pounds of WW before you melt down

[dtalley]

Just getting into casting and have asked hundreds of questions and have just one more today...

I know it has been asked before and I searched with no bites.

How many pounds of WW's do you usually collect before you start melting them into ingots?

I have just started scrounging and have about a 5 gal bucket full and am chomping at the bit to start melting but I want to make it worth my time.

thank you very much for you replies.

[Murphy]

It all depends dtalley. Are the majority of the WW's in the bucket large? Small? Very small?

Off hand, I usually wind up with somewhere between 60 to 90 pounds of cleaned WW alloy when I'm done. It would also be of some help if we knew what you are planning to use as a smelter.

Hope this is of some help.

Murphy

[Bass Ackward]

d,

It depends. How bad do you want to get started? I wait until I have about a ton ready to process. Are you going to wait that long?

Naaaa. If you got one, go for it and get started. Then when the bug bites, you will know the answer to the question you are asking. :grin:

[FISH4BUGS]

..well almost........I have 29 FULL 5 gal buckets of WW's to melt. I am doing about 1 or 2 a week. Some weeks more, some less. I simply want a lifetime supply of WW and lino ingots and hope to hell I don't have to move. I'm 57 so I guess 30 years or so worth is a good goal.

[dtalley]

That will work. I'll save a few more and get started because I can't wait much longer.

[Vegas Vince]

I gather ww as I can. Sometimes I have one bucket, sometimes I have several buckets. I melt ww when I am casting boolits. I have a hot plate with a pot that holds about 25 to 30 pounds of WW. Everytime I cast from my Lee pot I fill the hot plate pot with WW. It take the hot plate about 30 to 45 min. to melt the WW. I then stop casting ( I fill the Lee pot with muffins at that time) and pour melted WW into muffin molds. I refill the hot plate pot with more WW and go back to casting. Lee pot is now at the right temp. This way I always have one or two 5 gal. buckets of lead muffins ready to cast. If I work for a couple of hours I use 20 to 30 lbs. of lead and I melt 30 to 40 lbs. of WW. I don't like spending a long period of time melting WW. Some casters will melt WW all day and do it once a month. Everyone will do it the way they like and you will develope your own system. Happy casting!!



Vince

[rbstern]

If I have a spare hour, I'll melt 10 to 20 pounds and make a couple dozen ingots. Not a lot of extra work involved in rolling my cart outside, dumping some wheel weights in a pan, and turning the burner on:

http://www.zjstech.net/gunstuff/images/MVC-280F.JPG

[Wayne Smith]

I smelt in my 20 lb Lyman pot, so I don't wait. When I have some, I melt them.

[TCLouis]

I try to melt enough lead in one batch to cast 300-350 ingots. It is a major part of the day and a lot of ingot carrying when the casts cool.

[mike in co]

something to consider is all the ingots in a single melt will be the same alloy....

so how much do you shoot and how long will a batch last you.

i use a turkey burner with a 50 cal ammo can. i can do just over 100 lbs of alloy at a time. all ingots are marked.

i try to do aprox one 5 gal bucket at a time,unless making a specific alloy. i shoot striaght ww, ww with tin, pure or close to pure lead, and 3/1 lino/ww.

never stop collecting ww........

[Dale53]

>>>How many pounds of WW's do you usually collect before you start melting them into ingots?<<<

I have at least 1000 lbs ( alright, alright - 2000 lbs )and smelt when the spirit moves. I DO try to keep ahead of the game (try to always have clean WW ingots on hand). My better half is after me to smelt ALL of it down as it takes up MUCH less space after smelting (keep it in the garage until smelting then move to the utility barn where I do my casting and wood working).

Dale53

[slughammer]

I have just started scrounging and have about a 5 gal bucket full and am chomping at the bit to start melting but I want to make it worth my time.


I recommend starting with what you have now. No doubt you will think of some things you'll like to do differently the next time. Perhaps a different ladle or more ingot molds. Or different ingot molds because the one you have sticks, or your heat source isn't ......

Lots of experience to gain before getting too far into it.

[mooman76]

I usually do a 5 gallon bucket at a time. Takes me about 4 hrs and I get around 100 #. I generally loose about 10% of the weight to dirt and excess garbage not wanted.

[dtalley]

Wow. Thank you all for giving me insite.

I think because this will be my first time:-D, I will go ahead and fire up what I have. I will probably adjust my routine as I get better at the casting thing.

[MGySgt]

FWIW -

I smelt down WW when I have the chance - 100, 200, what ever. I blend 600 - 1000 pounds at a time.

I have a pot that holds about 140 pounds. I take out 56 ingots at a time (Lyman, SAECO, RCBS, etc 4 cavity ingot molds).

I put this all in one stack.

Fill the pot and take out another 56 ingots.

So on and so on until I get the amount I want.

I emtpt the pot and clean it.

I then take equal number of ignots from each stack and put in the pot and blend it.

The last time I did this at Christmas time I had 20 stacks of 56 ingots, 1,120 ingots = 1,120 pounds.

This is my base for all my casting. It checks out at about 14 BRN after 2 months. Casts good and now I collect more WW and smelt it when I get a chance. Should be a few years before I need to blend again. 430 and 450 gr 45's sure take a lot of lead though!

Drew

[6pt-sika]

I have about 1200 pounds of ingots from wheelweights and another 400-500 pounds to melt . I have two friends that own tire shops , so I go in every so often and carry away the old weights for free . Then they get put in a bin I have outside. When I get a chance I melt what I can in a 20LB Lee bottom pour. And I keep the ingots stacked up outside by the wheelweight bin until needed .
I have melted wheelweights and cast straight without making ingots , but that is a real pain in the butt.:castmine:

[Blacktail 8541]

I melt about 2, 5 gal buckets at a time. I pour them into mini loaf pans that weigh about 7.5 to 10 lbs a piece. When I get ready to make alloy I weigh them out and add the other ingediants to make 100lb batches. I use a digital postal scale to weigh every thing. When I make my alloy they all go into 1lb ingots. At this point the alloy has been cleaned twice before it ever reaches my bottom pour pot.

[35 Whelen]

dtalley, if i were you I'd go on and start. The way I do it is on my Coleman camp stove. I melt the WW's in a cast iron pot that has a 1 or 2 gallon capacity. I just start heaping them in and fishing the steel clips out as they come to the top of the melted alloy. When the pot is full, I flux well and start pouring up ingots without refilling the pot. I flux and make ingots until the pot is empty, then with one of those cheap steel letter/number stamping sets I stamp "WW" and some arbitrary "lot" number on each ingot. That way I get very consistent batches of alloys and I don't have to worry about keeping all my ingots segregated.

This also works well if you have any odd alloy. For example, my alloy for hollowpoints is 7 parts WW to 1 part pure lead. So, the ingots are stamped "WW/LD 7/1". Linotype ingots are "LT" and lead ingots are "L". Hope this helps!
35W

[D.Mack]

Just jump in and do it. Until you've done a batch or two, and worked out your system , or what your needs are, you'll not know what your comfort level is. I've done "batches" as little as 5 pounds to over a thousand, and still can't answer that question. So just jump in and do it and then you can decide how big your second pour will be. DM

[Ranch Dog]

I had 2000# of WW sitting in garbage cans and paid my brother to melt and pour it into ingots. Took him about a week [smilie=w:

I like the Lee ingot molds as in make combining alloys easy on a scale.

[buck1]

I melt when I have all I can do in a coupple of hours. 2-3 buckets. I have my smelt set up all the time. ...Buck