Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Smelting (melting) Pics

Curious to see what other fellow casters are using for equipment to smelt/melt their raw lead into ingots for casting. Last year I got into casting and managed to procure over 500lbs of lead, mostly COWW (clip-on wheel weights). For separating the lead from the steel clip-ons and removing the general debris, I use a 12" cast iron dutch-oven that I purchased from Harbor Freight for around $30, and a Camp Chef propane burner that I purchased on sale from Cabelas for around $60. I use a 4" ladle I purchased from a gentleman in NH, and pour my ingots into several Lyman ingot molds, and an old cast-iron pan. I flux my lead 3 times using dry pine sawdust, before pouring into molds.

The Camp-Chef has proved to be pretty rugged, and has supported a dutch oven full of wheel-weights. Guessing around 100lbs total weight. The extended legs really save on the back.


Some of my ingot molds.


First melt (approx. 100 lbs. wheel weights)


Second melt. (approx. 200 lbs. wheel weights)


Getting about 20% loss in weight from the melt.

no pics, but I use a brick chimney in our fire pit, and a small cast iron "witch's cauldron" (about 1.5 gallon). Took a cast cleanout plug, and threaded a rod into it, and cut a small notch to control pouring. It hold's about a pound and a half of lead. I use that for pouring into the mould.

Have an old small wire strainer I use to skim the top.

I built a ingot mould out of angle iron, with the edges cut at a slight taper so the ingots drop out, and welded to side plates. Using the density of lead, I cut them at length to drop a 1 pound ingot, and it can do three at a time.

Works good to sit around with folks, and share a couple hopps flavored kool-aids while making ingots.

Total cost - $0 pretty much, except for replacing the wife's strainer.

Bout the same here don't care for electric furnaces gave them up moons ago.

Nice "stash" pictures there guys. I've got about 200 lbs that I need to get poured up as soon as it warms up a bit.

In the same boat lastround. I have another 200lbs. of wheel weights, and about 200lbs. more on the way that will need to be melted down--if only the weather would cooperate. Don't need to fight with low temps and keeping my melt up to temp.

Flyboy, What did you cut your lead with thats in the picture? I'll post up a few pics of my last smelt in a minute. Lightman

This was a smelt from a couple of weeks ago. We finished up with 515 1# ingots of pure lead and 240 # of wheel weight lead.

Wow, This pic thing kicked my butt! I still don't know how to put comments between the pics. The burner is a homemade job, and can put some serious frost on the bottle! The pot was a valve cover from a high pressure railroad tank car, the ladle was from a print shop (where I also scored a lot of type), and the ingot molds were a gun show score from a few years ago. A couple of dollars each. One of the Lyman molds has a backwards letter.

I still have about 500# of phone company lead and probably 700# of wheel weights to smelt, when the weather and my call-out schedule will allow. Will post some more pics then. Lightman

LM,just this jig saw with a medium coarse metal blade.This was some really good soft lead came out of a hospital X-ray room I was told.

Will your bullets glow in the dark?

Thanks, Flyboy.

I hope they don't glow in the dark. Now I'll have to wait until after The Game tonight and go out and check my stash! I have some x-ray shielding and also some isotope containers. If the ingots are glowing, I'll take a few pics! Lightman

Ha! sorta wish they would for early morning and late evening hunts Most of that lead will be 30:1 alloy weigh in at 500 grs each and launched from my Shiloh 45/110.

Only problem with using a big burner is that you can pass the lead melting point and start melting other materials as well.

Nice setup, and nice pile of ingots you got there lightman! Love the pics.

Never had that problem since day one and hardly ever use WW as the composition can be a ? since they seem to have a much higher zinc content today...30:1 is primarily my hunting alloy as I like softer bullets which is a no brainer to concoct.I use a temp thermo for reference,don't over cook,weigh the bullets and get vary little deviation between batches.

Thanks, Novalty. My back complained about that afternoon! You have a nice pile too, and I like your set-up.

Spot, the heat can be a problem. The beam clamp and conduit strap on the side of the pot hold my thermometer. The only time I really crank it up is to start large odd size pieces of sheet lead to melting, then it gets cut back down.

Flyboy, I still like and use wheel weights. What I don't like is the increased amount of Zinc and Iron that I'm finding. Sorting them is a slow process. I also hear that the composition is changing, but I am not seeing this, yet! Thats one reason that I smelt in batches of 250-300 pounds.

I have a plan to build a bottom pour pot for smelting. Not sure if I will or not. I don't know if I have that lifetime supply or how much longer that I'll need to do this. Lightman

This works for me. The ladle holds just enough to pour 4 ingots & I put enough in the pot to acquire 3 ladles. By the time the 12 ingots cool the next pot is liquid, up to temp & ready to pour.

I haven't found a problem with the zinc melting, as it takes awhile for the melt to come up to temperature. I keep my Lyman thermometer in the pot, and as it gets up to temp I make sure I stir the melt believe around 650�, where zinc melts at 787�, I am able to skim whole weights off the top. I do presort my wheel weights which is a tedious job, but helps insure I don't melt any undesirable metals.

Creeker, I love your ingot molds, but my back aches looking at them on the ground.

I was tasked with burning old receipts, bank statements, etc this weekend, and figured as long as the barrel was going, I'd add some wood scraps and such.

Suspended the cauldron down in the barrel using a couple pipes through the handle and ended up doing about 50lb of lead while I was taking care of business.

the heat is borderline sometimes to melt lead (have to keep some good embers right below the pot), but I don't have to worry about excess heat melting stuff I don't want.

I feel your pain & really mean that. HEE HEE

Got in about 300lbs of mostly lead wheel-weights at that rate of what the salvage yard pays this weekend. Time for some sorting, and have to pick up another propane tank for my fryer. This brings me up to roughly 800lbs. in wheel-weights, and figuring closer to 600lbs+ of cleaned ingots with a 20% loss ratio on the clips and other dross.

The above added to the 200lbs. (already sorted below), will make for a back aching day of smelting in the near future.

Nice haul.

It's not much of a setup, but it works.

Butane stove, cheap stainless stock pot and a muffin tin for an ingot mold. The dykes/side cutters are for checking for non-lead WWs. The ladle is a simple stainless kitchen ladle and the blower is from an old powervented water heater. I have a pretty steady supply of these blowers, so if anyone would like one, jist let me know.



The dykes are a good way to identity steel and non-lead WWs, but there are other signs, such as the rivets visible in this pic.



About 40 pounds or so of "muffins".



Not too bad for an hour or two worth of time spent.

Nice job bruinruin!

I was going to start melting down some wheel weights yesterday, but the wind was blowing, and wasn't going to waste the propane in my fryer trying to keep the flame strong outside. So I resorted to sorting the last haul of about 300 lbs. I got in (see above). Got through 8 jugs of the above, and only ended up with about 10 lbs (half of a Folger plastic coffee can) of junk wheel weights, and miscellaneous: valve caps, valve-stems, bolts, nuts.

On the sorting the weights, a couple that are easy to spot are Steel & Iron. The steel ones are a different design and stand out, and the Iron wants usually have a clear stamped "FE" on the front. Lastly, zinc the bane of any caster--if not clearly marked they resemble coated lead wheel weights. I use a pair of pliers to test, if they bite in then it is lead, if they just scratch they are zinc. If you drop on concrete they make a ringing noise opposed to the thud of lead. First thing I check when sorting is the pinch marks at the bottom of the weight where the removal took was used to remove from the rim--this saves some sorting time if the lead is already indented.
Scarring Samples on Lead Weights
Steel Wheel Weights
Iron Wheel Weights
Zinc Wheel Weights

I used the muffin tin thing too but my muffin tin was tinned.
It did not work out so well. So I made my own ingot molds out of 2" angle iron with handles. They work out great.

Today I got 2 batches through my dutch oven, guessing about 130-140lbs and end up with around 110lbs of clean ingots.

Nice work!

Its getting warmer here; I'm thinking about getting two or three moulds for spring. Its gonna get real muddy...

Nice work, Novalty! I smelted again yesterday afternoon. I'll try to post up a few pictures afterwhile. Lightman

Thanks lightman. I still have about 360 lbs. of lead to melt down. Not sure if it makes much of a difference but I do see a variation in the lead color, assuming from different temps when I ladled it into the molds--as some look shiny and other look frosted.

Hoof hearted? Ice melted.

Finishing melting the last of the almost 900 lbs of lead that I had picked up since last year.
This is the waste from the last 450lbs or so.

Most of my equipment set up.

Last 160 bars, about 178lbs by my estimate.




Guess over 600lbs total in ingots, should last me several years at the rate I shoot--have to lower that estimate if the Mrs. keeps shooting at her current rate.

Watch those tailgate cables.

I do, and stop when the weight gets close to my own. They'll get a break for a little while, as Im out of lead to melt down until my next batch of about 100lbs arrives.

I still have a bunch of wheel weights to sort and melt down. Sorting, what a PITA! Starting to look like it may not happen until fall. Glad you got another smelt in before hot weather sets in. Lightman

Is sorting necessary if you have a thermometer and just skim everything that doesn't melt at 650 or so?

I have a bunch to do this spring. There's 4 plus 5 gallon buckets of ww in my garage and one bucket is pretty dirty, someone at the tire shop poured oil over them. I'm guessing it'll cook off.

Bb

That's how I do it. And yes the oil will burn off.

So you guys that use propane burners and dutch ovens - do you build wind breaks/shields around them to be more efficient? How long does a five gallon tank last? What is the minimum BTUs should I be looking at getting from a propane cooker?

And Bruinruin, how does the blower help? I use a fan to blow CO out the garage door. I haven't found a cheap range hood to build a home made fume hood.

Dang I love this site.