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I did my first smelt, indoor range scrap. The range is steel backstop into a sand trap.
Used sawdust,shavings for fluxing, there was a lot of junk that came to the top before fluxing. It looks like there is sand in the bottom of my pan, and some in some of the ingots.
So, how do I get the sand out?
I have only met just a couple of smelters in my life and we all had the same thing going on, and that is no matter how much we fluxed and stirred there was always something on the bottom on the pot. I see your pan is shallow and I use a deep one so I can avoid the bottom when I pour the molten lead into the ingot molds.
If your getting what looks like sand in your ingots the only way I can think of to get it out is to smelt it again, and flux.
Is there a flux that is better at grabbing onto sand?
Stirring and scraping the bottom after fluxing will help. The sand and stuff is sometimes held by the weightof the lead above it. I have not found a flux or process that totally eliminates the issue.
I can see where a good cleaning of the pot then remelting some of the already cast ingots could help. Might clean more of the grunge out and make the mix a bit more u inform. Key is whether or not the time and effort are worth it.
I just get put all that I can and figure the rest goes away when I flux in the pot.
the deper pot will help.
you can then get the clean alloy fom the top of the pot.
i don't like to get my pots too low when smelting.
and i stir scrape,scrape stir like heck when smelting.
i use a couple of different scrapers and work the pot over pretty good before i even think of fluxing.
i then cherry pick the alloy from the pot.
when done i leave an inch or two in the bottom of my pot and let it cool and dump the big ingot out of the bottom.
you should see the dust i get.
my pots have been scraped to a smooth almost polished finish over the years.
Shooter, one of the few things about smelting is the technique used during the process. First thing is no matter how hard it may be to actually lift it up with melted lead in the pan/pot try and have it so when pouring into molds that there's isn't so little lead in the pan/pot that there's a greater risk of getting contaminants in your pour. This is your first smelt and if I got everything done right the first time I tried anything it would be a miracle.
I pretty much do what runfiverun described, although I got kinda lucky to find a pot that was higher than wider out in the desert. I usually melt at least 10lbs at a time and only pour 5-6lbs at a time and throw more lead into the pot. And just like above I never pour the pot empty but leave some in there and let it solidify. When it's cold and turned into one big chunk I just turn over the pot and it drops right out, you know what? I get an awful lot of crud still in between that chunk of lead and the pot.
My buddy and I melt a lot of range scrap from a similar style range. We made a shaker type system to remove all the sand we can first, then it is all about mixing. The pot holds about 220 lbs when full so I toss in about 1/2 of a votive candle worth of wax. I do this 2-3 times. As the pot gets low, say 50 lbs or so, I flux 2-3 more times with less wax to get rid of the oxides and the sand that turns up during the ladle dipping/scraping the sides and bottom.
After you do a few melts, it will become easier.
Lee W
Thanks to all for the tips, going to try again in the morning.
I will try and stir and scrape out everything I can before even fluxing, then flux and repeat. I've had a couple batches were I thought my air woudl fall off before I had it cleaned out to satisfaction.
Also don;t be afraid to remelt some of your ingots, I will about empty the pot. If I don;t like the last ingots poured I put them back into the pot instead of storage so I know to remelt them next time.
Make sure the sawdust you use to flux dosnt have sand or dirt in it too. Don't ask me how I know!! LOL!!
I find that the cleaner lead is at the Bottom of the pot, I use a custom bottom pour smelter and my ingots come out down right purdy! :) I do agree with R5R on stirring like crazy and using different shaped scrapers. I have both metal and wood ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by runfiverun
I would say that the sand and dirt is getting trapped beneath the lead and needs to be heavily fluxed and stirred to make it rise to the surface where it can be skimmed off..
Shad
I gave it another go this morning, went better, I just might get good at this. It was so humid I was sweating as fast as the lead was melting, got 34 muffins before quitting. They were better but I will but them through the pot again.
Thanks for all of the pointers.
Yeah, I get that.
What is I do is scrape the bottom while the melt is going on. I get nasty stuff on top.
I use vegetable oil for flux in my melt pot, Kitty Litter in the casting pot.
You have to keep the blade of the scraper hot, to keep the lead from sticking and making it heavy.
Part of the game.
If you have a nominal heat source for melting, use a shallow pan, good heat, go with a deep pan. The sticking and crud occurs on the bottom when the weight of the lead pushes the stuff on the bottom. It sticks there. The crud also makes the lead take longer to melt.
An issue with casting.
Deeeeper pot!!
There will always be some junk trapped on bottom. You will minimalize it by melting clean lead about 1" deep to start out with.
Start off by melting an inch of inch of lead, usually I use ingots from a previous session or leave some lead in my pot between melting sessions. When you start with whatever you are melting, there is more chance of stuff getting trapped on the bottom of your pot. Also scrape the bottom after you have all the **** skimmed off the top, using a spatula with a flat edge, work from one side to the other, always scraping the same direction and overlapping scrapes, that will pull most of the **** to one corner and out of the way when you are scooping the lead up for your ingots. If you start out with some clean lead in the bottom, you will get better heat conduction to your lead also because any sand or **** that gets trapped between the lead and your container will act as an insulator and restrict heat flow from the pot into the lead.