Cast some ingots yesterday.

[OneBarfly]

Well, I finally decided to cast some ingots yesterday.

Here what I used:

Cast-iron kettle - bought for $9.00 from the bargin-bin at Cambodian Tire

S/S one-piece ladle $1.00 Dollarama store make sure it's the one-piece type)

Old muffin pan - bought the wife a new one

I received a bunch a wheel weights a while ago (thanks Neil)
Another friend gave me a 10 pound brick of pure lead form a job he did at a power plant years ago.

Old Coleman naptha stove ($5.00 at a garage sale)

Worked like a charm - used gloves, but still burned one of my fingers .

I used the ladle and lee pourer to scoop the clips out. Looking back, maybe a strainer-type ladle would have been quicker.

Just wonerding: How can I tell if any zinc weights got into the mix?

Also, I wondering about what kindly of alloy 50% ww and 50% lead would make. Is this too soft for .45 ACP?. When I go to put in in the furance, should I add some solder to add more tin to the mix? Thoughts?

Other lessons I learned: Do not place the stove on top of a plastic milk crate

 

[44Bore]

For .45 acp you would likely be better using straight wheelweights, casting with your tremperature fairly high and dropping the bullets out of the mould straight into cold water (be sure no splashes of water get in your mould or your casting pot). If the bullets don't fill out in the mould, you could try adding some solder to the mix. The tin does not add much hardness but helps the alloy flow better and fill out the mould.

FWIW. 44Bore

 

[Canuck44]

IF you want to use up the pure lead I would go with a ratio of 1# of lead to 3 parts WW with just a tad of solder mixed to aid mold fill up.

The zinc WW will float to the top and you can skim them off. Just keep your temperature down and you won't be melting any of the zinc WW.

I agree that Straight WW work just fine in the .45acp and I too water quench mine to harden them up a bit but others don't with no ill effects. If you are using up your pure lead in the manner I described definately water quench them and you should be OK. DO have the pail with the water in it away from your casting pot. You DON"T want ANY water droplets to hit your molten metal. Life is to short for that experience - spoken from experience.

Take Care

 

[tiriaq]

Yes, be careful with the water. I once worked in the cable division at Prestolite. We made wiring harness bits for autos. One job I had was to take a handfull of wires, which I had cut to length, lugged on one end, and stripped on the other, and tin the stripped ends with solder. I would take a double handfull of the wires, dip the end in flux, snap it to remove excess flux, then dip into a large shallow pan of solder. One time I didn't get all the flux off.... There was a remarkable eruption of solder - perhaps five pounds - some droplets of which came down on my head. Others spattered off my forehead, and wound up on the inside of my safety glasses. Others were on the outside of the glasses. I was spotted for a while, but suffered no serious harm. But it was very dramatic. Get something wet into your lead pot, and the same thing will happen. Did I mention safety glasses?

 

[schick]

I had no luck with muffins pans. Forsome reason the ingots stuck inside the pans. It was annoying and embarrassing. :-(

I have since moved on to homemade ingot molds of 2 inch angle iron.

 

[sgtrock]

beware of water near lead pot, i have had the experience of ONE drop of water launching a 10 pound pot of lead, it actually generated enough force to buckle the table it was sitting on. keep the water for quenching far away from work area and do not put reject bullets directly back into pot,put them in at a start up and the residual water will evaporate.