What do you use for flux?

[OnceFired]

Hi all

New to the forum recently. I am getting started in reloading & casting, and am looking for a bit of advice.

My setup:

• Leather apron, welding gloves, face shield, filter mask etc for safety.
• Turkey fryer propane burner, steel pot / glass lid, stainless utensils for first pass smelting.
• About 20 2-oz individual stainless steel condiment cups for ingot molds (no more baking steel muffin tins!)
• Hand-separated all wheel weights (only one steel one got past me, no zincs did so.)
• Smelted tape-on WW separately from clip-ons.
• Have a smelting thermometer, kept at just over lead melting point (to prevent zinc issue just in case.)
• First pass smelting done outside on our concrete patio, plenty of ventilation.
• Lee 4-20 bottom pour smelter for actual casting duties. Secondary pass could be in garage with doors open & large portable fans for vent. I don't have a suitable table yet for outdoor, but I do for garage (reload bench & chair.)
• Lee 6-cavity .356 9mm round nose tumble lube mold.
• Lee tumble lube kit and liquid xlox from White Label Lube guys.

My whole goal of casting was to provide a highly cost effective method of reloading. So, I have purchased everything I could as low priced as I could, even scrounging for sources of lead instead of buying it whenever possible.

I had heard repeatedly that both wax and sawdust functioned quite well as flux. I figured I could find a huge supply of sawdust for free at any home improvement store. I should have a free lifetime supply that way.

My problem is this - it seems the sawdust didn't come completely out of my second smelts' first pass group. Those are dirtier ingots visually speaking than the first set of ingots I did with admittedly less dust. I think I may have used too much sawdust, or (more likely) simply not skimmed enough of it out from the bottom & sides.

It is also possible the baking steel muffin molds I used at first were to blame. I inadvertently let the lead harden too much, and had to remove the mold with snips & pliers when all other methods to extricate the ingots had failed. The molds were completely destroyed - but were only $1 each so was a good learning experience. hahahah

Any thoughts on using sawdust in particular, or the ingot color difference issue? I figured I would use the wax from cheap tea candles found at Walmart this time, to see if that helped clean anything up. But since it's going to just carbonize I imagine it wouldn't matter which of the two substances I used.

Thank you,
ZAG

[myfriendis410]

For the sawdust to really do it's job it needs to remain on the melt until it has done it's job. The sawdust turns to charcoal and pulls impurities out of the melt, but IMO the temperature needs to be high enough for it to do it's job. I'm not sure you are quite hot enough; I could be wrong. I rouse and skim and repeat several times when smelting lead for ingots. Most of my lead is pulled from the backstop at the local pistol range so it's pretty full of other things like sand etc.

I found using candle wax to flame up so be aware.

[Del-Ray]

There's a book, a FREE book mind you that a person just published that you may want to read as well. I'm trying to find it, a link has been posted here earlier....

Here we go:

http://www.lasc.us/ArticleIndex.htm

It's on the top: "From Ingot to Target"

It's a good sized book, so make sure you're at work before you print it, or just read it on the puter.

[waksupi]

Stir the melt with a dry stick.

[OnceFired]

I'll have a look at the book, thanks.

Yeah, I left the sawdust in for quite a while, stirring and skimming periodically. It too flared up - both right at addition (even before it hits the lead, if dispersed well) and then of course at the flash point.

I was sure to sprinkle it around so it was reasonably distributed instead of just plopping it in the lead. And, I had already skimmed a few times before the saw dust, since the wheel weights / clips / grit on the weights had already served as flux before that.

I'll keep trying, and keep listening for more advice too.

Thanks,
ZAG

[Reverend Recoil]

Fluxing with canning wax work well enough for me.

[engineer401]

I've fluxed with old candles, paraffin wax and bullet lube. They all worked well for me. I just need to make sure to scrape the pot well. I also use the Frankford Arsenal flux from Midway with success.

[canyon-ghost]

I've used candles, Gulf canning wax, and now I have 10# of parafin from a candle shop that I made into ingots. I like lighting it to burn off all the trash, get pretty clean lead that way.

[Jack Stanley]

The last time I cut up some spruce trees I saved a good bit of the sawdust from the chainsaw . When working outside I use a liberal amount on the melt . Apple wood is good too along with hickory , oak ........

Working down in the dungeon though I am much more skimpy with the sawdust . I use just enough to do the job on my already cleaned ingots but not overwhelm my air mover .

Jack

[BillP]

I stirr with a 1"x1" square wood stick...it's trim molding for houses. The end of the stick catches on fire rapidly and turns to charcoal.

[geargnasher]

Read the Glen Fryxell link.

If you're using grease/oil/wax you are NOT fluxing, you're adding chemicals necessary to create a reduction/oxidation reaction which revert oxide scum to elemental metals. Good, but does nothing for impurities, especially the sort of dissolved metallic impurities found in wheel weights which we boolit casters want removed.

To truly flux, you need sawdust, which also has the same reduction effect as the greases/oils/wax as a bonus.

If your melt is already purified, but needs the oxide scum reduced, a simple chunk of wax thrown in or policing the scum into a pile and working it against the sides of the pot with a pine stick will get rid of it. Skim the small amount of dry, powdered ash out afterwards.

Gear

[10 ga]

If it's just funky lookin ingots don't worry, you will re-flux when you use them to cast. I am a ladel guy and use lots of sawdust. With the manipulating crust to ladel stuff out I am constantly adding sawdust and fluxing. I use oak or maple sticks size of paint stirring paddles to stir the melt. 10 ga




x

[Bad Water Bill]

Beware oof the Frankfort powder as it does draw moisture out of the air.

The tinsile fairy WILL visit your home very soon. Don't ask me.

[Junior1942]

I'll say it again.... Some 20 or 25 years ago a metallurgist told me fluxing did zilch to melted lead alloys. So I stopped fluxing. Some many thousands of cast bullets later, I find that fluxing did zilch to my melted lead alloys. I think the main benefit of fluxing is a nice plume of smoke.

[felix]

I would say the same thing, Junior, if I were not a shooter. For most lead applications the difference would indeed be zilch. Boat anchors/heels and X-rays can care less when doing their intended jobs. ... felix

[Junior1942]

I would say the same thing, Junior, if I were not a shooter. For most lead applications the difference would indeed be zilch. Boat anchors/heels and X-rays can care less when doing their intended jobs. ... felix

I am a shooter, Felix. No flux has made zero difference in the quality of my cast bullets. Try it; you might like it.

[David2011]

Most of the WW I've collected had a good coating of oil and grease so I never added anything else.

Gear, ya think the petroleum leftovers plus some sawdust would be the way to go?

David

[Carryacolt]

Junior

Its been awhile since I have molded but now getting back into it. I was told that the purpose of the flux was two fold. First it brought the impurities to the surface plus, and most important, it put the tin back into the lead. In time, the tin would float to the surface and lay on the top. If you would skim it off, then you were lowering the content of it in the lead. At that time, everyone used beeswax to flux.

When I was still working, I was in charge of a solder line process that ran printed circuit boards over a liquid flux pot then directly over a flowing lead pot. The solder pot attendant would skim the solder pot by pulling everything off the top and put it into a bucket. I kept telling the engineer of the project that the solder connections were were going to break down due to the tin being removed and compromising the joint. Yep, some months down the road there was a real problem with no-fills, incomplete fills, and brittle fills. All were rejects and the fix was to flux the lead pot and stirring the tin back into suspension, THEN remove what ever was left on the surface. All the dross was being sold to a salvage for pennies and it was almost pure tin.

[Smithy]

If it's just funky lookin ingots don't worry, you will re-flux when you use them to cast.

The re-fluxing is quite true no matter how clean you think you ingots are. It might be simply dust that collected in your pot or other alloy's in the lead that are now leaching out. My first choice is Brownells Magnaflux. A small container of this lasts for a very long time, but when I ran out recently I again reached for another Brownells product. A jar of powdered rosin. Originally sold to increase friction of barrel clamps and the like. Just a wee bit of either product allow to burn a bit on the surface. After it has turned a uniform black (but still burning, no flames per se but smoke), start stirring it to get it mixed throughout the melt. It gathers contaminants as you stir and always comes up floating on the top. It's then an easy job to skim the dross and have pretty darn clean lead.

Add more ingots to the melt and you'll probably have to flux again. Any introduction of new lead will always produce stuff you don't want in your bullets if only the surface lead oxidation which always comes from a cold ingot. You may have problems with the Lee production pot and the Lee six cavity and pouring a good cast of six bullets. Without fine control of the bottom drop feature it's real easy to dump a little too much lead which runs into the next cavity. If it does, consider that next cavity a goner as you have a spot of cooling lead mixed with newer hot lead. The bullet will always have a crease of other imperfection.

I got a Lyman mag 20 pot and milled my Lee six cavity molds to fit the Lyman mold guide. I never had such a run of keeper bullets than I did with that combination. Good luck and happy casting. Smithy.

[ArrowJ]

I have a neighbor that is an apiarists. Would bees wax do the job?