Lee Pro 4-20 Melter Interior Dimensions

[grumman581]

I've decided to finally get into this casting endeavor after putting it off for what seems like forever. Unfortunately, I chose a time when everything is on backorder no matter where I order from. But that's OK, I guess since it gives me time to setup a smelter so that I don't have to use the dirty wheel weights in my actual casting pot. I'm using a 5-qt cast iron camp dutch oven that I picked up from Academy for around $20 and a burner that I am hooking to my natural gas supply out behind my garage instead of using propane. It seemed to work well enough since the lead cleaned up fairly nicely, but I didn't have any molds handy, so I just let the lead solidify in the cast iron pot. After I was through cleaning it up, I went inside and let the metal and pot cool off. After an hour or so I went back outside, turned the pot over, and the large round ingot popped right out. Out of about 66 lbs of wheel weights, I ended up with a 38.5 lb refined ingot. The stick-on type weights were separated prior to the smelting, so my percentage would be a bit better if I was to include the soft stick-on type weights into it.

I say that the camp dutch oven that I'm using is 5 qts in size, but I don't remember it saying it anywhere. When I measured it, I get approximately 10" in diameter and 4.75" in depth which gives me 294.5 cu-in and with 231 cu-in per gallon, that gives me approximately 5.1 qts capacity or 120 lbs if filled to the brim (very bad idea)... If I figure that I should leave 1.5 inches from the top to have room to store, that gives me a max practical capacity of 72.6 lbs -- enough for 2200 bullets of 230 gr .45ACP. Good enough, I guess, although I would prefer a bit more capacity so that I could dump all the wheel weights in at one time.

OK, so much for the history... What I really want to know though is what are the interior dimensions for the Lee Pro 4-20 Melter? I'm wanting to build my own ingot molds from some steel that I have around here and I didn't want to end up building something that was too large to fit in the melter. I have some channel iron that would produce an ingot with a width of 2.6" at the top of the mold tapering down to 2.25" at the bottom of the mold with a depth of 1.25". I want to use this for making the ingots since the wall thickness of the channel iron is approximately 1/8" at the thinnest point, and a bit thicker at what will be the bottom sides of the mold since it is somewhat tapered.

Here's a profile of the channel iron:

http://misc.images.581.googlepages.com/lead-ingot-mold.gif

[Marlin Hunter]

Lee Pro 4-20 pot is 4 inch diameter by almost 4 inches deep, but there is something inside the pot which takes up about an inch of space. Just draw a 4 inch diameter circle. draw a line tangent to any edge, then draw a parallel line 1 inch inside the circle. the 4 x 3 "D" shaped area is the open space. that is as easy as I can describe without taking pictures or making a drawing.

Cabelas has the 10 pound lee pot in stock, @ a good price

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/purchase/products-found.jsp?_requestid=138932

[454PB]

The ingots you propose will fit in the Lee Pro-4-20.

[grumman581]

Lee Pro 4-20 pot is 4 inch diameter by almost 4 inches deep, but there is something inside the pot which takes up about an inch of space. Just draw a 4 inch diameter circle. draw a line tangent to any edge, then draw a parallel line 1 inch inside the circle. the 4 x 3 "D" shaped area is the open space. that is as easy as I can describe without taking pictures or making a drawing.

Sounds like this should work out pretty good. There appears to be enough space that I won't have to wait until the melter is nearly empty before adding a new ingot.



Cabelas has the 10 pound lee pot in stock, @ a good price

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/purchase/products-found.jsp?_requestid=138932

With shipping, that works out to be $53.94. There is a slightly better deal over at:

http://www.kitterytradingpost.com/product.php/pid/103/sid/650/tid/2523/prodid/1313

It's $52.95 with free shipping. I ended up ordering from Midway and it was the 20# pot instead of the 10# one. They had it for $64.49. Since I was ordering various molds and resizer kits also (total order of $216), I wanted to be able to minimize my shipping by ordering from one place, even if the items were on backorder. I was going to go with one of the other Lee pots, but they were in stock and the way Midway works, if it is in stock, they won't hold it until the other backorder items arrive, thus you end up paying twice for shipping. Since the pot was the only item that I ordered that was in stock, it resulted in the pot costing about $11 more than it would have if it had been on backorder. As such, I figured that I would just go with the larger pot so that it would also be on backorder. Not all companies do their orders that way, so this strategy might not be appropriate for the other companies.

http://misc.images.581.googlepages.com/midway-order.gif

Once you factor in shipping with some companies and some items, it's sometimes even cheaper to buy from your local retail shop. That wasn't an option on this order for me. None of the local gun shops even carried Lee equipment. Hell, I'm even beginning to have trouble finding primers at my usual local stores (Gander Mountain, Academy) since they have said that they are no longer going to be carrying reloading components. I'm beginning to think that the Bama-Boy and his group of socialists have decided on a new way to shaft us with their unconstitutional firearm restrictions -- they're increasing costs of factory ammo while also creating shortages of reloading components. I have a couple of AR-15 kits on order and it's been over 2 months and they still haven't arrived since that company is so backlogged also.

[grumman581]

The ingots you propose will fit in the Lee Pro-4-20.

Thanks for the help everyone... From my calculations, it appears that these will make approximately 8 lb ingots assuming a length of 6.5" on each of the ingots. The channel iron pieces that I have are approximately that long. They were leftover cuts that I picked up from my local steel supply shop from some project that they had created. I think they were originally for trailer stake inserts. I have 8 of them. I have to wonder though if that is enough. Do you think that by the time I get through pouring the last one, the first one will have cooled enough to solidify so that I can dump it out of the mold?

Next question on the design:

Should I weld a handle on each one (i.e. basically a U-shape piece of 1/2" square steel rod bent with a 3" diameter U in one end and welded along both sides of the mold or should I just use some angle iron facing outwards on the ends so that it the mold will have taps on both ends that can be picked up with some locking pliers (aka "vise grips")?

[454PB]

The Lee 20 pounder won't hold a full 20 pounds of alloy unless you use pure lead and fill it to the brim. Two of your 8 pound ingots will be a full load.

I've built a lot of ingot moulds, and all you need is a small tab on one end or side to grab with pump pliers. Eight of your ingot moulds will soak up 64 pound of lead using your calculations. If your smelting pot holds twice that amount, you should be fine. The first fill will cool quickly, and you should be able to dump them within just a few minutes. However, the second fill will be into hot ingot moulds, and they will take at least twice as long to cool to a temperature where they can be dumped.

If your smelting pot holds more than 128 pounds at a time, you'll need a bucket of water to cool the empty ingot moulds between fills. Let them dry thoroughly before refilling, and be careful using water around molten lead.

[shotman]

you are wasting you time you should have got the Lee ingot mold with your order the large size will take a long time to melt. And may turn the melter over on you rick

[briang]

You do realize that as each item on back order comes in they will ship it, right? You may will end up paying a shipping charge for each item on your order depending on when the come in.

I always preferred smaller ingots in the 1 pound range, makes it easier to alloy.

[grumman581]

The Lee 20 pounder won't hold a full 20 pounds of alloy unless you use pure lead and fill it to the brim. Two of your 8 pound ingots will be a full load.

Are you suggesting that I cut down the length of the molds? Or maybe just weld a divider across it so that instead of 6.5" of length, I end up with 3.25" instead?

Or maybe start out with 2 ingots and when the pot is half empty, toss another ingot in there and while it is heating up, consider it time to take a cold beer break? That's about 250 bullets cast... That's probably a good enough of an excuse for a cold beer...



I've built a lot of ingot moulds, and all you need is a small tab on one end or side to grab with pump pliers. Eight of your ingot moulds will soak up 64 pound of lead using your calculations. If your smelting pot holds twice that amount, you should be fine. The first fill will cool quickly, and you should be able to dump them within just a few minutes. However, the second fill will be into hot ingot moulds, and they will take at least twice as long to cool to a temperature where they can be dumped.


Good point... Considering the refined alloy rate that I've achieved so far, 64 lbs of refined alloy is going to mean that I had to start with about 110 lbs of wheel weights. Considering the bulk of the steel clips and dross, I'm pretty sure that my cast iron pot is not going to hold all that at one time. If I'm only going to do one cast iron pot per day, 8 of these ingot molds should be more than enough.

Because of the smoke generated and such, my current way of doing it is to wait until later at night when my neighbors have gone to bed or at least are inside their houses. I then setup the burner and cast iron pot in my backyard, behind my garage. This way, no one from the street can see what I'm doing and it's far enough away that if anyone is walking along the sidewalk, they might have a bit of trouble determining exactly where the smell is coming from. Plus, being at night, the smoke is not as visible as if it was during the day. Plus, since the wind is normally out of the south around here, any smell is directed over the empty fields that separate my backyard from the golf course. If the winds are out of the north though, someone walking along the sidewalk might smell something, but I'm thinking that they won't be able to pinpoint exactly where it is coming from. I start around 10pm and then once all the clip-on wheel weights are separated and loaded, I put the top on the cast iron pot and go inside and watch TV. I come back out about ever 15 minutes during a commercial break.

I'm figuring that once I get to the point of casting bullets, it is something that I can do in the garage since I'm using the Lee 20 lb electric pot and since I won't be fluxing with flammable things anymore. Outside, I'm using pieces of cedar fence pickets (thanks to Hurricane Ike) and used motor oil. I figure I have enough cedar fence picket pieces to stir for the next couple of hundred years thanks to Ike.

Of course, the big question here is: Do june bugs make good flux? ;-)

[grumman581]

you are wasting you time you should have got the Lee ingot mold with your order the large size will take a long time to melt. And may turn the melter over on you rick

I did... It's on backorder also... After ordering it though, I read comments by various people on the web critiquing the various mold sizes and shapes that people were using, so I decided that it might be interesting to make my own mold. I figured that it would allow me to be creating ingots while waiting on all the backorder items to come in.

[grumman581]

You do realize that as each item on back order comes in they will ship it, right? You may will end up paying a shipping charge for each item on your order depending on when the come in.

From talking with them, I don't believe that it works that way with Midway. If it does and each item comes in on a different day, I'm totally screwed on shipping!



I always preferred smaller ingots in the 1 pound range, makes it easier to alloy.

I'm just getting started, so I'm thinking that initially, I will be just using plain wheel weights without anything extra in the alloy. I'll be water quenching them so that I can get the most out of them without having to resort to an additional heat treating of them. The molds that I have on order are for handguns in the following calibers:


.45ACP
.40SW
.38 special
.357 mag
.357SIG
9mm


I was going to also get the mold for .44 special / .44 mag, but they had it in stock and as such, it would have cost me an extra $11 just to ship that one item. I figure that these calibers should keep me busy enough for quite awhile.

[briang]

I am 99.9% sure that's how it works. If they won't hold an in stock item for a backordered one, why would they hold one backordered one after it comes in for anther backordered that hasn't?

[grumman581]

I am 99.9% sure that's how it works. If they won't hold an in stock item for a backordered one, why would they hold one backordered one after it comes in for anther backordered that hasn't?

Well, my order arrived at Midway today. Everything except for the mold and resizer for the .40SW bullets. I asked them if they were going to do a partial shipment or if they were going to hold everything until the last two items came in. The last two items will be here around 5/30. They said that their policy is to wait until everything is in so that the customer only gets one shipping charge. Strange that they can't do that for orders that are a mix of in-stock items and backordered items.

I finished welding up my ingot molds this evening. I need to take a die grinder to the inside welds so that the corners will be nice and smooth. I tried it out anyway and make and ingot from the stick-on weights that I had separated from the last batch of wheel weights. They didn't quite fill up the ingot, but were pretty close to full. When I weighed the ingot, it came out at 6.5 lbs. It turned out that quite a few of the stick-on wheel weights were made from zinc. They didn't melt and I ended up skimming them off the top.

So, including the stick-on wheel weights, I got about 45 lbs of lead out of the 66 lbs of wheel weights -- 68%...

[Dale53]

You've already made your decision on ingot moulds. However, just for information of those who have not seen my pictured ingot moulds (made from 2" angle iron, 6" long by a welder friend):

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QIngotmoulds031.jpg

Using the outside pieces arranged the way they are give you "handles" and they are VERY useful. Using "fireplace gloves" or "welders gloves" available from most farm supply stores, if you work quickly, you can just pick those up and dump them. Work slow and they can get a bit warm. Work quickly and they are surer than using tools.

The ingots weigh about 3.5 lbs and are easily handled. They work extremely well in my RCBS pots. You can see their triangular shapes here:

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

If you get into serious smelting (my last batch was 650 lbs in a couple or three hours) you can NOT have too many ingot moulds. I have increased the number of mine over the years - never too many. I have several of the angle iron moulds, several Lyman, RCBS, and Saeco moulds and a Lee ingot mould. ALL are useful.

Dale53

[grumman581]

You've already made your decision on ingot moulds. However, just for information of those who have not seen my pictured ingot moulds (made from 2" angle iron, 6" long by a welder friend)

I had considered making the triangular molds out of the 2" angle iron that I had, but I only had enough on hand to make the handle sides for the channel iron molds, so I decided to stick with my original plan... They come out looking like a large thick Hershey bar... :)

[454PB]

The last ingot mould I made is just like Dale's, except it has six pieces of angle. Also, I did the welding on the bottom side, so there is no weld showing on the "lead" side. The shiney spots you can see at the top end of each angle is heat coloring from the welds underneath. I used a set of pipe clamps to hole everything in proper alignment while welding.

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5060&d=1191949259

[grumman581]

The last ingot mould I made is just like Dale's, except it has six pieces of angle. Also, I did the welding on the bottom side, so there is no weld showing on the "lead" side.

I had wondered about whether to do it from the top or the bottom... I was concerned that if I just did it from the bottom, lead would get in the cracks and make it more difficult to drop the ingots out of the mold. I was also concerned that just doing from from the top would result in something not as strong as it should be. End result was that I welded it on both sides. Probably a bit over-kill...

[donS]

I went down to wally world and bought 2 mini muffin tins for less than$10. I have 50 1# molds. a very nice size to handle and good size for alloying mixes

Don S

[grumman581]

I went down to wally world and bought 2 mini muffin tins for less than$10. I have 50 1# molds. a very nice size to handle and good size for alloying mixes

Yeah, but I can drive over mine with a truck! Try that with your little muffin pans.:-D

Seriously though, since I'm still waiting on my bullet molds to come in, I figured I would waste my time building my own ingot molds... Of course, I've determined that as infrequently as I have to weld something, I'm never going to get a bead that looks as good as a professional. At least I weld better with my old Lincoln "tombstone"welder than I did the few times I tried the wire feed welders. When I tried the wire feed welder, I ended up with spatter all over everywhere -- pain in the butt to clean up...

[fredj338]

Yeah, but I can drive over mine with a truck! Try that with your little muffin pans.:-D

Seriously though, since I'm still waiting on my bullet molds to come in, I figured I would waste my time building my own ingot molds... Of course, I've determined that as infrequently as I have to weld something, I'm never going to get a bead that looks as good as a professional. At least I weld better with my old Lincoln "tombstone"welder than I did the few times I tried the wire feed welders. When I tried the wire feed welder, I ended up with spatter all over everywhere -- pain in the butt to clean up...

That channel size will work if you don't over fill. I have some about 5" long, half full they make a 3#+/- ingot.

[grumman581]

That channel size will work if you don't over fill. I have some about 5" long, half full they make a 3#+/- ingot.

When I melted down the stick-on wheel weights that I got with my bucket of wheel weights, I ended up with about a 6 lb ingot. It could have held a little more, but it would have been a little too close to the top.

[hpdrifter]

Yeah, but I can drive over mine with a truck! Try that with your little muffin pans.:-D

Seriously though, since I'm still waiting on my bullet molds to come in, I figured I would waste my time building my own ingot molds... Of course, I've determined that as infrequently as I have to weld something, I'm never going to get a bead that looks as good as a professional. At least I weld better with my old Lincoln "tombstone"welder than I did the few times I tried the wire feed welders. When I tried the wire feed welder, I ended up with spatter all over everywhere -- pain in the butt to clean up...

Increase your wire speed, it'll help eliminate the beads.

[grumman581]

It was a borrowed wire feed welder... At the time, I had a oxy-acetylene rig and was doing gas welding (not brazing). I was good enough at gas welding (i.e. I didn't have to take a grinder to my welds to make them look good). When I tried the wire feed welder though, I had to spend a lot of time afterwards grinding down the splatter. Not really worth it... With stick, my beads might not be the prettiest around, but at least I don't have to spend a lot of time grinding down splatter afterwards... As long as I'm not welding thin stuff, I'll stick to stick welding... For example, I tried welding a patch on a rusted floorboard in my Jeep a few years ago and ended up burning through it and making the hole bigger instead. Eventually, I decided that rivets were probably a better idea...

[snuffy]

A buddy at a fab shop built this ingot mold. He let me borrow it for my recent smelting.

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/arrow/websize/P3270144.JPG

It casts a 5# ingot.

http://photos.imageevent.com/jptowns/arrow/websize/P4110011.JPG

We used a variety of ingot molds, muffin tins, lyman and lee 1# molds. I don't like the lee, those half pounders are a waste of time.

[Dale53]

Actually, the Lees can be quite useful when you are trying to hit a specific alloy target.

FWIW
Dale53

[grumman581]

I have one of the Lee ingot molds (it has two 1-pounders and two half-pounders in it). I use it to catch any drips from my bottom pour pot or to recast whatever amount of lead that I have in the pot when I'm tired of casting (i.e. when I run out of beer). I leave a bit of lead (about an inch) in the pot for the next time I'm casting, but anything extra gets drained into the Lee ingot molds. The pot is never full when I get tired of casting, so at worst, it's only two or three fills of the ingots in the mold.

Someone in another thread on this forum mentioned sand casting of ingots by using the end of a 2x4 stuck into a pile of sand. I can see certain advantages with this method in that it would be very easy to remove the ingots from the mold by just raking through the sand with a garden rake. You could also make various shapes easily enough. I'm going to have to give it a try next time I have a load of wheelweights to smelt down.

[sirgknight]

I use muffin pans too, but I'm real careful not to leave them in the driveway!