Getting started in smelting

[Anvil]

Smelting is a precursor to casting and you'll have to get a supply of lead refined for the casting pot. Most people who smelt do it to get a refined supply of lead for more productive casting sessions. You're not going to be very productive skimming dross and trying to cast bullets from the same 10 pound pot.

For my casting table I used a scrap piece of plywood and some cinder blocks I found in a neighboring abandoned property. I cooked off the grass around the burner so I wouldn't get a grass fire unintentionally.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/tabletools.jpg

I use a 14 quart dutch oven (lid shown) a cafeteria green bean slotted ladle for skimming fine dross and a deep frying ladle for the bigger stuff, like ww clips or bullet jackets from range recovered bullets. The soap bar is actually flux from www.magmaengineering.com. The odd ladle with the slide hammer and big loop handle is a rowell casting ladle and two ingot moulds, 10 pounds each.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/meltingpotwithfodder-1.jpg
That's all range lead that was full metal jacket. This stuff is hard to harvest and is frequently stored at indoor ranges in 55 gallon drums so it must be recovered by hand. If you're going to handle alot of lead, 100 pounds or so, have some lead soap around. Dillon precision sells it.

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/burnercomparison.jpg
Some people get chinsy burners which work fine but you'll want something more substantial if you're using a big pot of lead as most home depot burners aren't made for cooking 300 pounds of lead. The big burner is made by Tejas Smokers and produces 330,000 BTU. It cooks lots of lead VERY FAST. As shown its about $500. The smaller one was about $50 and while it didn't cook lead nearly as fast it did the job and was a bit wobbly with a full pot.

[Anvil]

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/safety.jpg
The safety equipment here is the absolute bear minimum. You'll need a face shield in case you get a lead explosion. Safety glass really aren't enough. The respirator is for lead fumes. You can't just cough up the lead you've breathed. If you're smelting clean lead you won't feel as strong a need for the respirator but if you're smelting dirty wheel weights you'll be really glad you had it. You'll get your hands burned first in smelting and it only takes once to learn how cheap welding gloves are. Not just for lead popping onto your skin but also when you pick up an ingot you just have no idea how hot the damn thing is until you smell your skin burning.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/2ingots.jpg
some people like to use muffin tins. Here I'm using some 10 pound ingot moulds from www.magmaengineering.com .

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/10poundseach.jpg

The trouble with big ingots is the cool time. The bigger the ingot the longer it takes to cool and if you don't have a production line of ingots waiting for your casting ladle you can spend alot of time and propane keeping your casting pot hot while waiting for the lead ingots to cool enough to free up the moulds.
Get impatient and dump the mould too early and the ingot will crack open. Not really a problem, but it' not optimal. This is why muffin tins are good moulds, they cool quickly due to them being smaller and you can fill many at once. The only solution to the bigger ingot problem is to have more moulds on hand so that as you pour one the others you poured can be cooling. If you do this, you'll be pouring ALOT of lead!
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/bustedingot.jpg
One problem I ran into is when running propane full bore when the propane gets down to half the bottle starts to freeze up and the flow of gas is restricted so you get less heat from the burner. To solve this keep 2 bottles on hand. Just swap the bottles when you start getting less propane and the bottle feels frozen on the outside.
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k154/bhpmarkiii/2tanks.jpg

[lcarreau]

Wow, those ingot molds on a stick sure are nice!

-Lonnie

[AdamN]

Nice; Will a 10lb ingot fit in your pot??

[AdamN]

Anvil I use enough home-made ingot molds to almost empty the pot. Pot is full I pour ingots, refill pot. The ingots are plenty cool before the next pot is ready. It keeps the flow going that way.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/aneat/Image033.jpg

[cohutt]

Anvil,

Ahhh, the nuk-u-lar burner is alive and well in w tennessee......


where did you get that skimmer spoon with the holes in it?

btw i tried something new last night-
i have a home-made expanded wire bbq fire grate, put it in table on bricks for air circulation. put the two big ingot molds on it. I have a high volume fan on the table next to it blowing over the smelt pot, for when i mess with the pot (flux, skim, ladle pur etc) and after i pour the molds i turn the fan on the molds.
The air circulation really speeds up the cooling. I always flip them on a flat surface to avoid breakage when soft btw.
when molds dumped, they are sizzled with a wet towel (away from melt in front of fan) ofr a few seconds then fan goes over pot again, refill molds, repeat.
it moves pretty quickly if you don't let the molds accumulate a lot of residual heat.

local tech college is going to make me some more molds shortly though and i will be able to pump and dump like aneat hopefully.

[Anvil]

Aneat really does have the right kind of moulds for this work. If I still had my Miller Mig and a chop saw I'd get some iron and go to town!

[AdamN]

Sad to say but my ingot source may have dried up for a while. I do have a few extra if you guys need them. I may have to do a contest for the new forum.:yikes:

[AdamN]

Somethin like these

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/aneat/ingotmolds.jpg

[HotGuns]

Exellent thread. I do a bit of smelting myself with a pot I made that uses a bottom pour valve. It holds around 300 lbs of lead.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/HotGuns/LeadPot001.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/HotGuns/LeadPot003.jpg

[lcarreau]

Hotguns, where did you get that? That would save a lo t of work with all the skimming and such.

-Lonnie

[HotGuns]

I made it.

[HotGuns]

Here is the bottom of the pot, showing the spigot...which is adjustable for flow rate.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b130/HotGuns/LeadPot004.jpg

[creekwalker]

That's a nice pot HG, was it a well pipe to begin with or not? What did you do to FAB up the bottom pour? Lastly, do you set it on a propane burner or an electric?
I'd like to try something like that with a heating coil attached to it.

cw

[AdamN]

I see hotguns has another nice toy there in the background......

I would seriously consider something like that if I ever get a large quanity of lead to smelt again. Right now I have a decent pot/dipper combo that is fine tuned. I think the bottom pour smelter would be step up for sure.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h165/aneat/Toys/Bridgeport1.jpg

[HotGuns]

ANeat...
A Bridgeport with a Newall DRO....nice.
It doesnt get any better than that...:patriot:

Creekwalker...
its a 10" schedule 40 pipe. The bottom valve is a peice of .750 keysotck with a .375 hole drilled through it longways and then a .250 nozzel threaded into it. The nozzels are interchangable but since I basically fill up ingot molds with it, I've never had to change it.

I've been using a propane turkey frier burner to melt with.

I've thought about usug a coil underneath. I dont think its be hard to do and it should work pretty well.