Only takes a minute or less, but avoids a lot of frustration later on. Head-off any problems before you start pouring. Fluxing is an integral part of that strategy. After fluxing, you should see that the melt has a smooth mirror surface. It certainly should help your pouring go smoother, as long as you're doing everything else right.
I used to pour a lot of salmon balls in 1. By removing the lead oxides on the surface, and making the melt less likely to form oxides, fluxing will help make sure the metal is as fluid as possible, so pours go easier. But please read up on fluxing before you do it. There is plenty of info here if you do a quick search for "flux". Now, as far as helping the lead molds release the lead castings, well, that's a different issue. First, inspect a cooled cannonball sinker from your 'sticky' mold, and you'll likely see some scuff or scratch marks along the mold part lines.
There's a burr on the mold edge that's causing those marks, and that's your culprit. Locate that area on your mold, and file, scrape with a knife edge, or sand down the offending burrs. There may be several, and they may be small, so search carefully.
This problem is very common on large cannonball molds, as they often see a lot of hard use and abuse-- but the good news is that it's fairly easy to fix. Also , be sure to smoke the mold cavities thoroughly with a sooty flame again, part of the "avoiding problems before they start" rule. This will help with both fill-out and mold release. These several changes to your pouring practice should make a big difference for you. Let us know how it goes. I have used parrafin wax for a while now, as it's easy to work with and inexpensive.
It will flame up, but to me that's better than lots of smoke the flames incinerate and substantially reduce the smoke. I have also used sawdust, and it works OK. Some folks seem to prefer it to other fluxing materials. I don't have a ready supply of sawdust, and don't wish to store any, so it's not a convenient option for me.
I once had some rosin on hand, and used it to flux a few batches of lead. Works extremely well! However, rosin smokes like a pile of wet leaves, so for me I have used old cooking oil on many occasions, and it works great. A little messy to use, since it's a liquid, but it fluxes very well and flames up which is good smoke bad, flames good.
Free and effective is good too! However, the french-fry smell may give you the munchies while melting down scrap lead, which is not good munch first, melt lead second, and not the other way around. I think the first flux I ever used was Brownell's Marvelux flux.
It is a white powder looks like salt that comes in a jar, and a little bit of it goes a long way. It will not flame-up at all, won't smoke, and is nice to work with. It is claimed that it will reduce or prevent rusting on the sides of the melting pot. However, it's less readily available and more expensive that parrafin, so I no longer use it.
Parrafin works as well for me, and since I melt outside, a few flames are of no concern. This a pretty good thread even if you never intend to melt lead or pour it - a read like this goes under the heading of something new I learned today. Thanks sagacious for some timely information. I hope that others that read this will add it to their melting and pouring processes; add to this, be sure to wear eye protection and welders gloves, keep food and drinks away so you give yourself lead poisoning, and make safety an active part of your processes , and I think that pretty much covers most of the bases.
Good job guys! I originally started with candle wax, I had laying around the house. It was excellent. Then I bought a candle at a store to replace it, and to my lack of knowledge at the time, I put a small piece in, and it flamed up and I almost got burned. Stupid me, tried to see what the wax was going to do. Not all candles are made the same, Hence the mishap above. After that I started to use beeswax, and have done that to this day.
The only thing the beeswax does is when its dropped in it smokes a lot. Since supply is limited in my location I often have to deal with mystery sludge contaminated lead and in my experience out of the many I've tried beeswax flux seemed the most effective at powdering the junk out of the melt. Cost not an issue since candles including beeswax are often a garage sale bargain.
Suggest beginning fluxers outdoors go straight to solid wax of some kind and not bother with foul smelling and possibly hazardous experiments. Never tried but Marvelux might be a good option indoors. Yes, beeswax does smoke a lot and doesn't seem to flame up in my experience. Really like the way it works I haven't cleaned my pot in probably two years, maybe three, and it's seen around lbs of alloy through it in that time.
I don't know what that brown powdered mess is but it's heavier than dirt and lighter than lead dust. There's very little ash and the bigger pieces of charcoal were skimmed before they had a chance to burn down. Tobacco and coffee don't smell nearly as good in a casting pot as they do in their normal application, but they clean alloy just fine.
In case you guys couldn't tell, I'm not that much of a social fellow. I don't have enough years left to do what I want to have to put up with all the "gun experts" that want to tell me what I am doing wrong. Being married 50 years, I am well trained. I'm amazed at what I can pull out of an alloy sometimes. I eventually get miffed and just work all the black out and toss it and some of the silver in the garbage. I have most of a 2 gallon pail of oxides and skimmings I need to get reduced this summer.
I hate working with the stuff but there is like 50 lbs there, and I have a pound of antimonial ore I need to clean and melt in something too soo. Brian Palmer Active Member. Going to have to start tying sawdust, piles of it in the woodshop. I have always used the left over candles after the wic is gone. Rick Moderator Staff member.
Click to expand Kevin Stenberg Well-Known Member. I cast all of my bullets from a bottom pour pot. I no longer use sawdust in my casting pot. When I first started casting I did. But it seemed like the sides of my pot always collected residue ash below the lead level. An when I started using just candle wax floating on the melted lead. My pot seemed like it stayed cleaner. I flux my melt at least three times before I cast ingots. Some of the phone lead I get has alot of tape, sealant and who know what else in it, so I flux it more.
I am very confident my ingots are clean before they go in my casting pot. If there are any doubts about the cleanness of my alloy I take care of that before I cast it into ingots. If I bought alloy I was unsure about I would smelt it down, flux and recast into ingots. I cast in the house so I do not want to flux or reduce my mix then.
I have found that I get less to almost no yellowing on the top of my mix from the tin separating if I cast at lower temps. I have four of the LEE bottom pour pots and I flux with wood chips and stir with a metal spoon that has a radius that will get into the corners make it before you fill the pot and I also use a wood stick to stir with and I always leave the ashes on top.
I only put clean alloy in my BP pots. I use a wooden paint stick to stir every so often. That is enough to keep things flowing well. I save the sawdust for smelting alloy. For those gentelman that don't flux there bottom pour pot, empty it out some time and see how much dirt is in it. I too flux my smelting pot times before I pour inguts, but I still flux my 3 BP pots. You still need to flux it to get it combined, no matter what!
Can't hurt. It's how I learned. My ingots ar clean, but oxidize in storage. Once antimony lead and tin combine it forms a true solution and cannot be seperated but will oxodize.
I don't flux when I smelt range lead or when I cast I tried it a few times, I can't stand the smoke and stench I just scrape the crud off as I go I cast about 5, bullets last year and did not notice any problems My friend tested my bullets with his hardness tester and they are about the same hardness as COWW I am shooting 38 and 45ACP target loads chrongraphed between - fps Harness, alloy, lube, whatever, doesn't seem to matter much at those speeds I do notice the tin forming a layer on the top, If I was shooting rifle or magnum pistol loads it would concern me because it gets scraped off with the crud.
I don't see any specs or grit or any of the other things I have read about. YMMV - who knows after another year of casting experience I may just be the biggest proponent of fluxing on the forum.
YMMV - who knows after another year of casting experience I may just be the biggest proponent of fluxing on the forum Can I have the drossscumlayer that you're scraping off the lead?
It would be a great source of tin for my alloy. If it floats I don't want in my alloy What floats may BE some of your alloy. At least the tin part of it. I'll repeat my above comment, send me your dross! Can I have the drossscumlayer that you're scraping off the lead?
I honestly believe there is nothing salvageable in the crud that gets scraped off. If there was I would be happy to send it to you. If your still not convinced, I can send a pic and you can see for yourself that it's nothing you or anyone else would want. I usually just take it back to the range and toss it on the backstop.
I consider myself quite fortunate to have a neighbor that takes the jacket material for me. He is willing to clean it, sort it with a magnet, pull out any FMJs that didn't bust open and does who knows what with it. I use a bottom pour and I use sawdust always.
First, I like the layer on top of my melt to help prevent oxidation. Even though my ingots are clean, I still get those little spots in my boolits - that tells me it's time for a stir. Then I take a spoon and smash the "stuff" against the side of the pot and it shrinks considerably. Now we've blended the metals together again and I pull the little bit of ashy stuff that's left. Keeps the boolits clean!! Hi: A friend told that he has been using bullet lube the cheapest he can findfor over 40 years.
The oxygen in the air slowly oxidizes the metal at the interface; the hotter the metal, the faster this oxidation takes place. Since this is a heated liquid pool, convection leads to rapid turnover at the surface of the liquid, and the more easily oxidized components of the melt are preferentially oxidized as this mixing takes place.
The resulting oxides are almost always insoluble in the molten alloy, so they tend to separate and form a separate phase. In the case of bullet casting alloys, tin is more readily oxidized than is lead, so the tin oxide forms a "skin" across the surface of the melt.
Some of the other metals that may be present as minor impurities are even easier to oxidize, and "follow" the tin up into the "skin" lead is pretty dense stuff and most all of these oxides are of lower density, so they float. What we want a flux to do is to remove those impurities that affect the surface tension of the alloy and cause problems during casting most notable here are things like calcium, aluminum, zinc and copper.
In addition, we want to remove any wettable particulate matter that might go on to form inclusions in our bullets. Since tin is so valuable to the bullet caster, it would be helpful if we could slow down, or even reverse its oxidation.
These are the things that we ask a flux to do. Some folks seem to think that if they sprinkle some "magic powder" on the top of their lead pot and it pops and fizzles, smokes and stinks, then presumably all of these things are being accomplished. T'aint necessarily so.
While it may be fun to put on a wizard's cap and play modern alchemist for a little while, that doesn't automatically force the chemistry to conform to the wizard's wishes. Now that we know what we want a flux to do, let's look at how some of the different fluxes work.
0コメント