Newb Ingot Question

[d_striker]

I'm a new member and new caster...Just made my first ingots today and have so many questions. My plan is to make ingots using my dutch oven....

So lets say you have a good amount of lead of various sources: WW, pipe, flashing, etc.

Is it better to alloy your different metals into ingots from the start?

Or should I make separate ingots, keeping each source "pure" in it's own composition, and then alloy in the furnace pot before making boolits?

[xr650]

Welcome to the forum.
Since you are new to casting. I suggest you leave the different alloys ingots seperate until you decide what boolit alloy works for you.
It is easy to mix later. About impossible to seperate.

[docone31]

I have been doing this for a while.
To this day, I keep my metals seperate.
When I cast, I blend at the time. Sometimes I need to add pure, sometimes I need to bump up Wheel Weight.
I always keep seperate piles.

[HangFireW8]

So lets say you have a good amount of lead of various sources: WW, pipe, flashing, etc.

Is it better to alloy your different metals into ingots from the start?

Or should I make separate ingots, keeping each source "pure" in it's own composition, and then alloy in the furnace pot before making boolits?

I'm dealing with the same issues. My take on it-

If it has Antimony (clip-on WW, type), melt it as few times as possible. WW is so dirty, and has the metal clips, that you pretty much have to melt it once seperately just to get it clean. I guess one could alloy it immediately in the "smelting" pot once skimmed, but one would have to know the capacity and fill of their pot exactly in order to get proportions right. You can also lose tin through oxidation, but only if you allow your temps to really get out of hand. Tin is a lot easier to find and alloy than Antimony as well.

WheelWeights- I make ingots out of WW, keeping the temperatures down both to float off the zinc and avoid oxidizing the Antimony. After that I alloy directly in the melting pot to avoid oxidation.

Pure Lead (pipe, flashing, stick-on wheel weights), it won't lose but a tiny bit of oxidation at each melt, so you can melt it as many times as you like. Go ahead and make ingots out of it to clean it up, and then you can pre-mix alloy it or alloy when casting as you please.

Solder (tin) I alloy type directly in the pot before casting. There's not much point in making ingots out of my (various kinds of) solder. It is already clean and in easy-to-mix sizes.

Typeface I alloy type directly in the pot before casting, to avoid oxidizing the Antimony.

So, I am ending up with ingots of WW and pure lead, some original cleaned typeface, and clean solder (tin source). I plan to pre-mix up some 1:30 for 38 special loads, but the rest will be alloyed in the casting pot.

-HF

[Dale53]

I try to keep things as simple as possible while keeping to good practices (you can actually get "TOO SIMPLE").

I smelt my WW's in large quantities (my pot's working size is about 150 lbs). I have done as much as 1000 lbs in a full day's work. I will also do smaller batches when working alone (like 100-200 lbs in an afternoon). I put the WW's in ingots (½lb, 1 lb, and 3.5 lb ingots). I MARK them for future identification. I do the same thing for pure lead. I alloy in the RCBS pot when starting to cast. I can then tailor the alloy for the job at hand (black powder I use 30/1 lead/tin, pistol and revolvers I use ww's + 2% tin, Schuetzen rifles 30/1, and modern rifles a hard alloy up to and including linotype). I keep pure lead, tin, linotype, and WW's on hand (I probably have close to a ton of bullet alloy on hand).

Just be sure to mark everything so you don't forget in the future.

Dale53