First smelting (WW) experience today...

[Agent Ronin]

All went well until it started to snow lol.

Not sure how much poundage i managed to smelt until i had to stop. I could not keep the cast iron muffin pans dry so that made things a bit dangerous and messy.

For those who want to know my "smelter" setup.
- 185,000btu Turkey Fryer style burner
- 12" 6qt dutch oven. (my first 10qt was a cheapy i got online, it cracked on first use)
- Cheap stainless steel ladel and skimmer from Bed Bath and Beyond (couldnt find reasonable ones at wallyworld.)
- Lyman Thermometer.

So far i am very happy with the setup, filling my ladle starts to get hard once the melt gets below 1 inch. But more wheel weights help there hehe.

Anyways just wanted to share my experience so far. I still have no other casting equipment, but making ingots works for me until i get more slush funds.

[Dean D.]

Sounds like you are putting your horse before your cart in a good way! I always seem to do the opposite...LOL. You will be thankful that you have stocked up on ingots when you do get the rest of your equipment set up and start casting. Welcome to the fun!

[mooman76]

Sounds like you got all you need. I like to keep some melt in the bottom anyway because it keeps the preccess going quicker by melting the added WWs quicker.

[Agent Ronin]

Should have asked this earlier... But do any of you smelters use flux when smelting. Or do you just do it when using the benchtop pot when actually casting bullets?

[snaggdit]

I flux before making my muffins from the smelting pot. I flux again once I have it melted in the casting pot. Don't know if necessary in the smelting process, just seems to be the right thing to do. Others with far greater experience might be able to speak definitively on this.

[Dean D.]

Ronin, you DO need to flux before you pour your ingots. Take a peek at this article on the fluxing process, I really got a lot out of it myself:

http://www.lasc.us/FryxellFluxing.htm

A whole lot of info packed into a couple pages. In a nutshell fluxing helps separate the bad stuff from the good stuff and it also helps the stray good stuff to return to the mix, i.e. tin, etc...

[supv26]

I flux both times. Something about the flames.............

[Agent Ronin]

Aye Aye, i need to get me some flux asap Judging from the color i probably lost quite a bit of tin from the melt... Oh well adding tin is easy enough.

Oh well guess i just need to remelt those ingots i made hehe

[Chunky Monkey]

Congratulation Ronin and welcome to the wonderful disease that is casting! Sounds like you got a pretty good set-up there. I am south of Altoona. Was it windy today up there? I smelted up a batch this past fall and am still casting from it. Seems like everytime I want to smelt it is windy so I bought a piece of steel culvert to make a heat shield. Works great. Here's link with pic's of my set-up.

[Agent Ronin]

Congratulation Ronin and welcome to the wonderful disease that is casting! Sounds like you got a pretty good set-up there. I am south of Altoona. Was it windy today up there? I smelted up a batch this past fall and am still casting from it. Seems like everytime I want to smelt it is windy so I bought a piece of steel culvert to make a heat shield. Works great. Here's link with pic's of my set-up.

Thanks, actually no it was not windy here in Happy Valley... Although it was ever so lightly flurrying. However it started snowing pretty heavy around 3-4pm and i couldnt keep my equipment dry so i stopped.