I currently have a 50 gallon barrel of wheel weights saved up, anyone have any plans for a large smelter? I'm currently using a turkey fryer and while it works, I would like to do larger batches at once to keep the heats uniform. Thanks
Looking For Large Smelter Ideas
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- Last Post 24 October 2011
I use a cut off propane cylinder f(barbeque grill size). Just be careful that there is NO PROPANE IN THE TANK when you cut it off.
B.E.Brickey
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Shoot I've melted down about two tons of wheel weights in a Lee Pro 10-4 and later used a Lee Pro 20-4 .
I did maybe 400 pounds a month or so ago and ran both the Lee pots at the same time . Keeps you a little busy and probably takes a little longer but it works for me !
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Just be careful that there is NO PROPANE IN THE TANK when you cut it off.
To that end, loosen the valve assembly, take the tank to a remote creek, finish removing the valve and fill the tank with water. If you do that in a populated area you might get a visit from the kindly VFD, who will cease to be so kind when they find out they don't really get to deal with a gas line rupture. The odor lingers in the tank well after the gas is gone, float it out with water, but somewhere it won't get the neighbors excited.
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Shoot I've melted down about two tons of wheel weights in a Lee Pro 10-4 and later used a Lee Pro 20-4 .
I did maybe 400 pounds a month or so ago and ran both the Lee pots at the same time . Keeps you a little busy and probably takes a little longer but it works for me !
you must have a hard time keeping the pots clean?...I get crap build up everytime
I use my pot latley...I don't wnow what I got going on ..i think that it has something to do with my ingots got wet and perhaps oxidized???
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Check your metal salavage yards, being in OK, there might be some “oilfield” casing
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Shoot I've melted down about two tons of wheel weights in a Lee Pro 10-4 and later used a Lee Pro 20-4 .
I did maybe 400 pounds a month or so ago and ran both the Lee pots at the same time . Keeps you a little busy and probably takes a little longer but it works for me !
I melted em down that way 30 years ago when I first started also. Problem is that you have as many alloy variations as the number of melts it takes to process all the WW. If that doesn't matter, keep doing what your doing. I had a weld shop make a cylindrical pot 16” dia x 8” h. Wish I had them make it bigger.
I bought some casting items once from a gent who used a for real fire-breathing lino- type smelter supplied by a black iron gas pipe. He said it would hold 600lb at once. At the time I was very envious.
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Shoot, you guys haven't lived until you've melted 2400 pounds of lead at once, in an old cast iron bathtub. I did three years ago, using four oil furnace burners for heat. Purpose: the lead keel for the 35' wooden sail boat my buddy and I built. Since I had about 40 years experience casting bullets, I was the de facto lead melting expert! The molten lead was fed out the tub's drain into a 2” pipe with an in-line ball valve. The “mould” was a big pit in the ground into which we used about a ton of casting sand to make a form around a wooden pattern of the keel. I kept the drain pipe hot with an oxy-acetylene torch so the lead wouldn't coagulate in it. When I opened that valve, that whole bathtub full of lead emptied in about 20 seconds. Pretty exciting! ( 2400 pounds of molten lead exerts one HELL of a lot of hydraulic pressure!!)
No, I don't know the casting temperature that day. No, I didn't flux. Yes, I pulled all the type metal that turned up in the scrap lead we bought. No, I don't know the bhn hardness of the alloy, nor do I know the alloy. Correct lube wasn't an issue either. Final velocity: depends how fast the wind's blowing.
Getting that bugger out of the ground was a harrowing task also, requiring a lot of shovel work and the services of a 5-ton fork lift. What was really sweet was that the 6 big bronze threaded rods I positioned in the mold beforehand mated up to the drilled holes in the boat's keel timber when we finally wheeled it into position.
I hope to never have to do it again!
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I currently have a 50 gallon barrel of wheel weights saved up, anyone have any plans for a large smelter? I'm currently using a turkey fryer and while it works, I would like to do larger batches at once to keep the heats uniform. Thanks
Wow, I feel like a dwarf! I am just starting out in the world of casting & for smelting I am using a portable camping stove & a 12” cast iron pot!:shock:
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I have a big outdoor furnace I built to heat the homested, theirs a ledge just inside the door for a dutch oven.Fill with wheel weights waite 20 mins and skim clips and pour in cupcake tins.Furnace is going all winter anyhow no gas to buy,smelly trap lead is no hassel either. Frank C.
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I use a Lee Magnum Melter 20 pounder to melt my wheel weights and scrap lead. Then use a Lee 10 pound bottom pour. Lee modified the valve rod and nozzle years ago. I retrofitted mine and it works much better. Use your bottom pour for casting CLEAN metal only and the Magnum for making ingots. I haven't had to do a major cleanup on my bottom pour for a couple of years now.
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Holy Smokes gnoahhh thats a big melter. Kind of reminds me of the one Paul Jones had that did 2000#s at a crack.
I have 8- 5gal buckets stacked up waiting for the cast iron pot on the turkey burner. The wife and daughter have been picking up muffin tins at the yard sales so I'm really set, must have 20 to 30 of them.
I really need to get busy and get more buckets out to the honey holes.
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I realize this is a really old thread, but the bronze casters use similar equipment, and some may find this helpful
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i had two old home heating systems, get the burners out place them under a solid iron box aprrox 10 x 20 inch and 30 inch high.with easy 100-150 pounds with lead and other stuff i made a littel hole in the side aprox 0.25 inch. about 0.5 inch high of the bottom and it all come out very nice i had 4 ?oven mould for bread? when full it was 30-35 pound also i had some empty beer cans the small ones when there were full there were about 6.5 pound.
the big ones are going to the old scrap man the little ones i sold them on the range
metal of choise: ww and shooting range alloy
all where round 12 to 14 bhn im abel to do a 600-800 pound in 6-8 ouhrs. but youll have to work!!!! and move your can away, replace a new one(there hot) take the trash out and fill her up dont wait to the last drop, make it continuing
tis is my big melt pot for the cleaning job
my littel one is a old oven pan for max of 10 pound
greets from the netherland, with regards parkerhale
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Take a small magnet
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