A newbie makes his first lead muffins

[Snyd]

Fist off, a big thank you to this site and all you longtime boolit masters and others for all the info. I've been reading here for a couple months.

Here's my first setup. I tried the MSR XGK which puts out about 10000 btu's. Well, problem was the flame/heat is to concentrated, does not heat the entire bottom of the pot and I ended up with about 45lbs of mush with about a six inch puddle of molten lead in the middle. I bagged that setup and broke out the ol' reliable, a Sears version of a Coleman stove that I bought used 17 years ago for 10 bucks. It's seen it's share of Moose Hunting camps over the years and just keeps on tickin! I put a heavy duty cast iron grate over the top of the existing one and it was real solid. I didn't take a picture of it but the old stove melted that 45lb hunk of solid lead in that enameled steel pot about 20 minutes I think. I didn't time it but is sure was quick I thought.

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt01.jpg

Well, I decided to try the cast iron frying pan that I scored dumpster diving. It worked like a champ. I think it took about 15-20 min or so to melt down about 45 lbs of lead to where I could skim the clips. After dipping most of the lead I could pick it up and easily pour the last 3 or so. It's an old one with a real stout handle. I scored the muffin tins dumpster divin as well, one was good and rusted and dropped the muffins real nice. The other one isn't quite as rusted and a couple stuck on my first batch. I had to employ a few forced extraction techniques but managed to not destroy the whole pan in the process. Only one tin :)

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt02.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt03.jpg

I used the stick method I've read about for stirring and fluxing. Seemed to work pretty good I guess.

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt04.jpg

Ahhhh, beautiful :D

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt05.jpg

[Snyd]

I ended up with 72 2lb muffins. A couple were a little light so I figure I made about 140lbs of lead muffins. Too cool. I smelted about 1/3 of my ww I've gathered over the past couple months. It was a great Fairbanks day for smelting, about 70, a nice steady breeze that blew all the smoke and fumes away and not a cloud to be seen.

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt06.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt07.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/perryschneider/.Pictures/pics/melt08.jpg



I have a few questions about some things but will use the search function or stare another thread.

Now that I have a supply of lead and some ingots the next step is to order my Lee 4-20 pot this week and get some moulds and cast some boolits. This is going be a blast!

[captain-03]

Looking good -- GREAT Start!!

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Hullo Snyd, and welcome. Please tell me that first pan is not an old porcelain bed pan?:kidding:

Looks like you have a great start, stick with the cast pot/pans , if you can find an old dutch oven it works great, they have higher sides than the fry pans and will hold a lot more alloy and not so prone to slopping out of the pot.[smilie=1:
Good job of scrounging , by the way.

:cbpour: :redneck: :Fire:

[Gunslinger]

Nice ingots. Seems as though you got the basics covered. Keep in mind the more impurities you extract from the alloy when smelting, the less you'll have to remove from your Lee pot when casting.

[compass will]

good job!

Looking at you ladle, I was wondering if it has a rivet where the handle attaches? Or maybe a spot weld?

some of them are soldered which don't work out well when casting lead.

[fusil]

Tres bien [smilie=w:

fusil

[Wayne Smith]

Don't wait for the Lee pot. Score a Lyman or RCBS Ladle and a 1qt steel kitchen pot and start casting, assuming you have a mold. If you are casting bigger boolits this may actually work better than the pot. The Lyman or RCBS Ladles are nice because they pour out of the bottom of the ladle rather than the top.

Nice work!

[Snyd]

Thanks guys and here are answers to a couple question. The first pan/pot is steel. The ladle has two rivets holding the handle to the scoop. Thanks for looking out for me!

I'll try and scrounge up a dutch oven but this got me started.

Question: I would stir/flux with the stick, stop and a film of silver/gray slime would form that had the black junk in it. I'd skim it off and the film would come back but not as thick. I seem to remember reading that you can skim tin of the top if your not careful. I tried to be picky about only skimming the black crud and some of the gray slime. Any thoughts? I'll keep reading up and I'm sure I'll learn.

Thanks again

[Echo]

Way to go, Snyd! Wow - First of May, and up to 70* in Fairbanks! Girls out in Bikini's yet?

[Ivantherussian03]

very nice

[Slow Elk 45/70]

Your on the right track, depending on the materials in the melt you will get some sheen on top of the melt, flux and stir, skim the crud/clips and as you have done, don't get to aggressive.

Watch out for zinc WW, especially the stick on's I would be sure to check all of this stuff before putting it in with the clip on. Melt this separately, some of the zinc have ZN stamped on them some don't. This can screw up your alloy if you don't watch for them.

With out a thermometer, you need to watch the melt, when it becomes molten, skim the clips and any unmelted WW will be zinc. they melt @ +-770 degrees WW@ about 650*

have fun

[Snyd]

Your on the right track, depending on the materials in the melt you will get some sheen on top of the melt, flux and stir, skim the crud/clips and as you have done, don't get to aggressive.

Watch out for zinc WW, especially the stick on's I would be sure to check all of this stuff before putting it in with the clip on. Melt this separately, some of the zinc have ZN stamped on them some don't. This can screw up your alloy if you don't watch for them.

With out a thermometer, you need to watch the melt, when it becomes molten, skim the clips and any unmelted WW will be zinc. they melt @ +-770 degrees WW@ about 650*

have fun

Thanks, ya, because of the info on this site I found out about the zincs. I separated out the stick on lead and ran across a few that were zinc as well, but, they weren't stamped zn, same with the clipon zincs. They were painted gray and the clip is attached rather that molded int. I then watched closely and as it came up to melting point where the clips floated I did pull out some zincers along the way.

Hopefully this thread will help some other newbies that are just getting going.

Oh, and today I had new tires put on my car and got the tire shop to throw in a bucket of ww's on the deal :mrgreen: Half the fun of this is scrounging and making good deals on stuff!