Do We Melt or Smelt

[45workhorse]

Maybe it self identifies as.....


Sorry couldn't help myself!

[reddog81]

Maybe it self identifies as.....


Sorry couldn't help myself!

Sometimes my zinc wheel weights try to identify as lead. Then you have to cut them with snips to see how soft they really are.

[Old Two Wars]

This has had me gnashing my teeth for years.

SMELTING extracts a pure metal from an ore. In an ore, the metal is molecularly bonded with some other element. For iron, it's oxygen. For lead it's sulphur. Cleaning metallic lead collected from berms is NOT smelting.

There, I feel better now.

Sometimes a Correction is good.As fabricators of our own ammo we have to be as precision as possible like a famous person said "Only Accurate rifles are interesting"

[jsizemore]

Sometimes a Correction is good.As fabricators of our own ammo we have to be as precision as possible like a famous person said "Only Accurate rifles are interesting"

Are you suggesting penalties for not using the Correct word while posting on the forum? If not, folks will do as they please.

[Scrounge]

Do we throw the whole battery in the pot to smelt the lead from the battery or are we putting the lead internals of the battery in the pot and melting that then fluxing the melted lead to then skim the dross (whatever it contains such as dirt and other things) to refine the melted to produce an alloy?

That is entirely up to you, but if you separate the metal from the other stuff, it will be a lot easier. Though if you are doing it as a commercial enterprise, it might just be easier to dump pallets of old batteries into the furnace and go from there.

[Scrounge]

This has had me gnashing my teeth for years.

SMELTING extracts a pure metal from an ore. In an ore, the metal is molecularly bonded with some other element. For iron, it's oxygen. For lead it's sulphur. Cleaning metallic lead collected from berms is NOT smelting.

There, I feel better now.

I feel ya!

Bill

[44MAG#1]

That is entirely up to you, but if you separate the metal from the other stuff, it will be a lot easier. Though if you are doing it as a commercial enterprise, it might just be easier to dump pallets of old batteries into the furnace and go from there.

While I maybe or am the dumbest person here I know we don't dump the whole battery into the pot.

[blackthorn]

Quote: "That is entirely up to you, but if you separate the metal from the other stuff, it will be a lot easier. Though if you are doing it as a commercial enterprise, it might just be easier to dump pallets of old batteries into the furnace and go from there."

That ought to give the Greenies/woke's & EPA nightmares!!!

[Slugster]

I refine lead by alloying it with whatever metal is called for, cleaning by fluxing, molding into proper bars, thus it becomes bullet alloy. AKA casting alloy.

[44MAG#1]

I refine lead by alloying it with whatever metal is called for, cleaning by fluxing, molding into proper bars, thus it becomes bullet alloy. AKA casting alloy.

Do you "MELT" the metal before alloying it or do you "SMELT" the metal by removing it from the "ORE" then alloying it to make bullet alloy that is used to make bullet, boolits, projectiles?

[fragman]

Depends on the time of year. Pretty sure in the Texas summer, we're doing both. Melting while smelting.
ETA for the pedants, I'm aware of the difference between smelting and what we commonly do with our lead, it's a joke

[uscra112]

*Sigh* Now we're going to have to review the definition of the word "refining".

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/refine

As in the old way of extracting gold from crushed rock with mercury. First the rock was mixed with the mercury, which would amalgamate with the gold. Then the amalgam was refined by heating to evaporate the mercury. (If you think this was a dangerous process you're right. Which is why the 14th century Spaniards in Peru used slaves to do the work.)

Or as in refining molasses to get pure, white sugar.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I schmelt wheel weights, turning them into clean alloy for casting my boolits.
*
Boolit
Bü·​lit
noun
A projectile, cast from lead. In cases where the lead was not schmelted properly, accuracy may suffer.

Schmelt.
Dang, I've been saying it wrong all these years.
But I always knew to use a schtickle of sawdust

[44MAG#1]

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha.
Jockularity is a good think. I have joularitied myself to death.

[ShooterAZ]

This thread just got "Jockularized". Who really cares if it is melting, smelting, refining, or schmelting, as long as it results in galena being poured into a boolit mold... Right? Please Cast some awesome boolits and get on with it!

[44MAG#1]

This thread just got "Jockularized". Who really cares if it is melting, smelting, refining, or schmelting, as long as it results in galena being poured into a boolit mold... Right? Please Cast some awesome boolits and get on with it!

If we don't care about this today then in a couple days we don't care about something else then in a week later we don't care about something else we fall into a not caring attitude.

[GregLaROCHE]

This has had me gnashing my teeth for years.

SMELTING extracts a pure metal from an ore. In an ore, the metal is molecularly bonded with some other element. For iron, it's oxygen. For lead it's sulphur. Cleaning metallic lead collected from berms is NOT smelting.

There, I feel better now.

I agree with you. The correct use for smelting is the process of refining lead from ore (galena) into pure lead. Melting range scrap old water pipes and whatever else, I consider recycling. I once knew someone with a PhD in linguistics. Her point was languages were always evolving and the most important use, was to be able to communicate to each other. It seems that smelting, on this forum is often used for melting down any sort of lead into ingots. So maybe here it goes along in our local to us, dialect along with boolits. Everyone seems to understand what someone is talking about, when they refer to smelting their lead.

[Rockindaddy]

If you are melting old lead sewer pipe in the basement for cast boolits; your wife will tell you she " smelt " something unpleasant! She even has yelled!! Now lead sewer pipe gets rendered outside!!!!

[fragman]

If I say 'clip' (and I mean Beretta, not Garand) , will that trigger anyone?

The question of smelt vs melt was answered early in this thread,

But, ridiculing someone's lack of education only reinforces the lack of your own,

So, if the term 'smelt' ACTUALLY 'gripes' you, look within.