WW clip skimmer

[Ken O]

Made a WW clip skimmer. Bent a piece of expanded metal about 45º, then cliped the radius to match the smelting pot, welded it to a piece of conduit. It only takes a few dips to get all the clips out.

[NVcurmudgeon]

Ken O, looks like a great skimmer. I'm guessing you have a large smelting pot. For my 12 lb. Potter I use a large steel perforated kitchen spoon. Any skimmer is safe to use if it did NOT come from SWMBO's treasured cooking equipment!

[Frank46]

Yep. thats the cardinal rule, Thou shalt not purloin thy wifes cooking utensils to make boolits. I use a stainless steel perforated spoon that I bought from a restaurant supply house. Frank

[yammerschooner]

I got mine for @ $3 at Walmart, and it works like a champ. I have seen similar strainers around the turkey frying equipment at my local hardware stores.

[Shooter973]

I use an old melon baller as a skimmer for my casting. It has a hole in the middle and have a large and small end on it. Works well for most all of my skimming. Cost me about $.69 a long time ago. I have used both a plastic handled one and a wood handle one. They both worked, but the wood one lasts longer.

[Buckshot]

................yammerschooner , Yup, dat's da one I use in the rendering pot. Same thing from Wally World.

..............Buckshot

[MARCORVET]

The clips are steel. I use a magnet attatched to a pair of vise grips. Just float it along the melt surface until the magnet is full, knock the clips into a coffee can and float again till I get all the clips. Works great and I don't have to chase any clips with a spoon!

[yammerschooner]

The clips are steel. I use a magnet attatched to a pair of vise grips. Just float it along the melt surface until the magnet is full, knock the clips into a coffee can and float again till I get all the clips. Works great and I don't have to chase any clips with a spoon!

How does that magnet work on whats left of the air stems? I am often lazy enough that I just dump straight from the bucket. When I come back some time later the rubber has normally burned off with the rest of the trash. I know this is not environmentally friendly, but I am pretty lazy about this part of the process, and hate sifting through dirty wheel weights. Is there enough steel in whats left of the air stem to get that out too?

I have one of those quick release magnets that may work well. It is about 3/4 the size of the surface area of my pot, and might be able to get everything on two passes.

[HTRN]

I got mine for @ $3 at Walmart, and it works like a champ. I have seen similar strainers around the turkey frying equipment at my local hardware stores.

Just bought one today for $3.15 today after getting fed up trying to use ladles to get the damn clips out.

Yammerschooner, did you bend yours any? Mine seems to be shaped at a less than convienent angle...


HTRN

[yammerschooner]

I didn't bend it at all. It hasn't posed any problems getting stuff out. Maybe we approach the pot from different angles or something.

On a slightly related topic:

I hit my normal ww spots today to find that someone had beat me to them. There is no way that many people fish in this area. There has got to be another caster in the area. Duck season might be giving me more competition (decoy weights) too. I ended up with about 3 1/2 gallons worth of ww. I don't even know if it is worth firing up the melter. I might have to wait a couple of weeks.

[HTRN]

How big a pot do you use? I use a 100lb electric that's fairly deep in relation to it's width. Most of the time I use it's only 3 quarter full as there's so many clips on top it becomes a pain to add anymore, before removing the ones that are already there.


HTRN

[yammerschooner]

I have a two burner propane stove that I use two pots on. One pot is 1 1/2 quarts, and the other is two quarts. I am still looking for the monster cast iron, turkey size pot, at the local thrift stores. I don't have access to a welder or I would fabricate something. I want to make one of those bottom pour setups like I have seen posted at the top of one of these forums.

Anyway, my relatively small pots don't give me any grief with that strainer. As mentioned above, I have considered using a magnet to see if it would be any more efficient, although I doubt I would be gaining anything, even in a best case scenario. Basically, I have one of those magnets that can drop things with the pull of a handle, and don't really have anything I use it for. Sometimes I like to try different things simply because I can, if you know what I mean.

Maybe I just have more time on my hands than a man has a right to.

[uncle guns]

Hello All

I guess I will chime in as well....

My set-up for ingots is.. 1 two burn colman stove, 1 very large coffee can
( steel )..... the coffe can I pinch the top to make a pour spout, made a re-bar handle and hose clamped it to the can..for the WW clips I made an x-panded metel bucket that just fits into the can it has a long 3 point handle on it....bucket goes into the can WW go into bucket and then light her up!!

This is so fast for me that my ingots do not set up as fast as I can pour them... I am thinking about trying some metel screen for the bucket, anyway the bucket I use now makes removing the WW clips easy.............


just my .02

[fiberoptik]

If most are using a steel spoon, why not attach a magnet to the spoon handle? It will make the end magnetized.....

[HTRN]

I am still looking for the monster cast iron, turkey size pot, at the local thrift stores. I don't have access to a welder or I would fabricate something. I want to make one of those bottom pour setups like I have seen posted at the top of one of these forums.

Heeheehee - you should see what I'm planning - should be able to rival MOAS, with a quicker melt time - I already have a an industrial "fuel gas" regulator that goes to 50psig, and a buddy who does HVAC work recently told me he might be able to get me the grid type burner out of a huge commercial furnace..


HTRN

[felix]

That is what Sundog and I need without one iota of doubt. Any help from anyone would surely be welcomed. Where can we obtain such a deal on the cheap? ... felix

[HTRN]

Best bet is to get friendly with a guy who does HVAC - figure out what to bribe him with. Keep in mind you'll need to find a guy who does commercial work.

The alternative is to build a multi jet burner yourself. The regulators are available from places like MSC. What you want is to make something that looks like a fork - multiple legs with a common branch. Each leg will have a number of holes in it. If you ever seen the pipe burners used on blueing tanks, you have the idea. For an air mixing valve, I would suggest a cylinder with a number of slots running length wise and a sliding sleeve to cover them up for adjustment. Ideally, you'll want to have multiple 100lb tanks as there's a definate limit to how much gas you can get out of a tank - I believe it's 92K BTU at 70F from a 20lb tank. The warmer/bigger the tank, the higher the vaporization rate. 2 100lb tanks, for instance, can suppy 600k BTU an hour.

For a fast heat up, you want alot of bottom surface area compared to height - more surface area for a given quantity, more area for a bigger burner.

Any questions?


HTRN

[yammerschooner]

Today I ran across a pressure cooker made out of really thick aluminum. It was as thick as cast iron pan sides. What are the drawbacks to using something like that?

I've used cast iron exclusively to melt in the past, but that has been because I know it holds the heat, and all of my grandfathers melting equipment was cast iron. Does aluminum just not hold the heat as well? I know the thin stuff will bend under the weight of the lead when it gets hot.

[HTRN]

Aluminum is really REALLY good conductor of heat, Copper is the only thing better among common materials. The problem is Aluminum doesn't like high temps that much - it melts at 1100F I believe. considering that you'll probably be bringing it up to at least 650, and with heat on the bottom from the flame considerably higher, the possiblity of vessel failure is pretty high.

If you wanna go cheap, try using an econo SS stock pot from the marts.


HTRN

[Ken O]

If you are thinking of using a cheap stainless stock pot, which is what I use, be sure to check out the sticky thread at the top. Kenjudo has an excellent design! I added a reply for a modification for the thiner pots.
I think we all start using a slotted spoon or ladle to pull clips, but it takes forever. The skimmer I made covers about a third of the pot and pulls all the clips, valve stems, bolts etc, and also takes out the zinc ww, etc that a magnet wont, but still leaves the dirt and real small stuff that you still need a plumbers ladle to skim with.