I guess the biggest pot ever is junk

[charger 1]

You might know that if I'm going to have a pot of alloy go screwey its going to be the biggest batch. I got this little thing I do ,I add the WW's to the pot,melt em down,add 1 foot of leadfree tin soldier per quarter inch of alloy depth ,cast,quench and bang 20.5 hardness every batch every time. A sure fire garauntee...So after pouring about 5-600 I decide that before the pot goes away and all is well I'll make up about a 50 pounder so I'm all set to go the next time. So I do a test pour of a few . 14.5 hardness and no how no way are they getting harder. Everything came from the same lot,weights ,tin etc. I notived when I turned the pot off the mix shrunk from the sides more and,and the top had like little grainy stalagtites,and kinda sunken. Like I mean UGLY.....Any ideas before I dump it??

[Marlin Junky]

At what temp. were you melting the wheel weights? Were all the wheel weights of the clip-on variety and all looked like Pb based weights?

I don't have any idea how much alloy equates to a quarter inch in your pot but it still sounds like your using a lot of tin. What percentage of tin is that?

MJ

[Buckshot]

..................If they cast well, no problem. That 14 BHN is well over WW hardness. Pure lead shrinks most.

..............Buckshot

[charger 1]

I'm wondering though why doing everyhting the same way multiple other times from the same bucket of wheel weights at the same temp,the same tin,from the same roll,everything cast the same way,water quenched the same way gave 5 +brin. more each and every time before? They come out about 2.5%tin

[charger 1]

At what temp. were you melting the wheel weights? Were all the wheel weights of the clip-on variety and all looked like Pb based weights?

I don't have any idea how much alloy equates to a quarter inch in your pot but it still sounds like your using a lot of tin. What percentage of tin is that?

MJ

They all looked Pb based to me,just what is the visual you guys look for???

[Marlin Junky]

Most of my weights are obviously Pb based but the tests I perform on the not so obvious ones are the bend test, the magnet test and the scratch test.

I try to render clip-on WW's at 625F just in case a funny one slips by me when I'm sorting clip-ons from stick-ons. During my last WW rendering day I had one floater that I fished out of the pot.

MJ

[charger 1]

From what I've been told all canadian weights are pb....Anyhoo, note to self>Never make a batch so big again that you cant afford to loose without crying. I got a beauty new boat anchor and another batch of weights is melting