cupcake ingot molds

[copdills]

I know this has been ask a million times so please excuse me for not taking a better look at the answer, but will the heavier steel cupcake pans work for this or is it the aluminum pans that work best

Thanks in advance

copdills

[Lead melter]

No problem with the steel pans, just be sure the surface is SMOOTH or you may have to melt them out. Even the lighter steel pans work well i.e. WallyWorld about $8.

[Cap'n Morgan]

Back when I was a kid, I found a two foot wodden sailboat model at the local dump yard. The keel weight was missing and it would keel over whenever I tried to sail it. My dad took a piece of wood, whittled a profile of the estimated missing keel weight, and used it to form a mold in a box filled with plaster of paris. The next day he casted a perfect lead keel, and I was one happy kid.

Sorry for this wayback moment, but I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at; An easy, and cheap way to cast ingots by the hundreds in whatever shape you want. Just make sure the master ingot has enough draft to ensure the castings will drop freely.

[docone31]

Back when I used to build black powder rifles, I used to pour pewter directly into a nose cap.
I would inlet the stock so the pewter had "locks" and pour directly into the stock. I would use masking tape on the barrel, in the white, and take a sheet of 25 grit sandpaper and tape it on backwards.
No smoke, no charring, and it would drawfile flush with the wood when it cooled.
Sanding this, you have to sand away from the stock. Sanding into the stock impedded metal particles that blackened in time.
You can literally make a mold out of anything. I am wary of plaster though, I had an explosion several days of the mold curing later. Seems it wasn't quite dry.
Pam makes good mold release on molds.

[Andrew Quigley]

I tried the steel ones from Wal Mart and when I went to pop out the lead the cups came out too!
Went to a antique store and looked thru their cast iron stuff. Found some cast iron muffin pans and cornstick pans that were rusty and got them for bout 7 bucks each. Lead just drops out of them. My .02's anyhow.

[Trailblazer]

I used an aluminum one earlier today. It worked fine. The ingots dropped right out.

[copdills]

Thanks for the input Pards

[Wayne Smith]

Let them rust. Depending on the coating, the lead can solder itself to the cup until the coating is gone. Let them rust and the ingots drop out.

[NoDakJak]

Right you are Wayne! I tried using a new steel muffin tin for the first time several weeks ago. Yes, they did solder themselves into the pan!!! I grabbed the old tin snips, cut them into pieces small enough to fit the small turkey cooker and melted them out. Day before yesterday I went to a yard sale and for fifty cents purchased a heavy, cast aluminum muffin pan that works great. My new ingots now have ruffles around the edges. Neil

[TAWILDCATT]

the best ingot molds are cast iron or a cast alum.most hardware stores have the cast iron muffin pans.thats what I use and constick cast pans.gives various weights.

[compass will]

My first set of wally world pans came apart as described above. the ingot was soldered to the pans. Next session I set new Wally world pans in shallow baking pans that had water in them, these dropped out with a little banging. Next session I sprayed the pans with mold release (and did not use the baking pans with water). the ingots came right out!
I only sprayed them once but used them around 5 times each and they still released fine.

[singleshotbuff]

+1 on the Wally World pans sticking to alloy. I think they may be tin coated, or some other metal, and form a type of solder. I had to melt alloy out of 3 of the damn things.

I found some nice muffin pans at K mart recently, thick metal, heavy duty, and ingots drop right out. I think they're part of their "home decor" collection, or some such nonsense. They were the only muffin pans there either way.

Cast iron muffin pans are stoopid expensive at antique/junk stores around here.

SSB