What are your favorite flux materials and why?

[Idahoshooter]

Just wondering..what do you folks consider to be the absolute best flux material..and why? Also just for the fun of it..what are some of the craziest things you have used...you know...oven dried cat turds or barber shop hair waste and such..and again why? Was just remembering how folks on black powder forums would go nuts with cleaning concoctions and methods...and was wondering what sort of stuff people here have done. thanks guys :)

[Ithaca1911]

I use woodchips/sawdust (currently on my second box of patmarlins flake flux, good stuff) I mix it with a bit of rendered beef fat. a big handful of flakes, with about 1/2 cup of fat, in my harbor freight dutch oven. works like a charm.

have also used a mahogany stick, candles, beeswax, and the oil that comes on the wheelweights :-)

[stubshaft]

I am also a convert to PMWFCFF. I have used boolit loob, beeswax, marvelux, wood chips and sawdust. Pat Marlins flux smells great, works good and after 1 year I am still working on my first box.

[evan price]

When rendering down wheel weights to ingots I use old motor oil. I change my own oil, drive lots of miles and have gallons of it usually. Plus it's free.

For fluxing a small pot I use crayons. Easy to handle, easy to use, and they are free from restaurants when I take my kids.

[Bob J]

I use candle wax..... Picked up at a yard sale for very cheap and works great....:-)

[Jon]

I bought some marvelux, and I don't like the glassy junk it leaves. Candles work great for me, and they are cheap.

[Ctkelly]

Pat Marlins flux, haven't had the need to try anything else. Works great and smells great.

[dragonrider]

Sawdust because it works great and anything else will cause a build up a crud on the sides of your pot. Sawdust will keep you pot clean and sweetsmelling.

[RayinNH]

I use old motor oil as well when rendering. Like Evan said, available and cheap. Once it goes in the casting pot I almost never flux again, after all it's supposed to be clean at that point. I do float kitty litter on top of the casting pot to keep the oxidation down...Ray

[sargenv]

I use Pat Marlin's Flux and Paraffin wax.. I have a LOT of Paraffin wax from my candle making days..

[Cord]

I used bullet lube for years, but didn’t like laying out
and handling the sticky little bits on the bench, or cutting
them as needed with gloves on.

Then I tried using homemade sawdust, but the smoke
lasted too long and the ash made crud build up on the walls
of my RCBS melter – it does cut down on oxidation, though.
Also, the way I light up the smoke blew ash all over the bench.

Now I use cheap vegetable oil from the grocery store-
I pour a little in my small Lee ladle, stir it in, and ignite the smoke with a
B-Zo-Matic trigger starting propane torch. (best single tool I ever bought)

It forms a liquid black scum with no crud, and a bright shiny melt,
but it does allow top oxidation to form sooner, so I flux a bit more often
than before- but it’s so quick and easy I don’t mind.

There’s not too much smoke if you light it off right, and what smoke
there is kinda smells like French Fries.

[mold maker]

Just be sure the home made sawdust isn't from treated lumber.
Pats is great and I do sometimes add a little candle wax from the remains of the bag lights at the church at Christmas.

[awaveritt]

I saved a couple of ziplock bags full of western red cedar sawdust left over from building a cedar strip canoe. Works great and smells great, too.

[cbrick]

you know...oven dried cat turds

No no no, that's ridiculous and probably wouldn't even work. Everyone knows they are supposed to be "freeze dried".

Over the years I've used beeswax, paraffin, crayons, various lubes and others. For several years I used Marvelux which does flux well but I sure got tired of using a wire brush in a drill motor and trying to grind the hardened crud out of the pot. Never again!

After Marvelux I switched to sawdust which I get for free from work in any quantity I need. I read somewhere that sawdust was more effective if dampened with olive oil so I tried that. It worked well but I doubt any better than straight sawdust. I used the olive oil sawdust mix several times before it got exciting, one fine evening it ignited, never had before but it sure did this time. I'm not talking flames on the surface of the melt, I mean balls of flame rolling across the ceiling. Need I mention that was the last time my pot has seen olive oil? I got lucky, no damage except for my nerves and heart rate. I'll bet you didn't know that simple fluxing of the alloy could be this exciting.

Since I've had the Magma pot (4-5 years) it hasn't seen any flux except straight, clean sawdust. The sides of this pot today are as squeaky clean as the day I bought it, so is my alloy and so are my boolits.

Rick

[JSnover]

+1 for sawdust or a wood stick. I've used petroleum products, beeswax and several boolit lubes. They worked but often smelled horrible or left a funky residue on the pot, or the fumes burst into flames (I was told it's "just right" when it self-ignites). After 2nd degree burns to both hands and the right side of my face I'm done with that stuff.

[Gunslinger]

I have never used anything else than old candle stubs and beeswax... seems to work.

Most funny thing I've used is gunpowder he he. Don't know if it really worked... it was stuck on some boolits I remelted.

[LeadThrower]

When I can't get my hands on rendered baby fat... :twisted:

I use used motor oil. My lead scrap comes from an indoor range and so contains quite a bit of fine particles and dust. I pour motor oil over it and let it "soak" for a week. It coats the material and holds the dust down during handling. It's a great flux, but I've noticed that once it has done its job of getting the bullet jackets kind of clean, a hunk of paraffin works great for the final cleaning and fluxing during pouring ingots.

I'm awaiting a checkmaker packed in Pat's Flake Flux. I hear stories about it's awesome aroma and I'm eager to test it out and compare it to the delightful scent of burning motor oil ;)

[runfiverun]

anything thats carbon based works well.
i have used old rail road tie chunks in smelting to stir the pot.
coal dust, saw dust.
i save the marvelux to add as a oxygen barrier to cut down on dross while casting.
i have used a lot of it while smelting also but use straight boraxo the laundry detergent now.
and have used kitty litter before.