WOOOOeeeee thanks for that detailed list of supplies. I have it all in my head but haven't written it down yet, so you just did it for me
I have some 1/2" copper scrap left from my bathroom renovations that I haven't done anything with yet, so maybe I'll just cut those up, get some local .50 cal hornady balls from the store and hammer those puppies in there. I also found a couple people in the classifieds selling lead ingots and one is selling wheel weight ingots. So, maybe I could just get an old stainless pot from the thrift store and put it on my propane burner outside to melt. Get a lead ladle and do some pouring! I also see there is linotype lead on amazon for $30/5lbs. Not a terrible price I don't think. so maybe I can get some of that, do my makeshift pouring, and save the rest to blend with pure lead later when I do start casting.
I have the thumlers tumbler a-r1. It's a single drum (3lb barrel?) model. It says the barrel OD is 4.25x5". Well, my kid has it. I'll "borrow it".
Hydraulic press - I don't have one. I have a 4 ton HF bottle jack, but no frame. I found a small frame shop press for $15 that uses a porta power but does not include the porta power. Should I try to find a porta power to hook up to this thing rather than getting a large upright shop press? The only porta power I saw for sale at HF was 10ton and it was $300... so that one is out.
Any pictures on what to put underneath the bottom of the puck die when putting it into the press? I was thinking about that yesterday. I'd need some type of very flat metal plate to put on top of the jack piston but it would have to be pretty thick. Maybe a 1/4" thick steel plate? Might be able to load the puck die with powder with the die sitting on top of the metal plate outside of the press. Then hold it all together to get it into the press.
I have a couple of great digital scales.
Thanks for the links on the grading sieves!! All I was seeing on amazon were the lab testing sieves for $60 a pop. Those cheap ones look like a great alternative.
I have a propane burner.
Puck die: I'm not sure about that woody's die if it uses a steel sleeve. I want all aluminum. If slippyrider got an aluminum one from them, maybe i should order that.
retort: I was going to pick up a clean paint can today (all mine at home have the darned plastic bottom). I have some paulownia wood from my backyard tree drying in my toaster oven on convection. I set it at 200F convection overnight and weighed the wood before starting. I'll weight it every 8 hrs until it seems it doesn't change much. Then I'll throw that stuff into my paint can and let it rip! I also have a thermocouple for my multimeter that I'm pretty sure is temp rated up to at least 800F, so I'll make an extra small hole in the can, stick my thermocouple in and seal around the wire. That way I can moderate my temp to be somewhere around 600F, or whatever that magic number is for keeping more creosote in the charcoal and making the fouling "softer" or "wetter". It would be nice if I could come up with a makeshift rotisserie for this paint can to get a super even heating through the charring process.
I'd like to have a source of powder that is completely independent of market trends too! I also love the experimentation part of it and that it will be MY powder
Though, it wouldn't taste as good as homebrew.
What size did you get? I was thinking I should get the 2.5", but I'm not sure if that is referring to the sleeve height or the diameter of the piston. I'd like a smaller size one so that I can go with a 6 ton A frame press from HF if needed. And it's all aluminum?? I was thinking maybe the sleeve was steel and was just polished as they said. Their wording makes it sound like the sleeve is steel. Maybe the steel sleeve is referring to the piston remover part.
I am also worried about having lead contamination in the powder. I was wondering, if a person were to buy some of the super hard lead alloy from rotometals on amazon, maybe that would be hard enough to not loose much lead into the powder. or, a person could use the copper pipe method and sweat some copper caps onto the end of the pipes to make "jacketed" tumbling media.
If only it were a simpler faster process to refine my own sulfur and kno3. Then