can you get wheel weights to hot?

[Bis]

This may have been discussed before, so please bear with me. For several years I have been belting down wheel weights on an old camp stove that I have had since the 70's. The other day I tried to melt some down to make ingots. It would get them molten but just barley and took forever. I am figuring that the poor old thing has just had it. I go looking for a used turkey frier with no luck ( you would think in a red neck town like this they would be every where ). I am now the proud owner of a new "Bayou Classic" which is designed to boil LARGE pots of water for crawfish. I fired it up and it sounds like a blast furnace. It took 7 minutes to turn 40 pounds of wheel weights in a 10 inch cast iron pot into a molten form. The first few came out nice and shiney. As I went along the ingots became frosted like when a bullet mold gets to hot. I droped a few to soon on the table and they broke in half but they seemed to have the consistency of cake inside, very grainy. Could I have gotten the mixture to hot?? I am sure that there was no zink weights in the mix, I check every weight. Or am I just worring about nothing.
I sure hope you guys can help.
Thanks

[adirondakjack]

I use the same BIG burner and a cast iron dutch oven to process WW. Yeah, the Bayou classic is a bummer to regulate well, and yeah they get toasty hot. I don't sweat it. I usually process a couple hundred pounds at a sitting, five or more pots worth, but if I was doing one pot, I'd cut the heat off when the ingots slumped or took too long to cool. You'll still have plenty of time to ladle off the lead.
I drop ingots on scrap plywood on the garage floor, and using two molds, rotate em, allowing one to cool on the bare concrete floor while I fill the next using a 5 lb plumbers ladle.

Frosty ingots don't hurt a thing. Yer gonna flux again when you use em in the bullet casting pot.....

[Bis]

Thanks for the reply. I definatley need a second set of ingot molds. I have 3 more 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights to go through but I stopped when I got what looked like silver cake crubs on by table after the ingots broke. Are these ingots going to be ok to use?

[Buck Elliott]

They will be OK.. You're going to melt them down to liquid again.. Just be sure to flux well when you melt them down for casting.. A good casting thermometer can be a big help.. Available from Brownells and other outlets...

[Chuck 100 yd]

Like Buck and bis said,. they will be ok.
The frosted surface will be removed when melted again.
Frosted bullets shoot just fine. I tend to cast hot. The bullets are just filled out better and once I get the rhythm going I can cast pretty fast.

[Bis]

Thanks. So the mixture should be ok, thats great to hear. I am going to try using hardwood sawdust for the flux. I have heard that it works great and doesn't flame up or smoke as bad as some of the other stuff.
Thanks again.

[Buck Elliott]

I have used beef tallow, candle stubs, sawdust, parafin wax, bees wax, bullet lube, automotive lubricating grease and other odd-ball materials for fluxing bullet alloy, but have never found anything that works better or makes less mess than Marvelux, which also comes from Brownells.. Give it a try..

[Bis]

Thanks, I will have to check Brownells out and see what they have. Usually I just go to Midway. Does Marvelux flame up?

[Old Ironsights]

Oh, and if you DO happen to get Zinc into your smelt, all is not lost.

Hie thee to the closest Ag CoOp and pick up some powdered Sulfur.

Re-flux the melt with sulfur until the zinc coagulates to the top and scrape it off.

Here's a link to the process: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=62957 and the result: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=63082

Take care and stay upwind.

[adirondakjack]

OI has it. I sometimes get ingots that look like crumbled cake and even break when dumped. No big deal as the melt in the casting pot sorts that out.

To flux the initial smelting from WW to ingots, I use sawdust when available, or strips of cardboard lit afire and tossed in the top of the pot. Just let the "goo" burn off (WW often has this gooey stuff they use to lube and seal rims when mounting tires), then immerse the charred cardboard with yer ladle when ya stir. Save yer "store bought" flux, or spent lubed bullets, or candles or crayons, for the casting melt. I LOVE Magma's casting flux. They sell it pretty cheap, and I bought a 7 lb block which will last near forever.

FWIW I used to "baby" the smelting process,, but no more. I dump a 25 or 30 gallon barrel of WW on the concrete apron just outside the garage doors, quickly remove any obvious offal, then use a square shovel to shovel the WW, valve stems, whatever, into the pot. As it heats, I use a round shovel with a long handle to scrape clips, by now burning, expanded valve stems that look like some pastry gone wild, and anything else that floats on lead over the side. Anything I don't want, including zinc or iron will float on molten lead and not melt until much higher temps. The Bayou Classic looks like a slag heap with a fire in the middle by the time I run four or five pots, but no worries there. When I'm done, I let it cool overnight, then stow the burner and shovel up the mess. It cuts the time from doing it the "fussy" way by half.

[Sixgun]

Tips, tips, and more tips. In addition to the above replies I'd like to add that I use a big 20 oz. magnet to pick out the clips. You can get these magnets from a big quality speaker. Wearing a pair of leather gloves I can clean out a quart of clips in about a minute. Just stick in the magnet and scrap 'em off.

Funny thing you mentioned about the 1 pound ingot mould heating up and taking too long for the lead to solidify. I did this to cure that problem but......................you had better have a steady hand.

In addition to having 4 or 6 ingot moulds I have this metal pan about 2 feet long by 18" wide by 4" deep. I put about an inch of water in the pan, then set the ingot moulds in the water making sure not to get no water in the moulds. Its much less dangerous pouring molten lead into water than pouring water into molten lead So......if you make a little mistake, its no big deal. You get a "sizzle" instead of a booooooommm. In this way I can pour a hundred pounds of molten lead as fast as I can pour and empty out the ingot moulds and get nice ingots--------fast. About every four or five "pours" I pour the water out and replace it with cold water.---------works, but stay focused----------Sixgun

[Griff]

I use a coated steel muffin/cupcake pan. Wal-Mart, about $3, IIRC. Gives an even dozen 2lb (or thereabouts), ingots. Just before they go solid, I mark them with an "L" for Linotype, a "W" for wheelweights or a "P" for pure lead.

[Bis]

Thanks everyone. Some GREAT info. which I shall incorporate into my next adventure of melting wheel weights, the 40 pounds I got yesterday will last a little while. I though that if you got zink into the mix that all was lost. Good to know that you can get it out with sulfur. I will have to check with some of the feed stores and such to see if anyone carries powdered sulfer.

Thanks again to everyone for your inputs.

[2571]

I'm not sure I understand why you're putting the ingot molds into water. Are you trying to cool them faster?

[Sixgun]

I'm not sure I understand why you're putting the ingot molds into water. Are you trying to cool them faster?

Right. Once the mould gets hot, it may take a minute or three for the next blocks to solidify. Thats a pain in the butt when you have 100 or more pounds of molten lead to "ingot up". I usually do severals hundred pounds at a time and well, you know, we live in a fast world today. ------------Sixgun