First time smelting how does it look?

[Hunter 24095]

Here is a pic or two of my first adventure in smelting. Do the ingots look right? I have no one that I know of in my area to help me out so I'm trying to learn by reading and watching videos. All advice appreciated

[IllinoisCoyoteHunter]

Looks like ingots to me!! Good job!

[cabezaverde]

Looks fine.

Those wrinkles are not a concern.

[Hunter 24095]

I did learn not to go to Walmart and buy $3.00 muffin pans to pour hot lead into I had to peal the steel of a couple of the ingots like a can of spam Oh well first lesson learned

[Sprue]

Caution there... looks like the arsenic has severly raised to the surface and may continue to grow. You had better send them to me for further lab testing. If they are found to be defective (which it looks like they are) I'll dispose of them in the proper fashion- not to worry. Just box them up and send them quickly.

[mooman76]

Doesn't matter too much how the ingots look. It's how the bullets look that count but the ingots do look good. Use aluminum or cast iron pans for ingots. You can use empty soda cans to make ingots but make sure they are absolutely dry. Then just peel the aluminum off and throw in the recycle. No waste. Now show us some bullets!

[Dennis Eugene]

well when I blew the thumbnail up to a full size photo the ingots became fuzzy and out of focus and I must add the news paper appeared to be upside down. But other than that they appear to be just short of perfect! Dennis

[Recluse]

So far, so good. Can't really tell from the pics, but make sure you flux really good and really thorough during the smelting process. It will definitely help keep your furnace/pot cleaner, keep the alloy cleaner. When casting boolits, you can then sprinkle some sawdust or crumbled up charcoal (what I use) on top of the alloy, stir with a wooden stick, and there's your flux. Leave the stuff on top to keep oxidation down. Some folks use kitty litter do accomplish the same thing.

[Hunter 24095]

I used wax to flux with and stirred it up with a dry 1x2 which burned pretty good done it twice and thought it was clean. next time I think I will use something else to flux with like lard or saw dust. And I will most definitely be going to find me some cast iron muffin pans.

[rebliss]

I've always fluxed pretty religiously, but this last session, I got a bit lazy. Thought that my lead was looking pretty clean, and I had already created enough smoke throughout the neighborhood, so I neglected my usual sawdust attack. BIG mistake. The lead I had been casting was scrap from very old stained glass windows. It was full of West Texas dust.

So, I melted a few ingots into my Lee 10 lb. pot for casting up some spinnerbaits. I wound up having to flux and scrape two spoonfulls of red dirt out of my metal. I've learned my lesson!