What is the most lead you melted down at one time?

[JeepsAndGuns]

Had lots of roofing boots from a roofing friend when I lived in West Mobile Alabama. Got tired of it taking so long to get the job of smelting it down for my base material to make my different alloy out of. I like you was using a small Dutch oven to do it with. I had three 35 gal galvanized steel trash cans from Wally that when full I would do a batch. PITA, it would take forever. Decided to build a new smelter. 20# propane tank was the answer for me. I can do 250-300 pounds of lead at a time. Did 600+ pounds back on November 9th an 10th. So, about 250 to 300 pounds per pot load is the biggest load at one time for me which is a hugh improvement over my old method of doing this. Wish I had done it sooner. Happy New Year to all here on Castboolits. A new smelter project is a great New Year resolution I think.

Do you not use any type of insulation around the tank? Seems with the thin walls, a lot of heat would escape.
What burner are you using? My turkey fryer base will blow itself out if I turn up the gas too high. Maybe just my burner is not good enough?

[MOA]

JeepsAndGuns.
Check you PM's.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

Did 80# a while back. Three 26# bricks of pure from Roto and 4# of pewter for a mess of softer alloy.

[anothernewb]

Most I've ever done in a single shot was a few years ago when I bought range scrap to a buddy of mine's place. we set up a wood stove with a big iron pot plus a pair of magnum melters and rendered approx 1600# of scrap in one (long) day into ingots.

[kevin c]

Nice fab work there, MOA. I use those same small loaf pans to cast storage ingots. Is that a ballistic panel that they’re sitting on?

My pot isn’t as deep as yours. The guy who made mine (D Crockett) built in a spout so I could lift it with a couple Vice Grips to pour out what I couldn’t get with a ladle. How do (or do you) empty yours?

[Smoke4320]

you could melt 4 50 lb batches (assuming your 200 lb guess) mark each one as batch # 1,2,3 or 4 as you pour them in to ingots
when you go to casting use a single ingot from each batch and all your casting alloy would be that same

[AlHunt]

Maybe this is a good excuse to buy a lead hardness tester. Then you could mix and match your existing ingots at casting time. 60 or 80 bucks for a tester beats hours and hours remelting and recasting 200 pounds of lead.

[MOA]

Nice fab work there, MOA. I use those same small loaf pans to cast storage ingots. Is that a ballistic panel that they’re sitting on?

My pot isn’t as deep as yours. The guy who made mine (D Crockett) built in a spout so I could lift it with a couple Vice Grips to pour out what I couldn’t get with a ladle. How do (or do you) empty yours?

Kevin C, yes, that is a 4x8 ballistic panel. Guess the weave pattern gave it away huh. Lol, as far as emptying the pot, I just turn it off an after it cools I just lift out the last of the lead, or just leave it to start the next melt with. I only use this pot for smelting raw supplies down into manageable ingots that I can then mix with other metals and alloys to get the alloy I need for my shooting agenda. I do most of my boolit casting in my magma caster. Other casting like shotgun slugs and buckshot I do in my master pot. I try to cast a few flat point boolits from all alloy mixes in the big pot and water cooler them and test their hardness on a LBT tester. That way I know roughly what any ingot group is. Makes boolits for handgun and rifle, slow or fast fps requirements easier to satisfy.

Now just as a side thought...........I'm going to attempt to make some charcoal to be used in a little homemade BP experiments. With a screen on the bottom to keep the wood off the bottom of the tank, and a smelting thermometer from Roto Metals that goes to 1000° inserted into the valve threaded location on the top half I cut off the tank with aluminum tape closings off cut seam I think it will do double duty as a retort for making good BP charcoal. I really like dual use projects. The charcoal is usually the hardest part of making BP. The potassium and sulfur is the easy part.

[Forrest r]

WOW,
MOA's setup is very well thought out, sweet!!!

Myself, I use the same 20# propane tank to melt the alloys in. Just made it a little differently. The valve bodies on the propane tanks is bronze/brass (?), I cut it off with a sawsall which leaves 2 1/4" holes in the lid to allow smoke to escape. The tanks are welded together and have a reinforcement ring inside the tank at the top/bottom junction. I took a 4 1/2" grinder with a thin cutting blade and cut the tank in 2 pieces just below the center weld line. I actually used the weld line as a gauge. You can feel when you cut into the weld or the reinforcement ring (resistance), takes about 10 minutes to cut the tank in 1/2. The end result is you have a tank with a lid that seals extremely well holding the heat & has small vent holes to let small amounts of smoke (if any) out. I use a turkey frier base as a heat source. If you look closely at the bottom of the lid you can see the reinforcement ring that does an excellent job of sealing the pot.
[IMG][/IMG]

Typical batches of alloy are +/- 150# and take about 20 minutes to melt. I mainly use range scrap for alloy & and up with melted alloy like thins after the jackets and junk are scooped off and the ally fluxed. You can see the 2 1/4" holes in the top of the lid.
[IMG][/IMG]

Takes longer to ladle the alloy out and turn it into ingots then it did to melt everything and clean the alloy up.
[IMG][/IMG]

That batch was just over 100#. Typically I put in 150# and get 100# to 105# of cleaned ingots. Been rendering the same range scrap from the same ranges since the 80's & pretty much it's been the same thing. Loosing +/- 1/3 of the weight of the range scrap to jackets/junk.
[IMG][/IMG]

When rendering the range scrap I run the turkey frier pretty hot and then let it coll down as I remove the jackets/junk. Using a thermometer I flux when the temp hits +/- 680*. I can do 7 or 8 batches with 1 tank of propane.

[fivegunner]

The picture in my avatar is my Furnace that I melt and blend Lead ,it holds about 300LB`s makes short work of the Lead I get.