I figured out the pan issue. It is steel...obviously
tinned steel. So the lead soldered itself to the cups and well....
Good thing the pan was cheap, because I just pretty much destroyed it getting the ingots out by pounding on the cups. The cups - just pressed into the body of the pan - popped out pretty quickly, so it wasn’t particularly easy, let alone pretty, to get the cup-shaped lead out of the cups. But I did it.
Going forward, I’m going to buy a Lee ingot mold. These muffin ingots are too large to be easily placed in my Lee pot (a 4-20 Production Pot), while Lee’s molds make slender ingots that will fit easily.
I found the welding gloves to be too bulky and way too hot. I have leather work gloves that I’ll try next time. I was less worried about lead splashing my face than getting blasted with sweat steam from my sweat dripping onto any of a number of very hot things. Plus the face shield allows more air flow around my face, which makes it more comfortable to wear than goggles. The leather apron that came with the gloves (or vice versa) will be for when I’m sitting and casting bullets - I stood up the whole time for this ingot making session.
I have a) lead left in the pot, b) a LOT more wheel weights to melt down, and c) an unfortunately limited and oddly timed hiking called “free time” that I can do things out of doors. I want to finish rendering the weights (in part because they’re nasty and in my way) before I move on to pouring lead into bullet molds. Hopefullly that won’t be too “interesting” the way this experience was.