I just read a posting about a guy building a hugh bottom pour smelter.
WOW!! Am I impressed ? You bet!! I can't imagine having those talents and resources.
The following comments are based on my own experiance and I believe, reflect the status of most
struggeling beginners. Casting VS Smelting
Smelting; It’s been argued that the word, as used by most of our fraternity, is not correct. As long as we all understand its context, we’ll continue to use it.
The process is so much different from casting Boolets it needs to be addressed.
Many Boolet casters don’t need to smelt. They purchase clean, pre alloyed lead
from a commercial supplier. Casters using this material should be able to cast on the kitchen cooking range as long as it’s not needed for dinner at the moment. I’ve done it. It works. True, you should have a cooperative partner and you always clean up your own messes.
Smelting is a dirty, noxious and sometimes, dangerous job. No thinking person would try to do it in an enclosed area. Extraordinary venting may allow it but that goes far beyond the resources of a hobbyist reloader. The scrounged materials by there nature is Junk. Wheel weights from the local garage will contain cigarette butts, chewing tobacco plugs, razor blades, syringes, chewing gum and wrappers, truck tire valves, nuts, bolts, urine etc. Depending on the source, the degree of contamination will vary.
Other scrounged junk includes lavatory traps, roof jacks, chimney flashing, water main joints (sewer main included), battery posts and clamps, Babbitt from various industrial applications, type metal of various alloys, target range reclaim, diving wgts, sail boat keels, machinery counter balances.
It’s beyond the scope of this post to try to describe the many different alloys found in this assortment of junk. That’s work for another horse.
Smelting inside will coat all exposed surfaces with a black carbon like residue that will tempt you to torch the building. Smelting is an outside job. You should do it on a day when a breeze will dissipate the obnoxious smoke.
Are you a gambler or a thrift nut?
A gambler dumps all his junk into a large pot, turns up the heat and hope that all the impurities will float to the top to be skimmed off. This is faster but includes the risk of contaminating a lot of good alloy. Once you pour the Coke Cola into the Jack Black you’re done. That mistake can’t be corrected, pass the beverage to a gal who may appreciate it, and try again.
A thrift nut spends a lot of time and worn out gloves to separate the good junk from the bad junk. Within a few hours you’ll be able to tell the Zink (Zn) from the iron (Fe) from the lead. One of the advantages of separating now is that you can get a better price for the junk that you take to the recycler. The affirmation of having contaminate free alloy is a big plus when trying to investigate the causes of poor boolets dropping from that new mold.
Trying to make boolets while smelting is a waste of time. It’s doable with a dipper and experience but when using a bottom pour pot it fouls the pot and the pour spout.
Comments please,
Pepe Ray