My first casting session, and some questions

[LittleBill]

After a long time of collecting all the stuff I needed, or thought I needed, I finally got to doing some casting today. It was my first time ever. I started with a small bucket of wheel weights I obtained from my local mechanic a week or so ago when I was in there having my oil changed. Overall things went fairly well, and I ended up with 24 ingots of approximately 1 lb each. I've also got maybe 10 lbs or so of lead left in the pan. I do have some questions for those who are more experienced (which is probably almost everyone here).

I started out with an old frying pan that Mrs. LittleBill let me have, an old turkey fryer base, and some basic tools. Below is a picture of my very first casting.



On the second, I had to throw all my ingots back in and remelt them, as I was a bit of a hasty bear, and turned them out before they were cool enough to maintain their shape. They looked kind of funny, like cake that hasn't baked all the way through, or really gooey brownies.

I didn't seem to have any problem with zinc weights. I found a few that did not melt, and one was marked Fe, so I am assuming it was steel or iron. In any case, it was easy enough to pick out the ones that weren't melting along with the clips and other dross. I weighed the bucket when I first obtained it, but with my record keeping skills and memory, I have no idea how much I had in the way of raw materials when I started. I examined all the waste, and figure it did not amount to more than two or three pounds of material.

Now for the questions. I got lots of pretty colors while the lead was melting down. I assume that was a manifestation of impurities. Remembering some of the posts here, I used some wood shavings for flux. I have enough to flux about five or six tons of lead at any given time. That seemed to help, but even stirring it in did not help keep the lead looking nice and lead like for very long at all.



I also had some fancy powdered flux I bought when I bought my furnace for casting the boolits themselves, and that seemed to work about the same as the wood shavings. So question #1. Is the colored stuff lead with impurities? It seemed to melt back in while being stirred around, but reappeared immediately.

Question #2. Do these impurities harm the final product? Do I need to be concerned when I melt the ingots down for the actual casting of the boolits themselves?

Question #3. What do most of you use to cool the ingots you have turned out, or for the mold while they are cooling to the point where they can be released? I thought a block of wood might suffice, but I was wrong. I have a toasted block of wood from the ingot mold, as well as one slightly darkened one from the cooling ingots.

I think that should do it for now. If I missed something, or someone has some helpful info that I did not think to ask about, please feel free to let me know. I am not proud.

[DLCTEX]

The misshapen ingots did not have to be remelted, unless you just don't like ugly ingots. They are going to be remelted anyway to make boolits. The colors indicate that the melt got a little too hot, just flux it back in. The flux reduces the oxides back to the alloy. Flux lightly when you remelt for casting. I place the filled ingot moulds on concrete to cool. I've tried using water, but the boiling can get pretty violent and may warp or crack a mould.. Better to have more moulds and wait. I dump the ingots onto concrete and sometimes have to bump it some to get them to release if they haven't cooled enough to shrink. From the picture, there may be some impurities , inclusions, in your ingots. Stir the melt well to bring debris to the surface. I'd just flux and clean well when casting. Looks as if you are well on your way.

[wv109323]

I use wood to cool my ingots also. The burnt wood will not hurt any thing. I use a set of Vise-grips as a handle on my ingot mold and bang the mold on the wood to get the ingots to release. You may need to get another ingot mold. Look for a muffin pan and let it rust so that the ingots will not stick. You may not want to fill the muffin all the way up because the ingot will weight about two pounds.
The way to get impurities out of the smelt is stir... flux... stir. What floats and looks like crud skim it out.

[44man]

Just too hot. Best to use a thermometer and keep close to 600*. I skim the first crud off before fluxing. Fluxing can let zinc melt in if any is there. Even raw antimony can be mixed in at 600*.

[Willbird]

If that "fancy powdered flux" was marvellux beware of using it indoors. Most folks use way too much, but it is sal ammoniac and using it indoors, esp using far too much indoors will make every steel and cast iron thing within eyesight rust up real purty . I like smelting when it is cold because I lay the ingot molds in the snow and they cool quicker, then flop the ingots out onto some scrap plywood.

[LittleBill]

Thanks for the replies guys, and all advice will be taken and applied. I have a thermometer, but was having so much fun I forgot to stick it into the lead. I will be sure to do that next time.

Willbird, it is Marvellux, and as soon as I got home from the store, I found posts where people were using sawdust for flux. I have enough of that stuff to supply just about everyone here on the board with flux. This session was done outdoors, but when it comes time to melt the ingots into boolits, I will be doing that with a Lyman Big Dipper. That should help the comfort level as well as control the heat a little more easily.

[Dewey606]

In reference to the Marvellux, is there another commercial product made for fluxing that doesn't have that bad side effect of rusting?

[waksupi]

Sawdust.

[Echo]

If one wants to water-cool their ingot molds, someone on the forum suggested using a folded-up towel on a cookie sheet, soaked with H2O. Way better than liquid water - less likelihood of a visit from the Tinsel fairy. That's the way I cool my ingot molds...

[Pitchnit]

You are well on your way. Nice job. Regards-Pitchnit