Smelting lead

[WheelHead]

Ok so I have been planning on getting into casting (expectantly after some threads here). I have massed a collection of lead this week of about 200 lbs.
Now I need to start getting an idea of what burner to use. So I need some input. What are some of you fellas using? I'm going to start in small batches just in case I hose anything up. I have been reading up and watch video and feel I'm ready.
Thanks for any tips....

 

[wgttgw]

You can go a simple as you like or as elaborate. Most folks that do any amount of it would probably recommend a turkey fryer and a cast iron dutch oven (or I guess that is what I use at least and it seems fairly common). Any LP heat source will do but it must support you melting lead (5 quarts = about 70 lbs)

Any steel or cast iron pot will do just stay away from aluminum (it melts not that much higher than lead and can be melted with a LP burner).

If you go small an electric hot plate is capable but very slow and it would need to be the old school ones with a coil heating element.

A thermometer would be a good investment. Keep the temps below 700 and you will ensure you have no zinc in the mix. It also will keep from cooking out any tin.

 

[tony b]

Turkey fryer burner and cast iron Dutch oven for making ingots and a Lee melting pot for casting bullets.

 

[Deep Creek Rock]

Ok so I have been planning on getting into casting (expectantly after some threads here). I have massed a collection of lead this week of about 200 lbs.
Now I need to start getting an idea of what burner to use. So I need some input. What are some of you fellas using? I'm going to start in small batches just in case I hose anything up. I have been reading up and watch video and feel I'm ready.
Thanks for any tips....

I just render with my Lee 4-20 pot, the same pot I bullet cast with. You need to be careful with propane melters, due to zinc as stated above.

My preference is to use my Lee electric melter. That pot will not get hot enough to melt a zinc weight (they float to the top) but it gets plenty hot to melt lead alloy.

If you melt zinc into your lead alloy, you pretty much ruin your bullet alloy.

Never used a lead thermometer, with my electric melter, but if you do run a gas melter, then it may be warranted.

If you are rendering wheel weights, then zinc contamination is a very real possibility, as many "Enviro" wheel weights are made from zinc.

Your rendered lead ingots do not have to look perfect, its just done to clean, and remove clips, paint etc. The ingots end up remelted into bullets anyways.

 

[K31]

I used to use a cheap, one burner camp stove, sat right on top of the propane bottle.

I wouldn't recommend that for more than several pounds though.

 

[Fishinblues]

Sort out the zink, it only takes one to ruin a batch. Sort out all the stick on weights, they are softer metal than the others. Zink weights melt at a higher temp than the lead.
I use a turkey fryer to melt the weights. Do it outside, and stand up wind. Smelting is nasty business. Get some paraffin wax it will flux the best. Flux multiple times. Use a slotted spoon to skim out the steel clips.
For whatever reason the smelting seems to go faster if you leave a little hot melted led in the bottom of the pot when you go to add more wheel weights.
You will be surprised out of 200lbs of wheel weights just how many are not lead. Take your time sorting through them.

 

[WheelHead]

I have sorted through most of them. Using both the crimp method and the noise they make when strinking them on an iron plate. If they are questionable they go in the recycle bin. I'm about half way through and have about 85 lbs. After clips and junk maybe 70 lbs per hundred.

 

[Winterborn]

I use a Lee bottom pour pot to both smelt WW for ingots and for casting boolits, works good for both and its not expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/Lee-Precision...8&qid=1389884367&sr=8-1&keywords=lee+lead+pot

 

[Gummy]

I have sorted through most of them. Using both the crimp method and the noise they make when strinking them on an iron plate. If they are questionable they go in the recycle bin. I'm about half way through and have about 85 lbs. After clips and junk maybe 70 lbs per hundred.

I just got hold of a five gallon bucket full of lead. Material is in all kinds of forms. Some are factory ingots,fishing sinkers,home cast ingots, etc. Can you explain your sorting method? I assume lead crimps easier than zinc and zinc makes a higher pitch noise striking the iron plate. What does zinc do to the lead if it gets melted into it? Thanks

 

[Deep Creek Rock]

I just got hold of a five gallon bucket full of lead. Material is in all kinds of forms. Some are factory ingots,fishing sinkers,home cast ingots, etc. Can you explain your sorting method? I assume lead crimps easier than zinc and zinc makes a higher pitch noise striking the iron plate. What does zinc do to the lead if it gets melted into it? Thanks

The zinc will cause your bullets to not fill out in the mold (wrinkles), and causes them to be porous.

If you can scratch your finger nail into the the ingot/weight its a good bet its lead, or usable lead alloy.

Zinc & steel weights will not cut easily with a pair of sidecutters. Typically a steel or zinc weight will "ting" if you tap it with pliers. Lead alloy will make a "thud". Same thing if you throw/drop it against a hard ground surface.

A pair of pliers with a cutter (needle nose) works well for determining what you have, when you sort weights.

 

[jayc0968]

I smelt on a Coleman stove with a 2 quart stainless Revere pot. Yes, it used to be copper bottomed but... Bought at Goodwill for 2 bucks so it don't owe me a thing.
I use a spoon with holes drilled thru to snag the clips, flux 2 or 3 times, then pour my ingots. Works like a champ for me.
For the record, I also cast on the Coleman with a 10 lb Lyman pot.

 

[wgttgw]

When melted zinc contamination will look kind of like oat meal floating on the surface. Zinc melts above 700 degrees and all lead alloys used in casting below 700 so an accurate thermometer is the easiest test for zinc. What is not molten at 700 should be tossed out. You can also use acid to test for zinc. It will not react to lead but will if the alloy has a high zinc content. Any of the ingots or other various lead that had be cast into anything should be zinc free or they would not have cast well previously. Lead in raw forms (like lead pipe, lino, plumbing lead) are safe bets to be zinc free. WW and newer fishing sinker need to be checked for zinc.

 

[Winterborn]

For those curious, Green Top has the Lee 20lb melting pots in stock for around $70 bux.

Not a bad deal.

 

[lsw]

just a little nitpicking, "smelting" is defined as extracting a metal from ore.

 

[j8064]

just a little nitpicking, "smelting" is defined as extracting a metal from ore.

O....K....

Maybe some of the "terms" used here are not exactly correct by definition, but many folks who've been on the forum for a while and have rendered many useless wheel weights into usable alloy and turned them into much range fun kinda get it - well except for maybe 3% of the folks.

It's kinda like the definition of a "clip", a "magazine clip" and that "evil shoulder thingy that goes up".

It is what it is.

 

[WheelHead]

Nitpicking from a new guy...huh...
I might not be removing the metal from ore, but I am removing all the crap from it....
I used all the methods to find the junk weights....tapped them on a 25 chuck of steel and listen and anyone that was in question I attempted to crimp with a cutter. A lot of the crap weight have Zn or Fe on them. I'm up to about 400 sorted pounds. I've got a line on a few more pounds this week to pickup. Maybe to melting it up this weekend....

 

[j8064]

Nitpicking from a new guy...huh...
I might not be removing the metal from ore, but I am removing all the crap from it....
I used all the methods to find the junk weights....tapped them on a 25 chuck of steel and listen and anyone that was in question I attempted to crimp with a cutter. A lot of the crap weight have Zn or Fe on them. I'm up to about 400 sorted pounds. I've got a line on a few more pounds this week to pickup. Maybe to melting it up this weekend....

Simply enduring the smell of the crap that floats to the top of a pot of melted wheel weights is close enough to the definition of smelting to me.

Keep on keeping on...

 

[Kbroc2]

What does antimoney do to the lead

 

[j8064]

What does antimoney do to the lead

I the right proportion antimony adds hardness to the alloy.

 

[WheelHead]

I the right proportion antimony adds hardness to the alloy.

Correct...Or if you have pure lead....I have some. You can add tin to get some hardness. I also found that the stick on lead strip weights are pure lead for the most part so I keep them separate from the harder lead found in the clip on weights.