My first "big" batch, 108 lbs finished. All wheel weights, but separated between raw stick on, raw clip on, coated stick on, and coated clip on....just because. With one batch of coated and raw clip ons mixed. Marked temporarily with a sharpie. I will check them in a few days with artist pencils to see any differences. If close enough I will blend all the clip ons and coated stick ons and clean them one more time. It seemed like i kept getting more specks of crap coming up every time I stirred it. Used a big cast iron pot outdoors, cleaning/fluxing with bees wax. It was a tad windy and really hard to maintain an even temp but tried to keep it low. Stayed up wind and wore a respirator until it was clean and time to pour the ingots. I had pre separated out all the zinc and steel to be on the safe side. What a stinky nasty chore! But this was all free and I'm rather "frugal". I only have one ingot mold right now, so was pretty slow waiting for it to cool before dumping them, but placed it on a wet towel to cool it after filling it. That helped a lot. Anything to add for my knowledge base?
First "big" ingot batch
- Thread starter TomSp8
- Start date
Well, one thing to add, you said you "fluxed" with beeswax. Nope you didn't, beeswax is not a flux, it is a reducer but flux it isn't. It wll do a good job of keeping the different metals blended and "reduced". Fluxing is cleaning and beeswax cannot do that no matter how much you use it. Sawdust is both a reducer and a flux and will do a good job of cleaning the metal. Do not try and force the sawdust under the surface of the melt.
Read chapter four here, an excellent description of fluxing.
Read chapter four here, an excellent description of fluxing.
Ahhh....The link won't open, but I think I have that file downloaded, will look it up. I remember I used sawdust on my first smaller go round, but I think I stirred it in real good.....more knowledge gained! I now seem to remember a video of letting the saw dust stay on top and scooping the alloy and pouring it over the sawdust? Stirring and scraping the edges of the pot and let the sawdust accumulate in the center? I will try to gather more tips like this and practice cleaning a batch again.
Yes it does and should be avoided. Why? because even though sawdust is obviously far lighter than lead and should float back tothe surface the molten lead is dense enough to hold charred chunks is suspension. Correctly done the alloy is lifted from well below the surface and poured thru the charred sawdust on the surface. It's not a quick process but is very effective.
It is a pdf file and you will need the free Adobe version to open it.
I found it in the stickies for now