I anneal knife blades in my syrup evaporator in the spring all the time since I am sitting there watching water boil most of the time. Takes a couple of minutes to get them red hot in that fire. Used to use wood for casting many years ago in my misspent youth and also used to melt pot metal for casting in a wood fire also. I uses a old fan from a womans hair dryer for my evaporator as it gives a really good stream of air.
Smelting wheel weights using wood fire?
- Thread starter Crazy Chaingun
- Start date
maltextract
Regular
- Location
- Rural Manitoba
I'm making a new rocket stove lead melter this weekend, i'll take pics.
kenneth carlson
Regular
- Location
- thunder bay on
I found that this setup melts down a 5 gal Pail of sorted wheel weights in 15 minutes. 61,000 btu burner and a lagostina cast iron 7 qt casserole dish. I processed 4 pails the other day in about 2 hours total. The burner cost me 40$(on sale) can tire.the cast iron casserole dish was on sale for 99$ reg 380$ (can tire) plus I got my discount as I am an employee.
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kenneth carlson
Regular
- Location
- thunder bay on
I did have sheet steel around it while it was melting. Took it down to take the picture. Works like a dream. 
kenneth carlson
Regular
- Location
- thunder bay on
Yeah without the shields the first pail took close to 30 minutes. With the shields up it took only 15-20 mins. So much faster. For a few sheets of tin. Haha
I eagerly await an update on your rocket stove. I tried to make one before I built my forced air wood furnace, but my stick welder kept burning through the one pound propane tanks I had cut up to use as the body. Made one out of the popular tin can method last spring, but the high temps and prolonged use burned the metal out after I got through only 15 pounds.
Kenneth, approximately how much propane did you burn to melt your four pails of weights, and were they full buckets?
kenneth carlson
Regular
- Location
- thunder bay on
I went through about 10 lbs of propane. And yes they were full 5 gal pails if sorted weights. No steel/ zinc etc. I recovered about 170+ lbs from each Pail. The propane don't cost me anything as I get it from work so propane consumption is no regards to me.
not sure about wood fires and such but if you use a electric heater and control the temperature the lead melts and zinc does not, the zinc and steel floats on the top, scoop it off, flux and make ingots. using a fire the temperature will vary enough to melt zinc and game over
