Smelting Lead
Posted: 10 Dec 2017 08:39
Another post got me to talking about smelting lead and with my smelting month of January approaching, it was causing some coins in my pocket to start rattling as even after a decade and a half, I'm not satisfied with any of the equipment I've purchased for the job.
I've been the turkey burner route, and I think it is a terrible waste of heat/propane. It is just made for something different. Got one, anybody wants to come it get it is welcome to it. No, I will not ship it. You got to come and get it.
Even had an old school plumber's smelter. It served me well for a couple of years, but one of the leathers in it sprung a leak and caught it on fire. With the liquid fuel, it was a hell of a fire and made quite a mess.
I bought this little smelter and am happy with it. It is a homemade unit, old, and of small capacity. The latter causes me to be unsatisfied with it but a pound of propane for a pound of lead, it is miles ahead of a turkey fryer. Hmmm, I thought I had an image of it and will correct that soon.
I've thought about a HotPot for years for small batch smelting. It is probably not a good idea as it would not be very stable but it seems like it would be a great method of preheating alloys during a casting session. You can find them for around $50 to $55.
I've also been looking at commercial, large capacity melters for several years as I have the quantity of lead that could supply it. They are very expensive. Stepping down to furnaces that heat pots like the Goss units do a significantly better job of containing and directing the heat to were its needed than a frier, they become more reasonable. A seller on eBay, kan_pat, has occupied my attention. This is probably a Chinese clone of the Goss 540 as far as I can tell but you get it and all the added components for less. This morning and with my casting month upon me, I decided to do something about it.
In the spirit of product testing, I bought a HotPot too.
I've been the turkey burner route, and I think it is a terrible waste of heat/propane. It is just made for something different. Got one, anybody wants to come it get it is welcome to it. No, I will not ship it. You got to come and get it.
Even had an old school plumber's smelter. It served me well for a couple of years, but one of the leathers in it sprung a leak and caught it on fire. With the liquid fuel, it was a hell of a fire and made quite a mess.
I bought this little smelter and am happy with it. It is a homemade unit, old, and of small capacity. The latter causes me to be unsatisfied with it but a pound of propane for a pound of lead, it is miles ahead of a turkey fryer. Hmmm, I thought I had an image of it and will correct that soon.
I've thought about a HotPot for years for small batch smelting. It is probably not a good idea as it would not be very stable but it seems like it would be a great method of preheating alloys during a casting session. You can find them for around $50 to $55.
I've also been looking at commercial, large capacity melters for several years as I have the quantity of lead that could supply it. They are very expensive. Stepping down to furnaces that heat pots like the Goss units do a significantly better job of containing and directing the heat to were its needed than a frier, they become more reasonable. A seller on eBay, kan_pat, has occupied my attention. This is probably a Chinese clone of the Goss 540 as far as I can tell but you get it and all the added components for less. This morning and with my casting month upon me, I decided to do something about it.
In the spirit of product testing, I bought a HotPot too.