Got bit by the tinsel fairy this morning.

maltextract

maltextract

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I’ve been processing all my pure lead into ingots, some of which was 3/4” lead service lines. I think there might have been some moisture in a chunk of the pipe. As I was reaching over the pot adding bits of hacked up pipe to the melt I heard a loud pop! It’s Christmas!!! I caught a big splash on my right wrist between my glove and my cuff, got a pretty decent burn on my wrist, got splashed in my hair off the ceiling. Caught a good spray on my right side of my coveralls. I hack up the pipe into short sections with a hatchet and leave them in my casting shed to make sure there are dry. This time I didn’t though because I was in a hurry to clean up all my plumbing lead.
 
maltextract said:
I’ve been processing all my pure lead into ingots, some of which was 3/4” lead service lines. I think there might have been some moisture in a chunk of the pipe. As I was reaching over the pot adding bits of hacked up pipe to the melt I heard a loud pop! It’s Christmas!!! I caught a big splash on my right wrist between my glove and my cuff, got a pretty decent burn on my wrist, got splashed in my hair off the ceiling. Caught a good spray on my right side of my coveralls. I hack up the pipe into short sections with a hatchet and leave them in my casting shed to make sure there are dry. This time I didn’t though because I was in a hurry to clean up all my plumbing lead.
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It's always a good idea if you have lead that might have water in it to put it in a cold pot and heat it up from cold.
 
Damn! Sorry to hear that.
Hope the burn is not too serious.

Sure doesn't take much to create a big and unpleasant surprise. I've had a couple small spits here and there but been lucky so far.....
 
I was doing range lead once and there happened to be a live 22LR round in the mess. It exploded. Fortunately I was wearing sufficient protective clothing that none hit my skin. It did ruin my jacket though.
 
Good word of warning to others not to get complacent. Some of us do this so often it's easy to think you can take short cuts. I myself am guilty of not wearing enough protection for such an event. I'll have to step that part of my game up.
 
MuthaFunk said:
Good word of warning to others not to get complacent. Some of us do this so often it's easy to think you can take short cuts. I myself am guilty of not wearing enough protection for such an event. I'll have to step that part of my game up.
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This^^^ I had one last year (first one in 45 years of off & on casting) and it was like I was inside Get Smart's cone of silence, lead everywhere but not on any open skin, and I wasn't covered up properly, just lucky. I had brought some lead ingots in from another storage place the week before and dropped one in the snow. They sat under the shop heater for a week but must of had a crack in the one that hit the snow as about a minute after it was introduced to the lead pot I had lead all over my clothes & hat and a full face shield I was wearing(luckily just a SOP in my shop).
 
Ouch!

About 8 years ago, I was melting some range scrap. I lifted off the lid of the lead pot to check the melt just as there was a load bang. A sheet of hot lead caught me square in the face. Only my reading glasses protected my eyes. I have the scars to prove my indescretion. Now when melting scrap, I put the scrap in a cold pot, put the lid on and go do something else until the pot has been up at melting temps for a good while.
 
Humidity in one ingot had me scraping lead off my shirt and geans for 2 hours. I re-melted all those ingots from cold to cook the water out.
I have been casting bullets this way for 14 years and it finally happened. The ingots were 10 years old.
 
If I'm adding cold ingots I try to hold them with pliers or a spoon on top of the melt to get the heat up. Occasionally I'll also put new stuff in my toaster oven (ONLY FOR LEAD) to pre heat. Even if it's 30° I still wear full coveralls, goggles and gloves.
 
I learned my lesson well. Old wheel weights,clips rusted off some of them. My pot was well humped and running for at least 1/2 hr. I decided to stir and I believe some of the stuff on top still had water inside. Safety glasses ruined. A big piece splashed across my nose. Up the right side,across the bottom and inside my nose. 20 minutes later the inside of my nose was still very painful. A lot of swear words were uttered. A face shield is now worn. Also any lead I have is laid on a tarp in the sun for a couple of days. The piece of lead I pulled off was F shaped. I still cringe thinking about it even after two years.
 
Mo' safety, mo' better casting

The tinsel fairy hasn't visited me yet in 40+ years - but I am always dressed like I'm supposed to be the doorman when she arrives. I wasn't always... but back in the days of FidoNet, prior to the WWW, Ken Mollohan tuned me up on that.

A way to increase your safety AND your casting is to have a hot plate running while casting. I originally started using a hot plate to both pre-heat the mould blocks and to keep them at casting temperature during interruptions once the work flow was going. After a few years it suddenly occurred to me that the hot plate would also pre-heat the next ingots that would go into the casting pot as the level drew down. Less casting time lost to pot temperature fluctuations as new metal is melted.

After smelting and cleaning my COWW scrap (unlikely to ever do that again, sadly), the finished ingots are stored in a corner of the basement. Extremely unlikely they will pick up any water there after being cast into ingots. HOWEVER... now that they sit on the hot plate getting toasty hot while waiting for their turn to replenish the pot, there's a lot less likelihood that there's somehow or other some moisture in those ingots when they go into the pot.

Better safety, better casting... winner winner chicken dinner.
 
Those who have never experienced this have no idea how bad it can be.

Happened to me once while making ingots outside. Besides wearing welding gloves and safety glasses I wasn't propperly dressed for the job, luckily I dove away quick enough when the pop happened and didn't get any lead on me. Learned my lesson there..
 
I refer to her as the Tinsel Dragon. When doing a melt for ingots I start with a cold pot and add the WW and other lead scraps, then let everything heat up. I pretty much empty the pot before I add the next loads of weights. One weight with moisture trapped in the clip will empty a pot pretty quickly.

When I'm ready to cast bullets I dump in old sprue and crap bullets from the previous run to get a puddle in the bottom of the pot on my Master Caster (they act as a heat bridge) while I have ingots placed all around the top of it to warm up. These get added and I can start casting when I get it filled to the level I want.

Auggie D.
 
Lucky - so far. I wear gloves and safety glasses. Dean Grennell's story tells about accidentally dropping a live .22 short in the pot. Fairly exciting for a while!
 
It isn't "if" it will happen to you, it is "when"! I don't wear swede shoes casting bullet anymore. It don't come off swede. In the garbage they went.
 
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