First wheel weight smelt.
- Thread starter SoBored
- Start date
Making muffins - or poached eggs.
I use an old dryer drum with a wood fire in it - bricks under the edge to let draft in and a cut propane tank as a crucible - holding about one pail of weights at a time. A little propane tank on a four-foot handle works as a dipper to fill the poached egg cups which sit in their original pan - which has water in it and sits on the snow - winter is better for doing the smelt. Don't worry about zinc weights - they float up to be skimmed off with the clips.
Making bullets.
The biggest issue is maintaining a constant temperature - dropping cold muffins into your pot messes up everything - so I use two pots - one to preheat and melt, and the second to cast from - and this prevents the valve leakage problem with bottom pour pots too. Fluxing is over-rated - tin does not separate from the mix - and the extra smoke is quite unneccesary. The smoke from anything that you put in the pot like sawdust or wax simply coats the dross with carbon which keeps the lead from sticking to it so it just floats high and "clean" on top of the lead - like a duck on water because of the wax on the feathers. I cast a hundred pounds of bullets in a day and seldom "flux" ( it really isn't fluxing - really) and then after, I'll stir in a bit of wax or soap to clean things up before cooling down.
Mold maintenance.
Do not use commercial sprays on the mold cavities - smoke them well with matches or a candle and that will be good for hundreds of casts from each cavity. Never-Seize works well for the hinges etc. but do not (do not) get it into a mold. Put just a little on the sliding face of the sprue plate and then start to cast. After the mold is up to temperature - putting the end corner of the mold in the pot for two minutes will be a good start - then cut the sprues and leave the bullets in the mold as you brush Never-Seize on the top of the mold - brushing right over the ends of the now-hardened bullets. The mating faces of the mold are very delicate - the little corners can be damaged very easily - so if a certain cavity does not drop easily, mark the bullet before dropping it and see what is burred - then use a very delicate touch with an Exacto knife to tend to it.
Well - I intended to say one thing and got carried away - sorry.
I use an old dryer drum with a wood fire in it - bricks under the edge to let draft in and a cut propane tank as a crucible - holding about one pail of weights at a time. A little propane tank on a four-foot handle works as a dipper to fill the poached egg cups which sit in their original pan - which has water in it and sits on the snow - winter is better for doing the smelt. Don't worry about zinc weights - they float up to be skimmed off with the clips.
Making bullets.
The biggest issue is maintaining a constant temperature - dropping cold muffins into your pot messes up everything - so I use two pots - one to preheat and melt, and the second to cast from - and this prevents the valve leakage problem with bottom pour pots too. Fluxing is over-rated - tin does not separate from the mix - and the extra smoke is quite unneccesary. The smoke from anything that you put in the pot like sawdust or wax simply coats the dross with carbon which keeps the lead from sticking to it so it just floats high and "clean" on top of the lead - like a duck on water because of the wax on the feathers. I cast a hundred pounds of bullets in a day and seldom "flux" ( it really isn't fluxing - really) and then after, I'll stir in a bit of wax or soap to clean things up before cooling down.
Mold maintenance.
Do not use commercial sprays on the mold cavities - smoke them well with matches or a candle and that will be good for hundreds of casts from each cavity. Never-Seize works well for the hinges etc. but do not (do not) get it into a mold. Put just a little on the sliding face of the sprue plate and then start to cast. After the mold is up to temperature - putting the end corner of the mold in the pot for two minutes will be a good start - then cut the sprues and leave the bullets in the mold as you brush Never-Seize on the top of the mold - brushing right over the ends of the now-hardened bullets. The mating faces of the mold are very delicate - the little corners can be damaged very easily - so if a certain cavity does not drop easily, mark the bullet before dropping it and see what is burred - then use a very delicate touch with an Exacto knife to tend to it.
Well - I intended to say one thing and got carried away - sorry.
Interesting points of view. Thanks for the info.
