Will aluminum in your lead pot contaminate your alloy when casting bullets?
Aluminum in your pot
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- Last Post 18 December 2013
Pure aluminum has some solubility above 700 degrees, but every percentage of magnesium greatly increases that. About the only “pure” aluminum is pop cans and foil, keep it cool and keep it clean. FWIW, Ric
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I've been looking for an aluminum kettle to melt and cast ingots from instead of using my good electic furnace. Is aluminum a bad choice for that?
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YES, most do not have the strength at melt temperatures to hold the weight of metal in the pot. You should stick to cast iron, even with its disadvantages, for it strength while hot. HTH, Ric
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What I would like to do is cut a piece of aluminum ally a quarter inch or a bit more thick and float it on top of the pot alloy so that I could drop my sprues onto it and have them melt back into the pot without splashing alloy out of the pot.
Maybe this is not a good idea.
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What I would like to do is cut a piece of aluminum ally a quarter inch or a bit more thick and float it on top of the pot alloy so that I could drop my sprues onto it and have them melt back into the pot without splashing alloy out of the pot.
Maybe this is not a good idea.
I can't think that would be a good idea. A floating plate of any kind of material (steel will float on top of lead) , may tip from the weight of the sprues and splash out lead worse. Maybe a plate on top the whole pot would work with a 3/4” size hole or so?....Dan
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What I would like to do is cut a piece of aluminum ally a quarter inch or a bit more thick and float it on top of the pot alloy so that I could drop my sprues onto it and have them melt back into the pot without splashing alloy out of the pot.
Maybe this is not a good idea.
Hmmmmm. Might be worth a try. I'm going to put a loop handle on it. AND it will keep the rest of the alloy separated from the air. It would put the damper on dipping though. 1/8” should be thick enough.
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Found a piece of stainless 3/16” thick and 4-1/4” in diameter. Fits the Lyman 20 Lb pot, but will need to add a handle and a notch for the rod that connects the lever and the valve. Pix later. Tune in tomorrow.
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It is 416 stainless. Rude and crude - notched with a 1/16” cutoff wheel, wire brushed on the edges to cleanup burrs from sawing. This was a piece on the end that was trimmed. Wire handle.
WHEN it gets cooler I'll try it
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I think if you dump some carbon based stuff on top of the liquid, and put the plate over it, you should be good for at least 1/2 hour. It has always amazed me how much of a convection current is set up in the liquid with the heat comes on. Anything to stop air contact should help greatly for bottom pour pots.
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Now hot enough to melt scraps.
Concept works well. Force to push down the plate is great, as the area pushing onto the alloy is big.
WORKS WELL in limiting splashes.
Need more than the 1/16” clearance shown.
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The meniscus of melted lead is quite high, much greater than water. You will have to work at getting the correct side clearance for any melted scrap to return to the puddle under the floating lid. I don't even know if it is a good idea; oxidizing scrap over your clean stock under the lid. You may be better off just putting it into a box until the next time you fill the pot. Ric
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It melts and by touching the disk it runs easily over the edge. Easily goes past the edge. Need for greater clearance is to clear the small bits of crud that sometimes accumulate on the edge surface of the pot.
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Well, Chief, keep us posted as this is a new technique as far as I remember.
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I made up a aluminum cover for my pot. It is 4 pieces of 2” x 4” 1/8” aluminum with a center hole drilled and held together by a short bolt. No splashing of the lead whatsoever when dropping spru or bad bullets onto the aluminum. The sprues and bullets melt into the pot so quickly that I can not set the mould down and grab the camera before they are gone.
I did get a picture of one bullet about half melted but the photo is blurry
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Should not drop the sprues back into the pot. They contaminate your pot. Use the whole pot then use your back up pot while the main pot gets ready to go again.
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How does dropping the sprue back into the pot contaminate your pot?
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How does dropping the sprue back into the pot contaminate your pot?
I want to know this as well. I've been doing it for years while I ladle cast.
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I don't think that dropping sprues back into the pot contaminates the melt, but it most certainly cools the melt somewhat. It doesn't cool the melt much, but it does cool it. The energy required to melt the sprue returned to the pot isn't much, but if you constantly do it you can lower the melt temp . If you put enough cut off lead and bad bullets into the melt you have been casting from it may lower the temp enough that the melt will freeze and have to be remelted. Brodie
B.E.Brickey
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<<<<<but if you constantly do it you can lower the melt temp . If you put enough cut off lead and bad bullets into the melt you have been casting from it may lower the temp enough that the melt will freeze and have to be remelted.>>>>> I have not experienced this at any time during the last 40 lbs. of lead I cast into bullets since late Sept. It has also not changed the percentage of bullets I deem acceptable from any one casting session.
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I think that “contaminate” was just a poor choice of words. I do not know what actually was meant by that general comment anyway. I routinely return sprues and grossly deformed casting as I cast. I think of it as adding preheated mini ingots. My cast bullets are mostly handgun bullets and perfection is not demanded. Now that I have added a PID to the casting equipment, the digital readout shows the affect to the temperature of the melt very quickly. I am a little more mindful of the amount and frequency of returned sprues/castings now.
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I have actually had the melt in my pot “freeze", but the level waqs quite low and I put in a lot of bad castings and sprues at once. They were probably all at room temp. Brodie
B.E.Brickey
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