!st time smelting, here's a pic what is this?

[Tippet]

Thanks to a crab cooker and a ss pot, I was able to melt 50lbs of nasty, dirty oily ww. Both the clip-on kind and the stick-on kind. I removed all the clips and solid junk that floated to the top, along with some ash I suppose was left over from rubber burning off? I expected a lot of the tin to oxidize on the surface and I figure that can be re-introduced via fluxing, but there's this layer of blueish-green on ther that doesn't seem to want to flux back in.

Did I wait too long to flux, is there a point of no return where it's too difficult to de-oxydize the stuff, what can you tell me?

Even if I ruin it, no big deal this is a learning process. But I would like to know what to do next. It's cooling off as I write this, will I be able to salvage this as useable alloy?
http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n226/tayloroid/cast%20boolits/smelt.jpg

[runfiverun]

just skim it off tin will give your pot a gold color floating on top.
that looks likeboric acid floating on top like you fluxed with boraxo and it hasn't turned to the glass stage and black yet.
if it's crusting up just take it out and pour ingots.

[Tippet]

There's a little gold color under the blue. I fluxed with sawdust and stirred with a cedar stick. I didn't add borax. Before it cooled it was a brighter blue, does that help? Crusting up isn't a problem, if this blue crud is disposable. I just don't want to throw away anything I should be keeping.

[Bret4207]

I've never seen "blue crud" before. Could it be a coating from the WW or the pot maybe? I'd just flux the crap out of it (pun intended) and toss whatever didn't look like lead alloy.

[EMC45]

I added 50/50 solder before and my melt turned blue.

[HeavyMetal]

+ 2 on what Bret said!

I'd think you had some ink or an old pen in the ww and didn't catch it during the melt.

Sawdust and a piant stiring stick from Lowe's or home depot, work that combo for a good five minutes adding sawdust as it "burns off" then skim the top and make ingots!

[357maximum]

I have seen a similar color/look to the melt one time. I was intentionally adding copper pipe to ww/pure and using a rosebud torchtip. The crud was fluxed off the surface and it was a pretty melt. When the temp started getting high again it would slightly reappear..each and everytime. This is just a guess but I am thinking I was having a coppersulphate reaction of some sort.

Not sure what you have there, but if you burnt some rubber in the mix that could be your sulfur contribution, not sure where your copper would have come from... maybe from the ww maybe from your pot.........but thats alot of maybeeeeeees.

[hiram]

Lower the temperature. If you heat steel, it will turn a straw (gold) color, and then blue. The same with lead.

[jsizemore]

The blue could be from a brass valve stem.

I dump my clips and trash in a metal coffee can and any good stuff tends to solidify together at the bottom of the can. The clips store a bunch of heat and in the metal can the heat flows upward and all the good stuff collects at the bottom. When I've finished pouring ingots and loaded the pot for the next smelt, I'll turn my can of clips upside down and any tin will be sitting on top. If it's stuck to a bunch of clips, I just throw it in the pot and reclaim.

[Tippet]

OK thanks guys. There's no coating on the SS pot AFAIK. Yes there was some rubber in there with the WW, but I think I got all the valve stems out. I think I'll just flux it real good and skim the surface, pour some ingots.

[Beau Cassidy]

My guess is the lead is very hot. My ingots take on a blue color if I let the lead get too hot.

[Tippet]

thermometer said 700° or so. The melt in the pic is cold.

[Tippet]

Man I don't know about this smelting stuff. I think the majority of my skim must be tin, no matter how much I fluxed it just built up thick on the surface. I stir it up, the surface goes shiny-bright; stop stirring, it goes golden then green then blue then purple, and thick. Out of 50lbs of WW I got 12 cupcakes of what is probably pure lead.

[fallout4x4]

how heavy are the cupcakes? You should get at least 80% return. if those suckers dont weigh at least 3lbs each you did something wrong.

[KYCaster]

Man I don't know about this smelting stuff. I think the majority of my skim must be tin, no matter how much I fluxed it just built up thick on the surface. I stir it up, the surface goes shiny-bright; stop stirring, it goes golden then green then blue then purple, and thick. Out of 50lbs of WW I got 12 cupcakes of what is probably pure lead.



Don't worry....be happy! :-D

I think you're worrying way too much about what's floating on your melt and what's left in your ingots. The gold/green/blue color change is natural. It doesn't mean anything sinister.

After you skim off the clips, lug nuts, valve stems and other floating crud then flux, the metal will immediately start oxydizing....you can't stop it...the hotter your melt the faster it will oxydize. The more you disturb the surface the faster it will oxydize, so while you're dipping with your ladle to pour ingots, you're causing more oxydization.

IT DOESN'T MATTER! Whether you skim off the oxide and throw it away or pour it into the ingots along with the other metal, your ingots will still be the same composition. The Sn and Sb are not seperating out of your alloy. You won't be able to tell the difference with a hardness test. You won't be able to tell the difference when you cast boolits. IT DOESN'T MATTER!

When you remelt the ingots in your casting pot, you'll flux it, so it doesn't matter if your ingots have a little oxide in them, you'll take care of it when you flux.

If you're going to leave the molten alloy sitting in the pot for hours on end and use the same batch of alloy over and over again, and skim off the oxides, like the typesetters do, then you should be concerned about depleting the Sn. Hopefully, though, you'll cast good boolits the first time and need to get more alloy for your next casting session, so your alloy isn't oxydizing long enough to cause any problems.

Don't worry....be happy! :-D :-D :-D

Jerry

[Slow Elk 45/70]

YUP, +1 on the worry too much, like you said, no biggie, your learning and I think you are on the right track , there are lots of variables that may affect the color of a particular smelt, depending on what may be in it....so stir/ skim/ pour ingots...go make boolits and Be Happy.[smilie=1:
:castmine::Fire::Fire::Fire:

[Tippet]

Thanks guys I appreciate the help. I have a lot of WW and can easily get more, I have half a dozen tire shops nearby that give me a 5-gal bucketful whenever I go ask. Having done this once now I think the next time will go smoother.

[Dennis Eugene]

Get all the WW's you can NOW! They won't spoil and you probley won't be able to get them a few years from now. So if you truly can get a 5 gal. bucket full whenever you go ask, go ask twice a day. Dennis

[Tippet]

Well if I pester them like that the sources will dry up pretty quick. besides, I only have just so much room to store them.

[nighthunter]

The tin and antimony will not seperate from the alloy. My guess is that the alloy temperature is a little too high. Try fluxing with a gob of bullet lube or a piece of bees wax. Use a piece of hard wood and work the dross ( dross = the colored stuff floating on top ) against the side of the pot till all you have left is dirt and carbon. Scoop the black stuff off and you have perfectly good alloy to cast with. Working the dross against the side of the pot is something that I seldom see mentioned here. It is an important step if you want consistency in your ingots. I often stir with my hard wood stick then after the stick is good and hot rub it with a piece of bees wax then stir the melt with it. This gets the flux down deep in the melt and removes more impurities. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose. Do it outside as this method creates a lot of smoke.

Nighthunter

[Gohon]

I have a lot of WW and can easily get more

No you won't............not lead wheel weights anyways. In case you haven't been keeping up on your states latest all green politics, all lead wheel weights will not be used in California by the end of this year. The below article came out in August 2008.......
Under today's agreement, Plombco will end shipments of leaded wheel weights into California by the end of this year; Hennessey and Perfect Equipment agreed to end shipments by the end of 2009. Chrysler agreed to eliminate its use of leaded wheel weights on 55% of its automobiles by the end of this month and to fully eliminate lead in wheel weights on cars intended for sale in California by July 31, 2009.
If those shops really are offering you weights at this time I would suggest you find some place to stow them and get all you can right now because your supply is about to dry up. Kind of makes one wonder with second thoughts as to what that green stuff really is floating in your pot????

[Tippet]

Thanks for the tip. Keep in mind, the weights I'm getting are the ones they pull off the tires they replace, so once they stop taking deliveries of lead, there'll be an overlap before the lead comiong off old tires dries up. But thanks for the head's up, I had no idea. Hopefully by then I'll be moved out of this screwed up state.

[Dennis Eugene]

Well you may move but it ain't going to matter lead WW's will soon be a thing of the past. I was at the tire shop tonight and saw several boxes of new ww's, all steel, and this on an island in Alaska. It's comnig and I'm getting all I can while I can even if I have to sleep with them I'll find room for them. I'm already seeing all kind of steel and zink coming off tires. A couple years back I had never even seen a zink one. Dennis

[Tippet]

Well you may move but it ain't going to matter

Well it may not help finding WW but moving out of Cali will definitely matter! lol

[Dennis Eugene]

Good point. :wink: Dennis

[windrider919]

On this post I am not as positive as I usually am. BUT, I too have had a melt turn blue while reclaiming WW. I was running very hot which I no longer do because of this. I think some zinc weights got in and at the temp I was running they melted. So now I run at a temp hot enough to melt lead but zinc doesn't. Then you can easily remove them from the melt. However, it also could have been the rubber stems I left in this time. I was running a really big pot and did not bother to sort out the crap, just figured it would float and be skimmed off. The color stayed into the loaf pans and even the casting pot but the bullets still turned out fine. I did notice that they were all a little light compared to previous casts though. I always heard that any zinc made it impossible to cast but these cast OK. and I am positive that there was some zinc in the mix because every other bucket from that shop had zinc WW mixed in so that one probably did too.

Also, sawdust is good for fluxing but I found that, at least for me that to really reclaim all the tin and not be drossing some of it out I MUST flux with wax or oil at least once the first flux. Smokey til it lights but it works, them I flux / cover the melt with sawdust to keep oxidation down.

[roarindan]

I'm having the same trouble,but i just started using a large steel stock pot,and thought the "cheap chineese" pot was the problem. was usin a small Lee elect. pot with the same bucket of W/W. Along with the new pot i started using a outdoor "fish fryer" propane set up 'cause the Lee pot was to small,and "I want what i want when i want it",not pickin w/w clips outta a pint o lead.
Sooo, turn down the heat??? buy a cast iron pot and ladle?? help!!!

[DLCTEX]

Are you sure you don't have zinc in the mix? What you are describing sounds like zinc, thick and turning purple. If so, keep removing the thick as it rises and then cast boolits with it. Works better if you have a bottom pour pot, but hard to keep it out of a dipper. Do a search on zinc contamination and find how to discern zinc weights. The ww manufacturers are recycling weights and they don't sort the weights, but just cast at high temps and don't worry about zinc in the mix. I think many of the wheelweights I get now are contaminated with zinc alrady.

[windrider919]

Expanding on what I said before in the previous post: I found that if I suspected or had zinc I stop casting, reduce the pot temp til the lead is just molten. There will be crystals of zinc form in the molten lead. Bump the temp up just slightly for ten min or so then reduce back to help the lead and crystals separate. Strain them out till you have a smooth molten pot again. There will still be a few percent of zinc in solution in the pot but 98% will be cleaned out.

Back when I started in 1973 if we got zinc we were told to just throw it out that there was no way to separate it and it would not cast good bullets. That turned out to be wrong. As above you CAN separate most of the zinc and the remaining alloy will cast excellent bullets if you run the heat back up and cast properly from there.

However, the above is not really worth it in energy cost and lead cost unless you are dealing with 10 lbs or more. If less than ten just throw it out its not worth the trouble. By 'throw it out" I mean use it for something else. Lead sled shooting vise or scuba weights, etc