Building big lead smelter pot

[MOA]

Oh brother, those are huge. It makes sense to proceed with your design being the stage of commitment your at. Keep us updated as you progress. I'm sure many of us are interested in the project.

[MakeMineA10mm]

I would strongly discourage you from putting any kind of spout on a smelter. The whole point of smelting is cleaning and processing dirty stuff into clean stuff. I’ve used three different lead pots with spouts for smelting, and none worked well and caused a helluva mess to clean up. Remember, you’ll be skimming clips, rocks, dirt, grime, and dross, as well as stirring in wax and sawdust to flux and bring out more dirt and dross. All of this adds up to problems for a spout. Spouts are really only for casting, and unless you’re making solid shot for a cannon, the spout will have too much head pressure to flow smoothly.

[MOA]

I would strongly discourage you from putting any kind of spout on a smelter. The whole point of smelting is cleaning and processing dirty stuff into clean stuff. I’ve used three different lead pots with spouts for smelting, and none worked well and caused a helluva mess to clean up. Remember, you’ll be skimming clips, rocks, dirt, grime, and dross, as well as stirring in wax and sawdust to flux and bring out more dirt and dross. All of this adds up to problems for a spout. Spouts are really only for casting, and unless you’re making solid shot for a cannon, the spout will have too much head pressure to flow smoothly.

I agree completely. A spout will be nothing but grief.

[ok-22shooter]

Basic frame welded together for my pot. will pull burner off one of my turkey fryers and weld in a higher platform to support the burner and tie the legs together higher that the lower support. working on feet that may pivot and maybe one or two with adjustable height feet. I have a hand propane lance and am planning on both a burner and lance to do initial melting. All of this raw material is know composition so I am not worried about zinc. when smelting WW, I do not us the lance for concern of melting zinc if missed during sorting. not an issue with this material. I have a large Rowell bottom pour ladle and planning on initial smelting with out a bottom pour on the pot. cut 2x2 angle iron 12" long to weld together a 4 ingot lead mold that will make a 2" triangle by 12" long ingots (est 6# weight) plus an older cast iron 2.5# x 9 ingot mold. about 50# of large ingots plus assorted smaller molds, maybe another 30#. will take a while to pour 250 or so pounds of lead. May get another angle iron mold or two made b4 I start smelting. Currently estimate about 1,300# of Linotype moved to the shop. maybe 1,000# or so left at the manufacturer.

I am thinking about putting a 2/3 height tapered divider half way in the 12" long mold. the divider would leave 1/4" or so at the center of the 12" long ingot. would make separating into two pieces much easier. has anyone tried this? Linotype molds have the longer flat divider.

[JimB..]

I too have a large rowell bottom pour ladle, it is easy to work with when my big pot (20lb propane tank) is more than half full but gets challenging as it gets low. As long as you’re melting all the same stuff, I’d just keep the pot above half full.

[anothernewb]

Anyone remember satan’s little smelter?
Not a fan of the name, but looked like a solid design.

I think that's the one I have. I picked up a super heavy duty melting pot from a buddy a few years ago for virtually nothing. I posted some pics of it here awhile back and that's what someone else on the forum identified it as.

here's the post.
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...t-melting-lead

[JimB..]

I think that's the one I have. I picked up a super heavy duty melting pot from a buddy a few years ago for virtually nothing. I posted some pics of it here awhile back and that's what someone else on the forum identified it as.

here's the post.
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...t-melting-lead

Yes, that’s what you’ve got. Good score!

[ok-22shooter]

Wanted a high BTU output burner. 200,000 BTU off Amazon. A bit bigger than I probably need. will fire up next week. working on a 16" diameter, (12" tall by 48" around) ring to go around the pot and burner to create a annular upside cup to hold heat around the pot. welds are pretty rough but the pot passed the water test.

working on angle iron molds. the 4 1.5" angles welded together do not match up on the ends as well as I wanted so will pickup belt for belt sander and will flatten all together to get no gap to end caps. these ingots will be 12" long and estimated to be 6#. second picture shows a first attempt at make a divider at the center of the ingot. expect to pull divider out as the liquid solidifies to leave a gap at the center. Hope to make it easier to make two 3# ingots. as steel floats in lead, one end has a hook to hold it down, the other will probably use a clamp to hold it in place. if this divider works, will go to thicker metal and grind a draft angle to make it easier to pull out.

[ok-22shooter]

Great day. got heat shield ring around pot, did not take a picture. fired up new burner and plenty of heat at maybe 50% of propane pressure. did smelt about 150# of Lino in a little over 2-1/2 hours this afternoon. gets to 650 deg F or so pretty quickly. Even with lead around 700, it takes a while for the 30# chunks to melt. did not get out the propane lance to see if heat from the top would help. using bottom pour ladle that holds around 8# of lead. pictures show ingots with the divider in place, divider removed and the voids across the 4 ingots, and the fractured ends. divider lifts out fairly easy. in hard Lino, the ingots broke in half very easy. one broke when taping out of the mold. will probably remove a bit more metal that extends into the lead. 4 of the ingots (11.5" long) weight about 19#.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Nice!

[country gent]

Cut draft on the dividers and weld into the ingot moulds then they are on place and the ingots will drop out with them in place. Draft on the ends will help a lot also.

[MOA]

22Shooter it's looking very good. Depending on how you plan to store and use the ingots is where I see your divider choice. Both options are available to you. Weld the divider in permanently, or shorten the depth of it so you have a bit more lead connecting each of the ingots so any stacking that you do is facilitated by it being one piece. You can always break a ingot into two pieces when you to casting or for mixing a custom alloy. Your ingots are of a shape that is suitable for stacking while still allowing you to get your fingers around the ingot to pick it up. This guy was able to stack them high and deep while keeping the stack stable. A nssessary requirement.

[ok-22shooter]

Burn ban and high winds in Tulsa this week. Could not fire up the pot. working of other things. Smelting lead creates lots of smoke and fumes that I would prefer not to breath. My original design I had though about some sort of exhaust pipe to get hot gases and some of the fumes away from the pot. design has morphed in to the picture shown. 4" stove pipe is not readily available. bought 24" by 10 ft of galvanized flashing. roles and screwed to get sections. lower section with burner connected into the lower section of the chimney. air at maybe 1,000 degrees F should create lots of flow. will be semi closed off with a small door that can be opened to allow heat to to bleed out at times to heat the label of my bottom pour 8#. the flue just above the lip of the pot ended up being further back than I wanted. next time out it will get it narrowed and moved closer to the rim. an additional cover section will be fabricated to extend out a bit further. a flap inside the lip opening will be added to create a venture section to see if the pressure can be dropped enough to cause a vacuum over the pot.

[MOA]

Why are you contemplating running your smelter at 1,000°???

[ok-22shooter]

1,000 deg F AIR temp coming off the burner up thru the chimney. lead temp is at or below 700 deg F.

[Land Owner]

Put pot and heat on 4' legs. Weld leak proofed steel spigot, 1/4 turn handle, to bottom of slightly tilted (toward spigot) pot. Make a La-z-Susan turntable to receive and rotate empty molds.

A. ) Place empty molds on Susan

B. ) center empty mold on spigot

C.) open spigot slowly

D.) pour ingot mold full

E.) turn spigot off

F.) rotate Susan to next empty mold

G.) Repeat A through F

H.) Watch filled ingot mold for phase change as it cools.

I.) Empty ingot mold at phase change

J.) Repeat H & I.

[MOA]

That's good to hear.

[Grootjoseph]

How do you leak proof a spigot?

[Duckiller]

Several years ago on this forum I believe Texas Flyboy built a large electric pot to process wheel weights. Once he had completed construction on the forum he provided plans for members that also wanted large pots. Not sure where this build is at. Felix of lube fame and a friend also processed large quantities of lead. Did it outside with propane I believe. Check out history. When lead wheelweights were readily available for free or cheep People processed large quantities of lead. I had free acess to my mechanics waste lead bucket. Had lots of ingots. When I moved from So. Cal. to Oregon my sons refused to destroy their backs moving all my lead. I packed up a bunch and the movers moved it. A bunch was left behind. Real Estate lady said her father or father-in-law cast boolits. Hopefully he got what I left behind.

[slim1836]

How do you leak proof a spigot?

Ask LEE Precision.

Slim