I had accumulated about 200 lbs of lead over the last year and today was the day I decided to smelt it into ingots. Last year I had a propane burner, but in my quest to remove the stupid timer/shutoff, I rendered it completely inoperable.
Not one to be easily deterred, I went ahead anyway. I have seen several folks on here that used a wood fire to smelt, I figured I could do this. So, away I went.
I was using the pot made for me by Dcrockett (thank you sir.) I set up a few firebricks to reflect the heat back to the pot and made fire.
Once this got to the liquid point, I stirred several times with a pine dowel ( I figured this would flux a bit too) then skimmed a bit and starting making ingots.
I ended up with about 200 pounds in ingots. All in all, it was a good day.
I learned several things today. 1. I need a better ladle. The Lyman dipper is just not big enough, It would take two or three pours to make each ingot. 2. I need to design/build a better firebox. The heat was sufficient, but I think I can make it more better.