smelting ?'s from a NewGuy

[NewGuy]

New to casting. I don't even have all the necessary equipment yet. I was going to start by smelting down my +/- 600 lbs of wheelweights yesterday before a light rain made me decide to pull the plug (no tinsel fairy for me, I hope)

I see most guys recommend a cast iron pot for smelting. I picked up a pretty heavy duty aluminum pressure cooker base at a second hand shop. Any reason this wouldn't work?

Also, after skimming off all of the black crud, there was a film of dull gray metal floating on top. I believe that I read somewhere that this should remain in the melt. Should I skim it or mix it back in?

This is a great site with a lot of knowledgeable folks.

Thanks in advance!

[RKJ]

New to casting. I don't even have all the necessary equipment yet. I was going to start by smelting down my +/- 600 lbs of wheelweights yesterday before a light rain made me decide to pull the plug (no tinsel fairy for me, I hope)

I see most guys recommend a cast iron pot for smelting. I picked up a pretty heavy duty aluminum pressure cooker base at a second hand shop. Any reason this wouldn't work?

Also, after skimming off all of the black crud, there was a film of dull gray metal floating on top. I believe that I read somewhere that this should remain in the melt. Should I skim it or mix it back in?

This is a great site with a lot of knowledgeable folks.

Thanks in advance!

NewGuy, I'm new to this also, but I've seen a lot of folks say here Do not use aluminum as it can let go at any given time with no warning. There are some pretty bad stories here about it. What I did (after I read those and got rid of my aluminum pot) :) was to go to Goodwill (as many suggested here also) and found a couple of SS pots. They probably won't last as long as any cast iron but they work well and were priced right. I also got a hot plate from Walgreen's (another suggestion from the folks here ) for $10.00, it works great. I'm sure others with a lot more experience than I will post shortly.

[stubert]

Aluminum pots WILL melt, you are asking for trouble. Did you ever throw a soda can on a fire?, they start to sag real fast.

[lylejb]

Aluminium is a soft metal, to begin with. Like any metal, the hotter it get, the softer it gets. Add to that, lead is heavy, almost 100 lb per gallon.

When pressure cooking, you might be at 250 degrees. when smelting your melt will be 550 -650 degrees, or higher.

So, add together alot more heat to soften the aluminium, and alot more weight in the pot than was ever intended, and you can see the potential for failure is there.

Yes, I've read about some people that have gotten away with it, but I won't use aluminium. I like my fingers and toes just how they are.

I picked up an old stainless pot at a thrift store for $3 or $4. Best investment I've made recently. I like stainless better than iron because less junk seems to stick to the sides and bottom. I get cleaner ingots since I switched to stainless, but maybe that's just me.

If you think about what could happen IF that aluminium pot failed, I think you'll agree that the safety factor is well worth a few more bucks or a few more looks in the thrift store.

[HeavyMetal]

NewGuy:
Welcome to the site. Always glad to help a newbee.

First suggestion: if your not willing to change your handle to "OneFootGuy" dump the Aluminum smelting pot pronto!

I have heard that Stainless Steel pots have worked OK but I'm a real Old School kinda guy and Cast Iron is the way to go here!

Thrift stores are an excellent bet to find these as well as Yard and Estate sales. Turkey fryers work very well for this and the same sources work well for these if you have some time.

Second suggestion: when you get a cast iron pot do not strike it on the rim while hot! I've seen and heard of guys doing this, to "clear" the ladle, and it causes the pot to crack with hot lead going all over the place.

Treat hot cast iron gentle and it will give you years of service!

[RayinNH]

Aluminum has a peculiar habit of being a solid one minute and liquid the next with no warning, particularly with a 150,000-200,000 BTU burner under it...Ray

[markinalpine]

I started out with an old S/S saucepan, about 2.5 quart, on a propane camp stove. I still use that setup for stick on wheel weights. I now have a 1.5 gallon S/S bowl and a turkey fryer burner that I use for smelting clip on wheel weights. I try to keep the heat to the lowest setting, and I do use a thermometer to avoid melting any zinc wheel weights that might slip by my pre-smelting inspection. :groner: It happens!
Welcome to the board, and good luck,
Mark :coffeecom

[Hickory]

I made this a while back for a friend but he hasn't picked it up yet.
Iwould have took apicture of mine, but its half full of lead and this one was easier to move around for the picture.




http://i868.photobucket.com/albums/ab247/hickory_01/photobucket028-1.jpg

[prs]

Hickory; that is one fine caldron! My memory is not so keen, but I think I have heard of stainless pots cracking; but not sure. I use a pot made of heavy mild steel and it has enough volume to hold the wieights, clips, and dross of a batch large enough to net me 100#. I have it marked on the side wall for the hot liquid batch size that yields 100# of clean metal, thus making it easy to add a pound of tin if want to for 1% addition at the end of the smelt.

After having read the new, to me, method of using sulfur to trap any stray zinc; my smelting process has just taken on a need for editing. Especially with wheel weights as the prime source, I will incorperate the sulfuring steps. Experience with this new step may be an evolutionary process, but I figure to bring my heat up slower and hold the melt at or just above the lead melt stage for some significant time. Dros, dirt, clips and all. Then work in a half pint or so of sulfur, then remove the "cake" of entrapped zinc and waste; repeated as or if necessary. Once that is done, I will kick up the heat and process as typical for me; which is to hold the temp at that point where beeswax or parrifin self ignites and then stir in the flux and de-dross.

The original poster asked about the layer of differentiated metal at the top, which is often considered to be tin rich. We may lose some of that upper layer in the sulfur treatment, I dunno. But wheelweights are so nasty rich with carbon impurities (cigar buts and dirt and who knows or would wanna kwow) that the base alloy is gonna be pretty well in fux anyway.

[Hickory]

This is an old steel 20 lb LP tank the type that can't be refilled.
I've had mine for years, and its burnt and black and works fine for me.

On mine I have a spout on one side and a handle on the other to pour
the lead into ingots.


:cbpour:

[geargnasher]

I made one from a 20# cylinder also, but I abandoned it due to the fact that it loses too much heat. The reason I came up with that was because I could weld on it easily and made a bottom pour Drip-O-Matic. It ended up being more trouble than it was worth for my purposes. Now I use a cast iron four-quart pot with lit, it's about as deep as it is wide. A dutch oven is perfectly suited to the task, though.

Cast iron can crack too, but usually never will if you don't smelt at astronomical temps.

As has been said, keep your smelting temps under 650* to prevent the Zinc weights from melting in, you DON'T those in there! If you keep the temps low, you can just skim them off with the clips and iron weights.

One more thing, use a FULL face shield, heavy insulated gloves, and leather boots. If the Tinsel faery does come to visit, you'll be better protected. It only takes one drop of molten flying lead to destroy a cornea, and you can't be too paranoid with this stuff.

Gear

[NewGuy]

Thanks for the input from all. It looks like I'm on the hunt for a pot as well as more lead! On the plus side, I think I've got more lead than I originally thought. Between what I smelted yesterday, and cleaning out my pot today (very carefully, I might add), I came up w/ ~170 lbs of clean ingots. By eyeballing my remaining wheelweights, I would guess I've got about 500 lbs of clean alloy when I'm done.

Not that I'll ever be done. This week, I hunt for more lead!

Thanks all!