Powder coat rejects, contaminating pot/lead

rodauto

rodauto

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Saskatchewan
So I had some powder coat rejects and put them in the pot thinking I could skim the powder coat off the top and carry on my merry way.
What a mess! The powder coat not only didn't float to the top to be skimmed off but also plugged the nozzle on my bottom pour pot. Had to scoop out the lead from the top, completely empty the pot, scrape and sand the powder coat out of the pot......how can I remove the powder coat without melting the rejects?
 
So the bullet was cast properly but the powder coat did not turn out ok?

I'm guessing it is more of a hassle to try to remove the pc then cast a new bullet. I would toss it in the scrap lead bucket and process it into ingots in a different pot.
 
Yeahhhhh, something is wrong here. I don't generally throw mine into the pot, only because the PC fumes stink. I save them and remelt with the next batch of WW I smelt outside. But... I have melted plenty of PC'd rejects back into the casting pot with no issue. This doesn't make sense. PC will burn off at any lead casting temp, and very very few things are dense enough to sink in lead. What temp were you casting at?
 
I have melted thousands of pounds of scrap lead over the years coated with a lot of different stuff, and all of it came out good once I fluxed out the crap. I use dry sawdust and stir it up good. Old oxidized range scrap lead is a tough one, especially range scrap with mainly .22 bullets that are plated. But I never use my casting pot for this either.
 
I only put clean alloy in my casting pot. Any PC rejects are tossed in with the raw wheel weights, pipe, sheet or other sources of lead in my cast iron dutch oven when producing clean ingots.

Auggie D.
 
Might be that I just put too many in the pot at once? After the episode with the bottom pour I tried to process about 4 pounds of contaminated lead with 6 pounds of clean lead. It went mushy like it had zinc contamination or something. You can see the tool blue powder coat in some of the ingots. Pretty strange.
I probably put about a pound of powder coated rejects in the pot the first time and it was probably too much and will need to do only a few at a time in my cast iron melt pot.
 
I flux with sawdust and bees wax as a regular part of my casting and ingot making. I cast at 400 C plus or minus depending on the mould, controlled by a PID
 
Not sure that you can change physics. Lighter material floats on heavier liquid. Maybe you had too much junk in the pot.
 
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