did a bad thing...tinsel fairy paid me a visit.

[freebullet]

Whew...I'm glad you didn't loose yer eye. Harbor freight sells a clear flip up face mask for 3$ that's what I use. It don't fog up like goggle type safety glasses and allows ventilation behind it.

When I smelt scrap down I do it about 150-200 lbs. at a time. I wear cotton pants, long sleeve cotton shirt, a cotton ball cap, and when near the pot or pouring ingots I add welding gloves and the clear harbor freight face shield.

I had a friend over to learn how I do it. Couple weeks later he calls me up at 10pm. He had 150 lbs melted over a wood fire with ingots stuck in his only muffin pan and zero ppe on hand. It was as if he didn't hear anything I said. No ppe- none and it was starting to sprinkle. I told him to make a makeshift roof over it and brought down gear to ingotize his melt. I explained again the risks. Said he thought I was exaggerating the risk. He learned from the little tiny micro splatters on his wrist why I wear the welding gloves. I told him how he almost coated himself, his, & his neighbors house in 700 degree liquid metal.

He still doesn't take the precautions I do. I hope you do.

[Markbo]

Holy **** were you lucky!

[Shiloh]

Glad you weren't hurt seriously. What did you learn??
You were taught a lesson and the potential burn scars are price of education. Cheap I might add. My dad (RIP Dad), always used to ask the same question when I did something wrong, dangerous or got lucky like you did. "Did you learn anything??"

Hot lead showering you and the area is a sobering thing.

Shiloh

[R3104D3R]

Glad you are OK. I have come close to putting live rounds in the mix on a few occasions. Luckily I have everything in ingots now.

Ingots may not be completely safe, either. Moisture in the ingot mold, pour the ingot, it sets... Some weeks later, one of those ingots blessed me with the tinsel fairy. A brief moment of violent boiling gave me just enough time to move back a couple feet before it volcanoed, spraying mostly straight up. Yeah I still wear some of it. My instinct was to raise my eyebrow in curiosity and look into the pot... My wisdom was to back the F*** away.

[ShooterAZ]

I have a small floodlamp over my casting area, so I can see better. This past fall I had a big moth buzzing the light, and apparently he got a little too close and ended up in my melt pot. He popped and sizzled a bit, but no tinsel fairy. The thing that I remember most is that fried moth smells terrible.

[odfairfaxsub]

Man this happens to everyone all the time in some way. I have a box in the reload room where I throw my nasty bullets that have tons of wrinkles or tons of deformeties or whatnot. I took the box and put all those bullets in my lee pot to melt....walked away from it and I heard a couple small explosions. Turns out there was like 3 live primers in there. Can't emagine what it woulda been like if I threw that box into a melted kettle of lead

[georgerkahn]

You are indeed blessed and lucky burns were above and below the eye. I do hope your recovery is quick, complete, and scar-free! And, THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS!!! Thirty years ago, while grinding steel, I caught a sliver of steel in my left eye which necessitated a hospital visit to have it drilled out. And, a couple of days ago saw me grinding in my shop sans any safety glasses -- even recalling what happened to me three decades earlier. How complacent one (I) gets??? Yes, I too have smelted many, many pounds of "stuff" in my attempts to produce boolit alloy ingots. Your incident reminded me that complacency's NOT the way to go -- I'll surely be donned in my leather welding apron and plastic face shield next time --and hopefully EVERY time -- I'm out there!
BEST RECOVERY WISHES!!!
georgrkahn

[dondiego]

I learned long ago to never add scrap to an already melted batch. Strange things happen.

[tazman]

Where I worked(now retired) we used large lead pots as a heat treating medium. They ran at 1500 degrees. Once a week we would dip all the lead out into large molds(approx 75 lb) so we could replace the lead pot itself.
These ingots would sometimes develop cavitations as they cooled. Usually it was just a deep dimple similar to what you get on a sprue when casting boolits except larger. This one went deep and wasn't readily visible. Turns out someone poured water into the hole. No idea who. Probably someone who had no idea the problems it could cause.
The operator put that ingot into the lead pot to adjust the depth of the lead. When it blew it took half the lead out of the pot(maybe 600lbs).
Most of it went straight up but enough came out at him to cause second and third degree burns across his stomach. He was in the hospital for 2 days and off work for 3-4 weeks while his skin healed.
After that we changed protocol for adding lead bars to the pot. We were required to lay the bar on the edge of the pot until it was hot enough to boil water before we could add it to the mix.
It is always a good idea to make sure there is no moisture on anything you are adding to a hot lead pot.

[Seeker]

Who could rightly beat up on you for owning up to a mistake? Glad you are alrght. You know, someone was watching over you. You are a lucky man.

[Markbo]

... The thing that I remember most is that fried moth smells terrible....

Thats funny stuff right there now.

[Polecat]

I met the Tinsel Fairey at young age. when us boys (11 or 12) would get a hold of some lead we would melt and cast it in a coco can lid that was our siver dollers. Well I had some leftover lead so I bored a hole in the ground with a tablespoon started to me pour an ingot. Thats when SHE showed up. I got a few burn nothing bad but I was very impressed.

[hornady308]

I would like to second the Harbor Freight full face shield. Its cheap insurance against an eye injury. I read recently that one of the fastest growing reasons for debt is accidental injuries.

[Sticky]

Glat you survived. Save the shirt; cut it up and feed it to your melt. You will recover your lead and flux at the same time.

LOL

From a newb, thanks for the reminder of how dangerous water and lead alloys can be!

[leeggen]

It is my policy to sort thru all wheel weights and scrap lead for those pestky shells that hide in the bucket. Glad you were not hurt any worse.
CD

[Orchard6]

I've been visited too. I used to use ingot molds made from angle iron and found out the hard way one day that rust does indeed hold moisture. Thankfully I heard and saw what was going on and turned away. A few splatters on my blue jeans and about 2 pounds of lead on the floor cured me from using rusty steel ingot molds. Got a couple nice shiny new aluminum molds now!

[TXGunNut]

I invited the Tinsel Fairy by pouring some leftover smelt into a rusty cast iron saucepan that was lying around. Never figured out what was in there but I heard the sizzle and ducked. I'll be getting one of those face shields, need one when I run the string trimmer too.

[MaryB]

maybe a cheap galvanized garbage can with vents but around the bottom the turned upside down over the pot when melting down questionable scrap, at least contain most of it... double duty as a wind block too...cut a slot for the regulator and hose to hang out of. Could get tricky and add a chute to slide lead into the pot without have to lift it off...

[wistlepig1]

Glade it wasn't too bad and you were very lucky. I hope you recover quickly.

[GaryN]

Another thing to remember: don't wear synthetic fabrics. They melt and stick to your skin. I know a guy who was in a cabin fire. The only ones that made it out alive were wearing wool. The synthetic wearers all died. He was in the hospital for a few weeks.