First Melting - How do I start? and finish?

[Mountain Meadow]

Hi Guys/gals;

Well I've accumulated all the equipment I think I need to start melting lead. To start, I plan to just practice with 1/2lb and 1lb ingots to get the feel and safety aspects down. Ultimately, I hope to be casting .562/.570 round balls for my Fowler and .476 bullets for my Turnbull.

I have a 20lb electric melting pot (ladle not bottom spout), ladles -lee lyman rcbs and Roto's, Lead thermometer, lee and lyman ingot molds, and a lead tester for equipment. (yes, I know I went overboard on the beginners equipment, but this is as much a hobby as an economical endeavor)

I have a full face shield (plastic flip down type) and leather gloves and full length clothing.

I have over 200lbs of assorted lead. Unlubed mini, maxi and round balls. 1oz sinkers, and larger sinkers. I have 1, 2 and 5lb divers weights. I also have a lot of .357 lubed bullets I think another thread said to boil off lube first, wont use these now.

My prospective melting place is a 300lb very sturdy old wood workbench right in front of a window and I have small and large fans. I have an old baking sheet and towel to drop the lead on.

So, here goes my questions.

1. Which lead to start practicing with? Good hopefully pure lead like the round balls or scrap like the sinkers of unknown composition? I am concerned about contaminating the pot, whats left in the bottom when done.

2. Do I clean the molds? They are brand new in box.

3. Do I try to heat the molds? the pot is a lee magnum melter and doesn't' seem to have much of a "shelf" to heat them on.

4. Should I try to use 15-20 lbs of lead or start with less?

5. Should I add it all at once or 1/4, 1/2 at a time?

6. Where do I "hit" the mold to drop the ingot out?

7. Finally, MY Big questions is about whats left in the pot at the end. I assume (there's that word!) the ladle will not get all the lead out of the pot. Do I just leave it in there to cool? Will that damage the pot? Do I somehow remove it and how? Will leaving the last bit contaminate the next melting if the lead is of a different hardness/composition?

Any advice you can give a beginner from an ease and safety point of view on how to start and finish would be greatly appreciated.

Mountain Meadow (muzzleloaders)

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Mountain Meadow,
Welcome to the forum.

I would start by melting alloys you know are the same and practice some casting. Don't start mixing alloys until you've read the following.
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chap...Metallurgy.htm

From what you've said, I'd start with your "Unlubed mini, maxi and round balls", because they should all be same alloy, depending on who cast them? ...actually they all should be pure Lead or very very close, but I have known others to cast round balls with scrap alloy, like WW or whatever.

[Winger Ed.]

Sounds like you're off to a good start.
You can clean the new molds with pretty much any strong petroleum solvent. Brake cleaner is a favorite.

If you're making ingots, they should drop out of the mold when they cool enough to solidify.
If you need to tap a mold for a boolit to drop, hit the hinge on the handles, not the mold.

I use a bottom pour, but the method is pretty much the same:
I start with a rather full pot, run it down about half way, then add to it and fill it back up.

Don't worry about cleaning the pot. As you add to it, stir and flux, spoon the crud off, it will clean itself.
Stirring it cleans it. Just get the crud moving and it will float up.

For that Black Powder stuff, I'd try to keep the alloy as soft and as close to pure Lead as I can
and it still flow into the mold and fill it well.

The mold will need to be pretty hot too.
Get a hot plate, put a bar over the pot for it to sit on, something.

I stir with a old, big flat screw driver, and shovel the crud off the top with a wooden paint stick.
I heat both of them by laying them over the top of the pot for awhile.
There is enough humidity in the air to make the Lead bubble and want to splatter if they aren't heated first.

I'm not sure if, or how long it takes for the alloys to separate or stratify out in Lead,
but just in case they do it fairly quickly, I do a quick stir at least every 10 minutes or so.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Hi, Mountain Meadow. 3rd post--hope someone said, "Welcome to the Castboolits Forum!"

You certainly are equipped and prepared to go about it in a big way. There are probably more boolit casters gathered together here than one would imagine, and each has their own techniques or twists on the subject and know a lot more than me. I'll give you a rundown on how I do it, but I'm "primitive" compared to most of these guys.

First, years ago I got lucky and found a tire shop, small, privately owned and not part of a chain, the owner of which liked bullet casters and despised fishing sinker people. That was very fortunate, because all of the other tire stores for miles around had been signed to contracts by fishing sinker makers who scarfed up all the wheel weights. This owner sold me several 5 gallon buckets full of the old clip on weights for $35 per bucket. I've still got two un-melted buckets full after maybe 18 years. I've found that for my purposes straight wheel weight metal works well. I don't bother with anything else. Sometimes I add a little bar solder for the tin which helps it to fill out the molds better.

I have a large cast iron pot purchased at a 2nd hand store. I chuck several handfuls of wheel weights into the pot which is sitting on a outside camping type burner that runs off a 7 gal. propane bottle. When the wheel weights are melted I put in a couple of chunks of candle wax about the size of a quarter. My Mrs. used to be big on dinner table candles, but would discard them after a couple of uses, so I'd store them away. So they are mostly about 1" in diameter, and I cut off a slice about the size of a quarter. Chuck them into the melt, and stir with my long handled dipper. I can see that you've got the right idea about protective equipment, and I use a welder glove that rises about half-way to the elbow and safety glasses. The stirring will usually result in the wax igniting, but if it doesn't I'll light the fumes with a long butane lighter such as is used to start a charcoal barbeque kettle. The surface of the melt will be burning, and while it's burning I continue to slowly stir the melt. All of the dross, including the wheel weight clips, any impurities like little bits of gravel, etc. will rise to the surface and I skim it off and put it in an old metal coffee can. That stuff is toxic, so you'll want to find a safe way to dispose of it. I repeat this fluxing operation 3 times, waiting a bit between fluxes, and being careful not to skim off the dark gray stuff that swims around on the surface of the melt. Then, if I want to cast some boolits that's the point at which I begin to fill the molds, or if I'm just making ingots for a later date it's time to pour the melt into the ingot mold. My ingot molds are the Lyman-made version that make ingots about the size of a cube of butter. I let them cool for a few minutes, then turn them upside down. They have a little ledge or handle on the ends and I grab one of these ledges with a pair of vise grips and clunk it down on a piece of steel armor plate I have on the top of the workbench. They just fall out. If one is a little sticky just another clunk or two and they come right out. I've got a big dipper just for filling the ingot molds, smaller than the one I fill the boolit molds with. I usually do my casting out-of-doors on a pleasant day, and as I drop the boolits from the mold I let them fall into a bucket of water. Later I pour the contents through a colander, sort through the boolits and return any defective ones to the pot after they've dried off. If they don't fall freely from the mold I tap the handles' hinge with an old hammer handle.

New molds-- yes, you should degrease them before the first use. Acetone works. Alcohol works. You can skip the degreasing and just start casting, but you'll likely get a lot of less than perfect boolits before the oil or whatever the maker shipped them with burns off. A more important question, in the case of iron molds, is what to do with them when your casting session is over. Some guys believe that no preservative should be applied, as you're back to square one at the beginning of the next session. Some leave the last bullet in the mold on the theory that it will prevent the cavities from rusting. If I'm going to cast with that mold again in a few days I do nothing, but if they're going to be stored for awhile I spray them with WD-40 as it is a moisture displacement oil, and then degrease again at the start of the next session.

Lastly, what's left in the pot is left in the pot, as in my case it's all the same wheel weight metal. If you're going to become an alloy experimenter it may be of concern, but practically speaking I can't see how the small amount you can't scoop out will change much if you're doing 15-20 lbs. at a time.

Again, welcome to the Forum. I know that many of us will be interested in your casting adventures, and all are willing to help.

DG

[imashooter2]

Melting scrap in your 20 pound casting furnace is far from optimal. It is too small a size to allow ingot sized ladles into. I would suggest at least a 2 quart steel cooking pot and a Coleman stove type heat source. Better by far is a cheap Chinese cast iron Dutch oven and a turkey fryer.

[dverna]

MM, WELCOME!!

Not much to add. Use your PPE and you will be relatively safe. Might be wise to have a fire extinguisher handy.

I would not cast indoors regardless of how many fans or size of window, but people do it.

[Rickf1985]

One thing that has not been mentioned is do not worry about the bullet lube on the old bullets you plan to melt. Just toss them in lube and all since the lube will make a very good flux. Most lubes are some form of wax base and that is what most of us use beside sawdust for fluxing. So no use in messing up one of the wife's pots with a waxy mess. Make it work for you.

[Mk42gunner]

I too have one of the Lee Magnum Melters. If I had bought it first, I wouldn't have any of my bottom pouring pots.

As for what is left in the bottom after a casting session, it only matters if you are going to use a different alloy the next time. If so, carefully pick up the pot and pour the remainder into one of your ingot molds. There shouldn't be much that the ladle won't get.

Good luck and be careful,

Robert

[GregLaROCHE]

Normally melting lead is a two step process. First melting scrap in a larger container and pouring ingots. A Dutch oven and a kitchen soup ladle work well for this. After you have your ingots, then you melt them in your Lee electric pot and start casting boolits. Try to separate different types of lead and be sure to mark them. I just use a sharpie.

A very important part of the process is fluxing the lead to remove impurities. Sawdust is very popular for this. I flux with sawdust when making ingots, then again in my Lee pot, followed with beeswax.

It’s best to leave an inch or so in the bottom of an electric pot. It helps lead to lead start melting faster in your next session.

Be aware of wind direction and make sure you have the fumes going away from you. Some people use a fan. Never add lead that may have moisture on it to hot lead!

Good luck and welcome to the addiction!

[Land Owner]

Avoid tentative play.
Be bold. Be safe.
Read. Read. Read.
Knowledge is power.
Heat it up. Mold a heap. Let it cool.
Keep the good. Cull the poor. Remelt another day.
It is ALL a learning curve. Experimentation is instructive.
There is no better teacher than trying.

FIT is KING.

It is difficult to imagine, other than a blunder, that casting, reloading, and shooting your own boolits will lead to anything other than fun, experience, and significant confidence in yourself, your methods, and your equipment. We cannot give you experience or confidence. Those you earn. We can almost guarantee fun!

[Shanghai Jack]

What they said but to reiterate a couple of points

I never cast inside, no matter how many fans are running.

I wouldn't practice making ingots- Make them and move on. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of the casting is in the boolit. No skill in casting a ingot - there is skill involved in getting the right mix in the ingot.

A 20 pound pot isn't large enough to efficiently tailor alloys etc.as mentioned by others but its plenty large enough for boolit casting. As you start tailoring your alloys to different uses, you'll probably want to expand/enlarge your equipment.

If you've got a bunch to melt be careful of the size of burner. More BTUs is better. You can waste a lot of time using a small burner made for a tamale cooker.
Stay away from anything under 100,000 BTU. The one I settled on is a 200000 BTU Flame-King from Amazon

I tried a couple of portable camp stoves like the ARC Portable Camp stove but they were a waste of time and gas for anything large. You want to spend your time casting, not waiting for the lead to melt. Some people I know buy a propane weed torch and got at it from both the top and the bottom but that requires two bottles generally.


A twelve inch cast iron dutch over will hold just about all the lead you can lift. You can buy them new for about 60.00 or find one in a garage sale or goodwill store.

Never put dirty lead in a clean pot. I have two pots reserved for the good stuff and a couple of dutch ovens reserved for cleaning and mixing.

If I'm using a pot over again for the same alloy/procedures then I agree with greg and Mk42 - leave a little in the pot to get things started.

Welcome to the addiction.

[Land Owner]

Safety. Always. First..

200#'s of lead weights, et al, to smelt can be too much - all at one time. 100#'s is a lot of weight, particularly when that weight is heated to 700*F, but doable.
There are as many ways to skin the cat (smelt your lead) as there are opinions.

For less than $50, you need (your call):
1.) a 20# steel propane tank (pot) that has been cut in half, which will hold 100#'s
2.) a propane turkey fryer
3.a) a "support system" to move the pot from fryer to ingot molds
3.b) a ladle will do
4.) multiple 3# ingot molds (cast iron corn pans, someone's welded molds, etc.)

Here is one example...necessity is the mother of invention.

[john.k]

My first job was feeding type into a wall of egg furnaces ,then scraping off the dross before casting the big linotype machine bars....heat was unbelievable ,each ingot had to hosed to cool causing clouds of steam.....just cool enough to touch with thick leather gloves ,and load on a barrow for the type room.........Each furnace took a ton of metal,yet was heated by a single bunsen burner.

[Mountain Meadow]

Thank you all, lots of great information. I particularly appreciate the opinions on casting outside, I guess the lead melting fumes are more harmful than just handling the lead.

I am sorting all the balls, bullets, sinkers, sheet lead, diver weights out into individual groups. I will only be melting 10-15lbs at a time so I don't think I need big pot equipment, I'm not smelting all 200 lbs at once and will probably leave the sinkers and diver weights to sell or melt down in larger equipment down the road.

so I'm left with the black powder balls and bullets and the lubed bullets.

I have to set up a sturdy bench outside to work on and then I'll start with all the frosted over black powder balls, have about 25 lbs worth so I can melt say 15-18 to start and add as I go along pouring ingots with the Roto #2 or 3 ladle. I may pour a shallow ingot to play around with the tester to get a feel for hardness.

I am really looking forward to getting started but I am going to go slow until I feel safe around all the hot lead and equipment.

Thanks all!!

[Rickf1985]

You will not really be able to get a true hardness reading for a week or so after casting. You will get an approximate reading as soon as it cools but it will harden some as it ages for a couple weeks. You are going to find those oxidized balls will take a while longer to melt than cleaner lead because the oxidation insulates the lead from the heat. It is not a big deal but you will notice the difference as you change to cleaner lead. Be sure to flux well to get rid of the oxidation. And lead fumes themselves are not really an issue as long as you keep the lead below 1,000 degrees. There are some who will argue the safe temp is much higher but 1,000 degrees is already 200 above the hottest you will ever need to go. The problem is with the stuff that is on the lead and will be burning off stinking the place up and if it is pipe you have no idea what kind of stuff is in those pipes. Always stay upwind of melting pipes. It is always a good idea to give pipe a lot of room since there can be trapped moisture in them and you will meet the tinsel fairy real soon if you are standing there when the moisture gets under the melt. And trust me, ALL of us who have been doing this for any time have met the tinsel fairy, your time will come. You just have to be prepared and it is not a big deal. I have actually added wheel weights to my pot that I knew were wet but I added them slowly from a flat shovel and kind of kept the flying lead to a minimum. THAT is NOT something I recommend unless you are VERY familiar with how lead reacts with moisture.

[canyon-ghost]

One tip that served me well over the years, drill a teaspoon with 1/4" holes. Makes a dandy skimmer for the surface of lead melt. Still use mine.
Ron

[john.k]

Worst lead bursts Ive had were putting pipe into hot lead......always start the melt with pipe,then the water can boil away slowly.

[gwpercle]

The best way to learn how to cast boolits ... is to get hot and cast boolits .

It isn't rocket science and can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it .

I get my best boolits with a Lyman Ladle , with the little side spout and pressure cast them .
Search the term "Pressure Casting" . The RCBS ladle may work fine I've never owned one .
Gary

[David2011]

Welcome to Castboolits! Lots of good advice so far and a little with which I disagree; specifically, casting indoors.

First, I NEVER melt collected scrap lead indoors. While you mostly need pure lead for round balls, all scrap lead can have nasty contamination. Plumbing lead is pure or nearly so but could have been waste water or sewer drain lines. Stick on wheel weights have tape and adhesive residue. Clip on and stick on wheel weights almost always have a mix of chewing tobacco/snuff, tire lube, oil/grease, road grime, rubber and no telling what else. This “smelting” (technically incorrect term but many call it that) produces foul smoke and odors. It should only be done outside with at least a light breeze to allow you to stay upwind. The inevitable spatters of lead will still very well to concrete so covering it with plywood will help keep it clean.

If your location in the Catskills is cool in the summer, an open garage is a great place to cast. In the winter it might not be practical so an indoor location where you can remove the smoke will probably be the way to go. The smoke is is not present continuously but only immediately after fluxing. It’s not a constant problem.

Once the melt is fluxed and cast into ingots it’s much cleaner. Sawdust (not from plywood, OSB, particle board or any wood material made with glue) gets the metal very clean. Clean pine sawdust works very well. The ingotized lead can be melted in your furnace indoors. Lead does not make lead vapors below 1100 degrees F so you will not be exposing yourself to lead vapors. Our electric furnaces don’t get close to that temperature. The issue to me with casting indoors is the final fluxing in the lead furnace. The sawdust makes significant smoke. I have a bathroom exhaust fan for ventilation over the lead furnace. In my last reloading room I didn’t have an exhaust fan so I had to open the door to get rid of the smoke when it got bad. I’ve tried cleaning the melt with candle wax and boolit lube. Neither works as well as sawdust.

Best wishes!

[oley55]

Once the melt is fluxed and cast into ingots it’s much cleaner. Sawdust (not from plywood, OSB, particle board or any wood material made with glue) gets the metal very clean.

with no intent argue or disparage, but besides the additional off gassing of chemicals, what is the downside of using most any pine based saw dust. From a totally non-technical standpoint those glues or whatever would seem to add the carbons we want for fluxing.