find them to "rescue" them from the junk pile. However, I have had to deal with large ingots in the past. "Back in the day", when linotype was readily available from print shops, it was common to have 25 lb ingots of linotype around. I still have a few of them but they have been sawn up to manageable size for my RCBS pots. I have also had to deal with 100 lb ingots of pure lead. Pretty hard to do anything wih. However, one way or the other, I have seemed to manage[smilie=1:.

Dale53

[opentop]

Hey Dale,

Thanks for sharing the pictures. That is a neat and CLEAN set up! I bet that was a back breaking chore to melt down those big chucks.

I too would like to see pictures of the finished results.

John

[GLL]

Dale:

Great photos !

I do believe though that you have taken the "light coating of rust" a little too far on that one LYMAN ingot mould ! :) :)

Jerry

[Springfield]

Just a suggestion. Next time put a couple auto oil drip pans under the pot, that way the lead splatters slide right off instead of having a piece of plywood stuck full of lead bits. The biggest job I have done so far is I bought a 1600lb sailboat keel weight. Fortunately the seller had cut it up into 130 lb chunks.

[Dale53]

GLL;
I got that one at a garage sale. I really need to take a wire brush to it. It sometimes "hangs up" a bit. I am not really an exponent of forced rusting. Things seem to rust quite enough in the humidity of SW Ohio all by themselves.

That's one of the downsides of sharp photos, EVERYTHING shows:mrgreen:.

Well, you asked for it - this is what a half day of hard work gives you:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1780.jpg

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1778.jpg

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1777.jpg

Dale53

[Dale53]

Springfield;
I will take your suggestion under advisement. I am glad that no one has offered me a keel boat keel. I would not have sense enough to say "No" but just thinking about it makes my back hurt:mrgreen:.

My brother stopped by today to drop something off - I noticed that he is still talking to me:mrgreen:.

Dale53

[cohutt]

nice lead pics, might have inspired me to fire up the smelting rig this weekend. i have a bunch i've been putting off for months

[happy7]

I recently rehabilitated two lyman ingot molds (the famous reverse N ones) that were at least as bad as yours. I filled them with white vinager and left them for about three days. After that I ran a small wire brush over them real good and they came out pretty clean.

I use a wheelbarrow as well. Works real well.

[Dale53]

My little garden wheelbarrow is a bit over burdened by a load of lead. Hopefully, it won't collapse on me one of these days...:confused:

Dale53

[cohutt]

Well you made me go and do it- after all was said and done saturday I had 600+lbs of lead and around 400lbs of monotype ingots on my casting shop's floor:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/pb/smelt021.jpg

[willie]

I'm getting started and have about two 5 gal. buckets of wws collected so far and I thought I was doing good. I can see this is going to be a new addiction.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

When I need to remove rust from steel or castiron I submerge it in murietic acid. In five minutes the rust is gone.Do not leave it longer or it will start to turn black. I don't know if I spelled the name of the acid correctly but it is the stuff used in swimming pools. I have been doing this for many decades with no problems. I would like to add that if you choose to use it or not I do not wish to read any sarcastic remarks such as I read on the BLACK POWDER CARTRIDGE site when I said I use paint thinner to clean my High Wall during a black powder match. If you want to read that exchange go to post,What am I doing wrong?

[surfj9009]

I use Coca Cola to dissolve rust. Put two 2 liters in a 5 gallon bucket and let the coke go to town for a few days.

Remember the nail in the glass of coke? Cheap, safe, and easy.

[kendall yates]

Hey Dale, What brand burner is that? How many BTU's?

[Old Ironsights]

I love my angle-iron ingots... at almost exactly 2# each they fit right into my lee pot and are super stackable.

I poured 150# of WW on sunday.

[glicerin]

Re: linotype ingots-long narrow boat-shaped about 24 pounds. They're unwieldy to melt but I've been able to break them into 3X8lb pieces. Put a piece of 2X4 under each end and whack it with a sledge hammer or axe.

[Dale53]

Kendall;
I bought my turkey fryer at Bass Pro. This "fish fryer" (seems identical to mine) is on sale NOW at Bass Pro for just under $30.00. It is 60,000 BTU's. It DOES put out the heat. I am extremely happy with it:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_37331____SearchResults

Dale53

[Old Ironsights]

Kendall;
I bought my turkey fryer at Bass Pro. This "fish fryer" (seems identical to mine) is on sale NOW at Bass Pro for just under $30.00. It is 60,000 BTU's. It DOES put out the heat. I am extremely happy with it:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_37331____SearchResults

Dale53

Yep. Good bargain there... just dump the aluminium pot that comes with it for somthing made of iron/steel...

More than I paid at the discount house, but these are Bonzer.

http://www.potspansplus.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=8&zenid=17f6c4a97bba4415b847b759e0764e6f

http://www.potspansplus.com/catalog/images/PPD400.jpg

$40 (I paid $15 for the same thing... look around)

[inuhbad]

NICE!!! I'm just finishing up making a similar ingot mold to the 2" Angle Iron ingot mold you pictured in the first posting!

Unfortunately I don't have a nice MIG that supplies lots of gas & prevents most 'splatter' issues - so I have to chip/grind off the the splatter & clean up my ingot mold before I can use it - or else the ingots will likely stick to the mold.

My mold tray has 6 'cavities' for ingots, they're 5" long made of 2" angle iron. So, I'm guestimating that'll be about 6x 2.5 pound ingots per pouring...

[Dale53]

inuhbad;

I think you'll really like that new ingot mould.

I just recently picked up my third ingot mould made from 2" angle iron (thanks to a very good friend). When you are smelting, those larger ingot moulds really speed up the process (faster pouring, etc).

If the weather gets nice in a couple of weeks I still have a good deal of "junk" lead to smelt. I am trying to consolidate my lead storage and getting it all into ingots should be a big help in properly organizing my garage.

Dale53

[TAWILDCATT]

just at agri and they have burners for $69 with 180,000 btu.[smilie=1:

[Frank46]

guys,really like the gleaming piles of lead and alloys. I'm a packrat and save all the plastic pails the pool chemicals come in. Rinse them out real well and air dry them. get a good magic marker and write both inside and outside what is in each pail. Helps me keep track of what i have and what it is. Right now have about 500lbs roofing lead and about one 5 gal pail full of wheel weights. Still have a few pails stashed away in various locations so's the wife doesn't take then out to the stree and watch them disappear. One night we were cleaning up and about 5 of the buckets made the trip to the street. when we got up and all were gone. Oh Well time to start work on the pool this year. Frank