First time using sawdust

[jsizemore]

Rick, How much COWW's do you need?

[jsizemore]

One of the problems I thought of originally was if the sample was too small or from a particular part of the country it would'nt truly represent the entire country. I was worried that the sample WOULDN'T be contaminated with undesirable elements that might be encountered across the country. I live in a mid-atlantic state with a large population growth. I'm sure I have WW from everywhere on the eastern seaboard and east of the Mississippi. I'd be glad to send a MFRB of sorted COWW to draw a sample. If we could get a few folks to make a small donation each from out west our cross country test would be complete. Or intentionally contaminate the sample before fluxing. What do ya think?

[cbrick]

Well, enough to cover the bottom of my smelting pot deep enough that it could be fluxed, stirred & then ladled out. How much is that? Dunno, I've never tried dealing with a small quantity like this, when I fire up the smelting pot it has 80-100 pounds in it. Don't need anywhere near that much but how much is in the bottom that it can be worked with?

Rick

[jsizemore]

MFRB or LFRB?

[cbrick]

I can cover the saw dust fluxed alloy, already have that. All of my weights came from in & around the Los Angeles area including truck tire stores so there is a pretty good chance they are from all over the country. We need enough for un-fluxed WW and fluxed with wax.

Rick

[jsizemore]

PM on the way.

[geargnasher]

I just smelted down all of mine a few months ago, all I have is sorted truck weights and a few stickies or I'd be glad to volunteer samples from and 80lb batch of clippy weights. You guys are going to do us all quite a service if this comes to fruition.

Gear

[cbrick]

jsizemore just sent me a PM, he is sending a medium flat rate box of clip-ons. If we could get another medium box from a different part of the country to blend it all together & see what comes of that.

Rick

[MBTcustom]

If twer me, I wouldn't blend it Rick. Leave the two batches separate and let's do the same test to both batches. It's a little more of a PITA, but it would tell us a lot more if we had two different batches.

[Reloader06]

Let me see what I have outside tomorrow morning. How much do you think you'll need?

Matt

[MBTcustom]

I would think a small flat rate box would do it.
Rick?

[cbrick]

If twer me, I wouldn't blend it Rick. Leave the two batches separate and let's do the same test to both batches. It's a little more of a PITA, but it would tell us a lot more if we had two different batches.

I agree but I was thinking about the imposition of you & your friend at work. Leave them separate it is.

Rick

[Echo]

I would like to obtain some Pine sawdust but there are no Lumber Mills in my Town or cabinet shops listed. Any idea where I can obtain some?
Thanks

Any Lowe's or Home Depot or whatever that has a saw will have a garbage can full of sawdust to give away.

[jsizemore]

MFRB of COWW headed to Rick. Can't wait to hear the results. I'm glad we have all these resources available.

[jmort]

Thanks are in order to goodsteel, cbrick, and jsizemore. This is all good.

[cbrick]

Just got a PM from jsizemore, he sent 40 pounds. wow, that was generous of him.

I'll split that up into different lot's and use different fluxing for each lot such as no fluxing, fluxing with wax, saw dust etc. and send the samples off the Goodsteel.

If anyone else has any other ideas/suggestions on fluxing I'm all ears. We have one shot at getting this right and we all stand to learn a lot from this.

Rick

[jmort]

My suggestion would be to use some stock and standard pine shavings/dust and bee's wax. Common products readily available to everyone at low cost.

[cbrick]

40 pounds of well sorted & pretty clean clip-on wheel weights arrived yesterday from jsizemore, thank you sir, that was very generous.

Today I spent 7 hours creating samples to be tested. I should get them to the PO to go to Goodsteel tomorrow.

Here is what will be tested, 8 different samples from 3 different alloys. Once we get the results back I'll post what each sample is, how it was processed & the test results of each.

All clip-on weights were from the same source so it was all melted at once. From this there is a sample with zero fluxing, nothing more than crud & clips moved out of the way and a boolit ladled. There are samples from this fluxed with wax, saw dust & Marvalux. After the initial melt & that sample taken without flux the melt was poured into ingots. Some of the ingots were re-melted & another flux done & then that alloy poured back into ingots. Fresh, un-fluxed ingots for the next sample etc. thus each sample has only one type of fluxing done to it.

Next, I had a four pound ingot of mystery alloy that I had melted out of used saw dust flux a few years back, I fluxed that ingot when I made it but not today, I melted it & poured a sample.

I had about 50 pounds of raw stick-on weights & 2 samples came from this, one with no fluxing just the crud moved out of the way and a sample poured & a second sample that I fluxed with sawdust.

Hope I didn't miss something obvious, this is a golden opportunity for a good education for all of us and a huge thank you is owed to Goodsteel and his friend at work.

Rick

[Rooster59]

Great ideas for this newbie melter/caster.

One thing, my sawdust sometimes contains treated lumber too. Should I avoid treated and only use untreated pine dust?

[cbrick]

I've used plywood a great many times with really good ventilation but I think even I would avoid the pressure treated stuff. Just can't be good aside from how really horrible that stuff smells burning, I got some in the yard burn pile once, unforgettable experience.

Rick