I smelted about 200 pounds of sorted wheel weights today. I sort them pretty well but a couple zinc weight always get through that I skim out. Most everything went smoothly today. Only problem is I put in too many weights to start, about 75 pounds worth. This made for a hot smoky mess, too many clips to skim off at once. In the process I think I ended up getting a bit hotter than I like. It got smoother as I added a boat a time to the melt, much easier to control the temp and make sure I get out all zinc.
So my question is how obvious it is when zinc accidentally gets smelted in with the pot? Ruining a pot would suck but ruining 200 pounds would be heartbreaking.
Good news is I got about 200 pounds of ingots from $100 of weights, pretty sure all zinc free.