Is there anyone who casts there own bullets?Im looking for info on how to mix lead with tin ect to get a formula with a lower melting .My interest in this is I have about 200 pounds of lead tire weights that I want to melt down and mix into a formula that can be used for lead casting toy soldiers in rubber moulds.Apparently the melting point of just lead is too hot for the rubber moulds.Where can I get tin ect to mix into the lead ect.Dave.
Lead smelting
- Thread starter Dave.S
- Start date
I thought wheel weights were rather mix of unknowns to begin with.
I had a pail full and melted them all down , poured ingots and still use it for casting. soft enough to scratch with finger nail.
I guess a hi temp thermometer and a chart of melting temps would be handy.....
I had a pail full and melted them all down , poured ingots and still use it for casting. soft enough to scratch with finger nail.
I guess a hi temp thermometer and a chart of melting temps would be handy.....
- Location
- Montreal, Quebec
Ooooops. I was totally off topic, misread the initial post. Sorry guys!
Last edited:
Rubber Toy Soldier Molds?
Pure Tin melts at 450 F and pure Lead melts at 620 F.
You'll probably want to go with high Tin content as already suggested, but you'll have to get it a good bit above its melting temp to get good fill out - I'd say 500F+.
If the rubber can handle 550F I'd go pure Tin, if 600F, you could probably go 50/50 Tin/Wheelweight.
The problem is that once you determine what is too hot, you've already damaged the mold.
Pure Tin melts at 450 F and pure Lead melts at 620 F.
You'll probably want to go with high Tin content as already suggested, but you'll have to get it a good bit above its melting temp to get good fill out - I'd say 500F+.
If the rubber can handle 550F I'd go pure Tin, if 600F, you could probably go 50/50 Tin/Wheelweight.
The problem is that once you determine what is too hot, you've already damaged the mold.
Last edited:
- Location
- Thunder Bay ON Canada
Smelting is extractive metallurgy. You just wanna melt the lead.
If your molds are mouldy, wash well with a mild bleach solution.
Choose higher temperature molds. You can get much higher temperatures with other materials like some epoxy's and resins, the latex rubber molds are generally used for plaster works.
Alloying tin with lead is not as easy as it might sound, crystals can form as the solution cools and come out of sol'n which is why most (practically all) bullet casters use 50/50 alloy from a bullet casting supply, instead of trying to mix from pure metals.
In fact, if you aren't careful when you melt your own wheel weight metal, you may find the antimony, tin, and lead separating out unpredictably and giving you problems. Bullet casters know all about antimony clog of the nozzles, and the tin pooling on top of the melt and adsorbing onto the dross through capillary action, it gets more complex than you'd think.
Metallurgy is no joke, follow instructions, be patient and prepared for the occasional suprise. Alloying metals isn't just heating them both till they melt and mixing together, you often need special procedures, fluxes, magic helper elves...etc..etc..
If your molds are mouldy, wash well with a mild bleach solution.
Choose higher temperature molds. You can get much higher temperatures with other materials like some epoxy's and resins, the latex rubber molds are generally used for plaster works.
Alloying tin with lead is not as easy as it might sound, crystals can form as the solution cools and come out of sol'n which is why most (practically all) bullet casters use 50/50 alloy from a bullet casting supply, instead of trying to mix from pure metals.
In fact, if you aren't careful when you melt your own wheel weight metal, you may find the antimony, tin, and lead separating out unpredictably and giving you problems. Bullet casters know all about antimony clog of the nozzles, and the tin pooling on top of the melt and adsorbing onto the dross through capillary action, it gets more complex than you'd think.
Metallurgy is no joke, follow instructions, be patient and prepared for the occasional suprise. Alloying metals isn't just heating them both till they melt and mixing together, you often need special procedures, fluxes, magic helper elves...etc..etc..
Last edited:
You can alloy your lead when it's in your melter if you like. Smaller weights (ie 10 or 20 pounds) make it a bit easier to deal with how much anitmony/tin to use.
Smelting is soooo much fun... NOT.
Trust us... just make ingots in a day's sitting and get itover with. Alloy later.
Smelting is soooo much fun... NOT.
Trust us... just make ingots in a day's sitting and get itover with. Alloy later.
- Location
- Saskatchewan
I've found this website very helpful, www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm
Lots of good basic info.
Lots of good basic info.
It must be a different Ben. The one I know would have been too young then
BattleRife
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- of No Fixed Address
What you are looking for is the eutectic composition. If you take a pure crystalline solid, it has a certain melting point, but if you blend it with a second crystalline solid, the melting point will be lowered. The melting point keeps dropping until you have so much of the "additive" that it begins to dominate, at that point the M.P. rises again. That minimum point is called the eutectic composition.
Pure lead has a melting point of 327C, pure tin is 232C. The euctectic occurs with a blend that is 38% lead, 62% tin, with a melting point of 183C. Still sounds pretty hot for a rubber mould to me.
Some eutectics can have very low melting points. For example, there is a bismuth eutectic (with tin or lead or maybe both) that will melt in the palm of your hand.
Maybe your using the wrong process. KD
http://www.artworksfoundry.com/process/casting.htm
http://www.artworksfoundry.com/process/casting.htm
Rubber moulds and lead soldiers! Sounds like a very interesting project. Keep us posted .... I'd love to see the finished soldiers. Battlerifel's eutectic 183 degress sounds like what you want, but wheel weights are not pure lead, they already contain tin and antimony. For this project, you may want to purchase some pure lead. I wonder if putting your rubber moulds in the freezer would help with the very first cast? Then again, the mould might not fill out properly, although the heat transfer coefficient is much lower with rubber than with steel so it might fill out. Also the sudden thermal stresses on a piece of rubber might crack it, although rubber tires still work fine at minus 40 degrees, as most of us unfortunately know.
Last edited:
