Wheel weights to ingots

[rokefert]

I would like some advice on melting WW's into lead ingots.  I have a lead pot and ladle,turkey burner or coleman stove. I want to make ingots that will be clean of impurities and simply be a starting point for makin bullets and sinkers.  I've only made sinkers with WW's once as a kid, I know the safety basics and it stops there.  The information ive read varies from somewhat relaxed approach on one end and heart surgery on the other.  Some guys said they clean the wheel weights before they melt, others say nothing about it.  Some talk of scraping and scraping the pot other say they just ladle of the "dross" and theyre done.  How much to flux, how often and when?  Should I purchase a thermometer?  I plan to either buy an ingot mold or cast iron muffin pan. I know this seems like a long winded post so if you don't have the time for  a response what guide would be the best to purchase.  Thanks!!!

[Badnews Bob]

Just to make ingots I make sure mine are dry dirt makes no diffrence, when you skim off the dross and clips all the dirt comes with it. I useally don't flux my ingots I just pour the into the moulds. I do more cleaning and fluxing when I accually use them, I get some very nice bullets this way.

[larry357]

Youre right, info goes from casual to rocket science. I can share my opinion and experiences. 1: There is no need for an exspensive thermometer to make ingots. 2:It would be a silly waste of time and effort to clean w/weights before melting. 3:To stay on the cheap, buy the little woman a new muffin pan and use the old one. Regular steel or aluminum muffin pans work fine, cast iron ones are pricey unless you luck into one at a yard sale.4: no need to go overboard scraping the ingot pot just hittin the bottom a little on a deep stir is fine. I,ll try to write how I make my ingots. First I load the pot then fire it up when the melt starts I,ll stir em around a little and turn down the heat a little then I,ll skim off most of the clips so I can stir easier now I flux using a small piece (about 3/8 inch) of a crayon or b/day candle stir real good, skim clean, flux again,stir, skim if there is a lot of dross repeat if not I start ladling into the muffin pans without scraping bottom. I leave enough melt in the pot to have the bottom covered and ladle it back full of w/weights and go again. you might want to turn the heat up again but you,ll see it doesnt need to be real hot after they,re melted. The reason I flux my ingots good/clean is I use kitty litter on top of the melt in my bottom pour pot so it doesn,t keep drossing



Hard for me to write it but I could show ya. Hope that helps some

[bilmac]

Roke  Think about the pot you will be using when you will be using your ingots. I made a bunch of ingots in a muffin tin once and they were a pain to get into my bottom draw pot. I made some ingot molds out of angle iron that work lots better. I flux when making ingots because wheel weights are rich in antimony, and you want to keep as much of it in your alloy as possible.

[D Crockett]

a word of CAUTION do not use a aluminum pot to melt your wheel weights in if you don't have a good pot to melt in I will make you one just for the postage I made mine and I can go threw about 1000 lbs of ww in one day but I also have 30 ingot moulds that I use at one time to. My ingots weigh about 3 lbs each and I can feed them into anyone of my 3 casting pot that I have easy with out the spout freezing up on me .as far as flux goes you can use any of the following a paint stir stick, a dead pine tree stick, any kind of wax, used motor oil, pine sap, saw dust (pine works best) I have even used dead dried oak leaves when I ran out of marvelx once but the best thing I have used is what was left over from when I melted down raw bees wax there is this stuff left over and when dried is a very good flux. I could send you some of it if you want some .D Crockett

[beerbelly]

Like Crockett  said do not melt your lead in an aluminum pan. An old stainless steel pot will work fine. I melted some lead in an aluminum pan over a colman stove and got away with it, but trying to speed up the process I borrowed my friends turkey  fryer. It melted the bottom out of the aluminum pan! It took me forever to get the lead out of that burner.
                                    Beerbelly

[Old Fart]

I usually don't melt all my WW's down at once. For me it makes it easier for me to keep track of what my ingots are. I've had lots of lead given to me over the years and I really don't know what some of the composition of them are. So I toss all unkown lead into one bin. I keep anything I melted in an old milk crate. My WW's stay in 5 gallon buckets until I need to melt more. I've got about 4 different mixes I use for different guns. I keep each in one of those plactic boxes with the snap on lids.

Up until recently I never even thought about a thermometer. But with the advent of all kinds of junk being used for wheelwieghts now days I found having one useful. Lead melts at something like 450 degree. Other metals typically higher. So I melt at like 475 degrees. Everything else floats to the top and gets skimmed off. If you shop around you can find a good one for like $10-15 a used one for less. Not a bad investment for the time and trouble it saves me. I used to never be a gadget guy. Bare minimum for me. But as I've gotten older I have came around on some of this stuff.

OF

[Sweetwater]

I use a muffin tin for ingots. Yeah, and the wife got a new one! I've heard about the ingots sticking to the pan, but I've never had that problem. I did have the problem of the ingots not fitting into my Lee electric melting pot - after several years of fighting this problem (I'm a slow learner sometimes) I figured out yesterday that if I just don't make the ingots so big, don't put so much in each one, that they fit fine and I can put several of them in at a time. I do small batches when I cast, 300-400 or so, and these smaller ingots work for me. After the ingots have cooled, I turn the pan over and drop it flat on the concrete floor of the shop. Never had an ingot stick doing this. I tend to leave the dross on top of the smelt as this is a bottom pour and it doesn't get in the way. I'm less apt to skim off stuff I want to keep doing it this way. I take a soup spoon and push it down into the smelt every once in a while. FYI - also yesterday I took the cold spoon, dipped it in the smelt and lead went everywhere! I know that spoon was dry, so it had to be some quick condensation. I've never seen that before, and don't remember ever pre-heating that spoon. Always something...

Regards,
Sweetwater

[gdolby]

I am dumb as the day is long and have read all the threads I can find here................what is dross? thanks and have a good one..............Bill

[bilmac]

It's just like the word sounds, the light fluffy black stuff that floats on top.