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Posted: 3/10/2014 4:47:27 AM EDT
| Do you guys use a separate pot for making ingots? If so, what kind. |
| Are you talking about smelting? I use a large cast iron dutch oven for melting down wheel weights, linotype and range lead. Also use it to blend different lead into ingots. The bottom line is you only should use your casting pot for clean lead that is cast into bullets or slugs. |
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Are you talking about smelting? I use a large cast iron dutch oven for melting down wheel weights, linotype and range lead. Also use it to blend different lead into ingots. The bottom line is you only should use your casting pot for clean lead that is cast into bullets or slugs. nailed it. Use a dutch oven for all your smelting and blending and a "casting pot" for your actual casting. Only clean lead gets put in my Lee pot. |
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Ok, Dutch oven. On electric coil or gas? Ladle the lead into the ingots or poor it? Just trying to figure out what the easiest and cheapest way to do it is. Okay you want the cheapest Ss sauce pan from Walmart $8 Ss spoons from Walmart $1.50 Used propane grill for the side burner $free Propane tank $17 exchanged $45 new Or coleman stove Propane heater/stove Hot plate |
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I use a 20lb propane tank that I cut in half and welded some rebar handles to the sides of it, over an older turkey frier burner that's built like a tank. Works nicely and I can melt up to a couple hundred pounds of lead at once, which makes fluxing a breeze. When I have it filled halfway or more with lead I just dip my ingot mold into the pot, and when its a quarter or less I'll just tip the pot and pour it into the mold. |
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<a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6270150.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6270150.jpg</a> Smelting <a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6170138.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6170138.jpg</a> Casting Pictures are worth the thousand words. Thank you gentleman, I think I get it. Now to understand the metalology of it all. |
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I wish my stash was half that size!
I'll add my 2 cents to the op's question. I use a cast iron Dutch oven with a fish fryer and ladle it into my ingot molds. Any lead that I can't ladle out gets left for the next go around. Trying to pour from a pot to a mold seems like a recipe for disaster. |
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Pictures are worth the thousand words. Thank you gentleman, I think I get it. Now to understand the metalology of it all. Quoted:
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<a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6270150.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6270150.jpg</a> Smelting <a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6170138.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6170138.jpg</a> Casting Pictures are worth the thousand words. Thank you gentleman, I think I get it. Now to understand the metalology of it all. When you are rendering lead scrap/junk into ingots, it's important to know that stirring and scraping will do a lot more for the purity of your alloy than flux will. Also use sawdust and wax for flux. They help each other out. |
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I use a Dutch oven currently for smelting and a rcbs.com bottom pour for casting. I'm very new to casting but enjoy it.
I'm currently planning and collecting material for a custom bottom pour smelting pot with a tapered bottom so i can do small batches all the way up to 600 lb batches. I got the bottom pour design from the cast boolits forum. |
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Quoted: When you are rendering lead scrap/junk into ingots, it's important to know that stirring and scraping will do a lot more for the purity of your alloy than flux will. Also use sawdust and wax for flux. They help each other out. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: <a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6270150.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6270150.jpg</a> Smelting <a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6170138.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6170138.jpg</a> Casting Pictures are worth the thousand words. Thank you gentleman, I think I get it. Now to understand the metalology of it all. When you are rendering lead scrap/junk into ingots, it's important to know that stirring and scraping will do a lot more for the purity of your alloy than flux will. Also use sawdust and wax for flux. They help each other out. |
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Right side of my second pic, there is my container of sawdust in front of the radio. Quoted:
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<a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6270150.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6270150.jpg</a> Smelting <a href="http://s250.photobucket.com/user/dryflash3/media/Casting/P6170138.jpg.html" target="_blank">http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Casting/P6170138.jpg</a> Casting Pictures are worth the thousand words. Thank you gentleman, I think I get it. Now to understand the metalology of it all. When you are rendering lead scrap/junk into ingots, it's important to know that stirring and scraping will do a lot more for the purity of your alloy than flux will. Also use sawdust and wax for flux. They help each other out. Yep I should have just added a comment instead of quoting your post. 
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Harbor Freight Dutch oven and a Bayou Classic turkey fryer. http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/smelt600.jpg The tools. I load the pot with the long handled shovel. http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/scrap600.jpg Have plenty of ingot molds. By the time I fill the last, the first is ready to dump. http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/break600.jpg A good day... http://home.comcast.net/~imashooter2/pictures/smelt10-30s.jpg Holy crap dude...that's a serious pile of ingots. What is the weight of each of those? |
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