Smelting Lead Ingots

[callshot]

I have been feeling well enough to get out of the house and do some smelting lead. The weather has been exceptionalloy :wink: :wink: good and Dick lent me his plumbers pot and cast iron muffin tin. This first picture is of the pot and a wire spool table. It had been drug into my garage for the night and I took the picture the next morning.

This is a better picture of the pot.

This is the cast iron muffin tin full of lead. They come out at 2 lbs. each.

My muffin tin only has 6 wells. They only weigh 1 and 1/2 lbs each. If I get the pot full, and fluxed it will fill both muffin tins.

This is some bees wax that I use to flux with. I used to be a beekeeper and had this on hand.

This is a picture of the clips, valve stems, and other dross and junk that I get out of the pot after fluxing.

This is a picture of the wheel weights that are NOT lead. They will not melt down and are just heavy junk.

This is a bucket of ingots after they have cooled off. DANGER :!: Don't try to lift it by yourself.

This is some of the ingots that didn't fit in the bucket, YET. :roll:

When casting different alloys, I need to mark them so I will know what they are. Note: "The most faded ink is better than my memory" I use some steel stamps to mark the ingots. "W" is for wheel weights.

"L" is for straight lead.

I used Dick's 1 lb. ingot moulds, and made them different shape to help me measure them into my casting furnace.

"T" is for linotype. I use the same muffin tins for it, because most of the alloy will be mixed at 50-50 "W & T".

I smelted down 517 lbs of ingots in the last 4 days and still had time to do a little other stuff around the house. That should keep me going (casting bullets) for some time now. My sore, aching back will never be the same until I rest up for the winter. Maybe house work isn't Soooo bad.

 

[Jeff Hoover]

Great pictoral essay Callshot ! Were you having a casting party ? Hence, the reason for the ballons :lol: . Lotta alloy there to turn into projectiles.

Like those lead bisquits ! My wifes are the same, only made of flour, water, maybe a little concrete.

Glad you're feeling up to casting ingots. Time to retire to the casting couch for a well deserved nap. You earned it !

 

[BlackEagle]

Those are some big bullets :shock:

 

[Sheriff]

Lotta 'heavy' work, Steve.

 

[callshot]

Hoover, the balloons were what I had picked up for Bettys' birthday on the 5th. The light was right so I took the pictures and then delivered them to her. No casting party. I just try to throw a few things in to keep you off balance. :shock: If those are heavy bullets, you ought to see the six gun that shoots them. If I average 2oo gr. for each bullet, How many will I get out of 517 lbs? Steve

 

[tookalisten]

517lbs = 234,507g = 3618991.033 gr /200 = 18,094.955 bullets if my math is correct :lol:

 

[contender]

That oughta do for a few days out with Dick when you go ground squirrel or badger shooting. Might wanna cast a few more,,,!

 

[cpti]

517lbs = 234,507g = 3618991.033 gr /200 = 18,094.955 bullets if my math is correct :lol:[/quote

Yup! I've never gone through grams to get to grains. I always go with the 7000grains/lb.

517x7000= 3619000; 3619000/200 = 18095

 

[powder smoke]

Thanks for the pictorial, very helpfull. I'm gonna be a newby to the casting hobby plan on doing some this winter. I've got all kinds of lead I have accumulated over the years. I also have access to bees wax a bee keeper puts several hives in my blueberries and small apple orchard. How much do you use per pound of lead? may not be a simple answer but I thought I'd ask. ps

 

[callshot]

Thanks for the math. My slide rule and paper and pencil to do it don't work very well. I have a strong back and a weak mind. I use a dull old knife that I heat up just a bit over the edge of the burner for the pot, then it cuts the bees wax easier. I just cut off a chunk about the size of a large marble. It will do enough to keep the tin in the mix so you won't loose it. You may have a little dirt or dross that will be fluxed again in your casting furnace and you can get it out then. You will get most of it out so your ingots will look nice. Be careful not to breath any of the fumes that come off when you flux the molten mixture. Do not ever let a drop of moisture get into the pot as it will explode. Most all of this I learned from sixshot, so I better give him credit. Onward and upward now. :arrow: Steve

 

[rugerguy]

Nice job, and some very neat pictures.....reminds me of when my freind hauled off LOTS of the lead sheeting from inside the walls of one of the building over here at the old Diamond Shamrock plant in grand River,Ohio ( they were hauling it out in train cars, gondolas)...filled his garage with just the lead, he was selling it for YEARS, making fishing weights, black poweder bullets, whatever........yessir , he got lead poisening out of it too by the way...so gotta be careful

 

[soldernut]

Thanks for the great tutorial on smelting. I'm new to that part of the hobby and this beats learning from my mistakes....

Like the first time I melted down a bunch of wheel weights. Like a fool, I just used my (new) Lee Pro 20 casting furnace. Duh!

Although I thought I was being careful fluxing and skimming off dross and weight clips, I managed to plug up the pour valve solid.

The good news was Lee's service. They told me to send it in, and take one of two choices:

1: They'd give me an estimate to repair it and send it back, or

2: They'd sell me a new pot at half price.

Pretty hard to beat that.

On moisture:

Be thou ever so careful! While casting bullets one afternoon, I picked up my ladle to give the molten lead a little stir.

KABOOM!

It was a cool, moist afternoon. I'd allowed the ladle to cool and, unbeknownst to me, some moisture had accumulated on it.

Lucky for me, I was using the top of my table saw as a "bench," was seated on a work-chair with rollers, and had my feet on a cross-bar of the table-saw stand. My reflexes were good enough to push away from the "bench" before about a pound of exploding molten lead landed right on the family jewels. I doubt that my Levis would have saved me much agony.

(Yes, after scraping the lead off the concrete garage floor, I weighted it - right at a pound.)

Never, ever, underestimate the power of steam!!

My operating procedure now is simple: Before any tool goes into the molten lead, I hold it above the molten lead and rotate it for several seconds to dry it off, but good.

--

Cabela's has/had a closeout on a turkey-frying rig: $35 gets you the burner, hose, regulator, valve, frying pot, and a utensil or two.

Reviewers say the burner and its steel stand are very stout. We'll see. If not, oh well, Cabelas has always been good to me about their no-questions asked guarantee.

Two items that may interest you other smelters:

Rowell casting ladle, 2#, bottom pour:
http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/casting_ladle_bottom2.htm

This clever little guy lets you pour from the bottom of the ladle and avoid pouring any dross into your ingot molds.

Pre-alloyed Antimony:
http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/30_antimony_70_lead.htm
Pure Antimony is harder than the dickens to mix into your molten lead. Its melting point is so much higher (1,167), I wouldn't even want to try it.

This stuff is 30% Antimony, 70% Lead.

This is easy to use. Do your math to figure the weight of Antimony you need to add. Say it's 2.5 pounds. Divide that by 0.3 (30%) to get the weight of this alloy you need to add (2.5 / 0.3 = 8.3333 pounds).

To be precise about your alloy, don't forget to subtract the amount of lead contributed by the pre-alloyed antimony. For the example above, your 8.3333 pounds of allow will include 5.83 pounds of lead, so subtract that from the amount of pure lead you're using.

 

[chevy314]

You have a very nice operation but I do have a few questions. Do you worry about lead poisoning? If I remember my chemistry right lead melts around 700 degrees and has a vapor pressure of around 900 degrees. Do you monitor the temp? Also what about other possible contaminants like cadmium? I had an uncle who used to smelt fishing sinkers and lived to 85 so I may just be a hen clucking at nothing and I was thinking of doing the same but was to afraid of Pb toxicity.

 

[callshot]

I haven't tried any pure Antimony. Probably won't. Like I mentioned above I learned all of this from sixshot. He would tell me not to breath the fumes. We had cadmiun at the super acid plant, but I never was around it and don't know if here is any in wheel weights. I did come down with cancer right immediately after my first casting session, but don't think the lead had anything to do with it. Just common sense to not breath the fumes. Steve

 

[don44]

A very good post.... thanks.

 

[Sam Summey]

Antimony melts at considerably higher temp that either lead, wheel weights or lynotype. Lynotype has a high antimony content, that's what makes it so hard. Antimony will amalgamate with wheel weights or lead but it doesn't take a bunch of antimony to make a hard bullet. to amalgamate runt the pot up to 800-900 degrees stirr and flux until the lump of antimony disappears.

 

[soldernut]

Antimony melts at considerably higher temp that either lead, wheel weights or lynotype. Lynotype has a high antimony content, that's what makes it so hard. Antimony will amalgamate with wheel weights or lead but it doesn't take a bunch of antimony to make a hard bullet. to amalgamate runt the pot up to 800-900 degrees stirr and flux until the lump of antimony disappears.

Interesting. Are you talking about melting in pure Antimony in lead that's at 800-900 degrees? If that works, it's good to know.

Not knowing that is why I went with the RotoMetals's pre-alloyed Lead/Antimony (70/30). But I have a big hunk of pure Antimony that'd be nice to use; save me some money.

Given the much higher melting point of Antimony, I was playing with this idea:

* Cut the pure Antimony into chunks that add up to the weight I want.

* Using a pair of long-handled pliers and heavy leather gloves, hold each chunk, one at a time, over my molten lead.

* Then play a propane torch over the chunk of Antimony until it all melts into the pot.

If what you're describing works, it would sure be a lot simpler.

Thanks for posting.

 

[WMB30]

soldernut
I beleive Sam S is saying to alloy linotype into your lead, not pure antimony.
Antimony melts at 1166 f . As I said in one of your previous post, putting it another way here, Do Not Screw Around Melting Pure Antimony.
Bill

 

[Sam Summey]

Here's a piece of lead bullet info from a friend/customer of mine. Over the last year he has been looking for optimum accuracy from his S&W "N" (.3575 bore)frame and his Colt Officer Model (.3565 bore) for the Revolver Bullseye Matches. After a good bit of research on his Ransom Rest he has found both guns like soft round nose bullets better than semi-wadcutter bullets with less tilting at 50 yards. Remember these loads are not any faster than 900 fps and more like 850-875 fps. The S&W was the hardest to satisfy. He found the Hornady 158 grain soft lead swaged round nose bullet to shoot the best in both guns but a close contender was the X-treme Cowboy .357 dia 158 grain round nose flat point. Hard bullets are great at higher velosities because they are shot hard enough to obturate (bump up). Lighter loads do not "bump up" harder bullets thus they should be a thousandth or so larger in diameter. That fatter nose of the round nose tends to stabalize quicker and stay stable for the entire flight to the 50 yard target.

 

[Sam Summey]

Amalgamate antimony doesn't mean to melt but to dissolve into the lead at a higher temperature than the lead melts but not as high as the melting point of the antimony. Kind of like like the dentist making a filling for your tooth. He dissolves the silver into mercury(it melts at a very low temperature) and makes a paste like mixture that is not hot that he packs your tooth with. In the case of the filling, the mercury evaporates in about an hour to two leaving the silver in the tooth.