Melting wheel weights with wood

[GregLaROCHE]

Here’s an interesting video using wood to melt down wheel weights.

https://youtu.be/5Ljldtu-u-s

[trapper9260]

I use wood to smelt my lead and I can cast with wood also if I need to , thanks for posting

[masscaster]

I would never render lead like that. The main reason is no temperature control for the lead over the fire.
There are a few others, but the afore mentioned can be dangerous.

Jeff

[CastingFool]

Using wood was how I rendered wheel weights into ingots, and small boat anchors, before I knew about fluxing, etc.

[lightman]

I've never used wood for melting lead. Propane or NG is just too easy. But most casters use what they have and theres no doubt that it works.

[lightman]

Here’s an interesting video using wood to melt down wheel weights.

https://youtu.be/5Ljldtu-u-s

The guy in the video has an impressive stack of lead!

[30calflash]

Thought provoking for sure, could be done on a small scale with a 10-20 lb pot with a bale on a rocket stove. Temp control could be adjusted by a damper or height of the pot over the flame. Or both. A lead thermometer would keep track of the temp.

[15meter]

I've melted a bunch of range scrap with wood.

I took a propane tank that was bigger than the standard 20 pound, don't remember what size it was.

Cut the bottom off, flipped the top over and welded 3 legs on it. Threaded the valve out and replaced it with a street ell. 18"pipe nipple into the street ell.

Took it to the club range and filled it 12-14" deep with very rough sifted range lead, put an 8-10 quart stainless pasta pot under the pipe nipple. The pot sat outside the fire.

Built a big fire with firewood/deadfall. Walked away from it for an hour and shot, went back, took a stout branch and stirred the pot to roll over the jacketed bullets that hadn't drained. All the other lead had flowed out the bottom and into the pot.

Dragged the pot away from the coals to let it cool.

Buddy and I were just talking a couple of weeks ago it was time to fire up the lead pot and build up the lead inventory before casting season rolls around next winter.

Let the fire die down on it's own.

Lead drained as soon as melted so no overheating, very little other stuff came into the melt.

It made a nice round flat ingot. After a few tries I was getting pretty close to 50 pound slabs every time. They stack nice.

Time to use them, I quarter them with a Skil-Saw and a framing blade.

Decent sized cardboard box on it's side to blow the chips into that's laying on a small tarp and you have virtually zero loss. Melt and flux the quartered sections(and chips) on a Coleman stove and use a steel muffin pan and I've got perfect ingots to go in the RCBS ProMelt.

[Bigslug]

I'm pretty sure George Washington's troops weren't using propane.