(Sawdust) fluxing with dip casting.

[michael.birdsley]

When fluxing with candle wax. Once you throw it in is it supposed to make a loud poof and the wax catch on fire ? Almost made a mistake one time standing to close. I was using this wax from Amazon. I’ve been making fishing jigs for sit ten years and some boolits. Never really fluxed decided to try it this summer.




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[Wag]

By the time I'm done smelting, I've fluxed the heck out of it and it is very clean by the time it hits my casting pot. From there, I'll use a pinch of wax from a toilet ring at the beginning and that's about it. From there, I keep it stirred up real well.

I thought I had read on here way back when that you can over flux and actually remove tin and/or antimony from your melt so I don't keep fluxing while casing and I generally stir the stuff from the top back into the melt.

--Wag--

[murf205]

I, too, am a beeswax fluxer and if you have a Dollar General store near you, they sell it in little jars in the hair care section. I don't remember the exact cost but it is pretty pure and does a terrific job for cheap.

[TNsailorman]

I bought some sawdust from a fellow member years ago when I was ladle casting. The biggest mess I ever encountered in my casting carreer. I had to use a brush wire wheel on a electric hand drill to get the stuff off the sides of my pot. Never again for me. my experience anyway, james

[Kosh75287]

My casting experience is not extensive. Since I was at a friend's home in town, there was no sawdust handy to try, so we used left-over wax from old candles. The three of us, from prior work experiences, knew the potential for disaster when introducing flammable paraffins to a very hot and molten surface. We started dropping very small amounts, at arm's length, into the pot. We had no hope that the tiny amounts used would do much fluxing, but they DID give us an indication of what to be prepared for, when using "real" amounts.
We got small "FOOF!" sounds, and sometimes a flame resembling one from a Sterno Can would linger, but covering it with a flat piece of metal fixed it. I'm kinda inclined to stick with paraffin or beeswax, since it is relatively free of impurities. With saw dust, I have no idea of what surface treatments the wood may have had, nor what they turn into, when burned.

[Bazoo]

Candle wax will ignite and poof. If you through a big gob in, it’ll overflow the pot too. Beeswax will not normally ignite because the flash point is higher. If you run your pot super hot then it will.

[michael.birdsley]

Candle wax will ignite and poof. If you through a big gob in, it’ll overflow the pot too. Beeswax will not normally ignite because the flash point is higher. If you run your pot super hot then it will.

So I need to be using less wax ? I’ll might use up this wax than get some bees wax. It’s about the same price


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[huntinlever]

Just want to say thanks for the thoughts guys. Burner arrived today and looking forward to getting at it.

[303Guy]

There was a discussion a few years back on fluxing and I mentioned that I found stearic to be a great flux. A fellow poster mentioned that a family member suggested carnauba as it is an acid. Well, so is stearic - stearic acid.

Well, it took me a year or two to finally put it to the test and indeed, carnauba is a great flux. I did a test to compare the two and found that while both carnauba and stearic work great, carnauba has a way lower flash point. It just melts into the dross, breaks down that porridge skin and leaves a dry dross with shiny beads of metal which can be largely stirred back into the melt. Stearic flashes off in a big white cloud that makes for eyebrow searing fun. So, carnauba works better than any other wax or sawdust.