Smelted five-gallon bucket of ww today

[Bladeforger]

Finally! After all my questions and reading and more reading, I got around to smelting a five-gallon bucket of wheel weights today. The tools:
http://www.keithlocke.net/LeadSmelting/LeadSmeltingTools.jpg
I marked the soft lead with drywall screws laid into the ingot moulds... turned out to be 18 pounds. This came from the stick-on weights and should be okay for black powder shooting.
http://www.keithlocke.net/LeadSmelting/PureLead18PoundsWithDrywallScrews.jpg
The fan was keeping the fumes away from me. Dang that lead is pretty!
http://www.keithlocke.net/LeadSmelting/LeadOnScaleForStackSize.jpg
And how much did it all weigh? 18 + 62 = 80 pounds total. So the 62 pounds came from clip-on weights, which should be dandy for metallic cartridges--especially with a bit of tin added!
http://www.keithlocke.net/LeadSmelting/Got80PoundsTotal_62PoundsWereWW.jpg

[hoosierlogger]

dang brother you need a bigger pot!! Hit a few garage sales and thrift shops and you will have a good shot at some higher production casting tools. Its a good feeling isnt it to see all of them clips coming to the top

[Bladeforger]

dang brother you need a bigger pot!! Hit a few garage sales and thrift shops and you will have a good shot at some higher production casting tools. Its a good feeling isnt it to see all of them clips coming to the top
Yes, it is, indeed, a good feeling. Reading about it is one thing, but seeing it happen is another. It's like magic the way they rise.

I kept looking for zinc, and I just didn't find any on the clips. Finally I quit looking. The steel-weighted clip-on weights rise up and float just like the clips. For the stick-on weights, I sorted them by nipping them with a pair of dikes until I got the hang of which ones were good and which ones weren't. Most of the iron and the zinc stick-ons were marked as "Zn" or "Fe"; however, some weren't. The culling process worked 100% for the stick-ons.

I might have to get a bigger pot for the smelting someday, but then I'd probably need a different heater. That little skillet doesn't look like it holds much, but with a one-inch layer of lead in the bottom it is plenty heavy. I don't know if I'd want a bigger skillet. Probably the turkey fryer with a cast-iron dutch oven is the way to go long-term. Anyway, I got enough lead smelted in 4 hours or so to keep me in boolits for months. I had to do it once just to see if it was worth scrounging the wheel weights. It is! :lol:

[4719dave]

ya your hookeddddddddd its a great habit lookin good ,