I made a discovery in the last couple of weeks that I've never seen in print before...

When melting lead, one sometimes gets a lumpy/mushy floating mass on the melt. We're told to add flux, and stir to break up the mushy mass into dross and lead. I've done this, with various degrees of success.

What I discovered lately is that if I use my old tablespoon that I use to mix the melt to collect the mush over to the side wall of the pot, and then mash the mass firmly against the side wall, it will make the lead coalesce, and separate out of the mush. It leaves behind just the powdery oxides that can then be skimmed off easily.

Is this a discovery, or did everyone know this already?

:cool:

New to me. Could it be a copper plated bullet? Jacketed bullets, the lead inside just melts out if the pot is hot enough.

I too hate throwing away some of the good stuff with the dross especially as difficult as WW are to find. Back in the day I really didn't care because WW were east to come by.

What kind of "lead"are you melting, WW? What are you fluxing with, sawdust, Lets, Marvelux, a wax? What temps are you working with. Is this in your smelt?

I only see the lumpy, mushy crud when I smelt WW down the first time. Linotype can be a bugger as well but I haven't had any for several years. The amount of dross I'm removing now is significantly less since I started using sawdust and wax combo.

A friend suggested leaving the ash from the sawdust on top of my casting pot and that has reduced the amount of fluxing required when casting.

This is squeezing metal out of the "sponge" of the powder, which is fine. Higher melt temperature also tends to flow it out, but neither is the same thing fluxing does. You want to go on to flux the powder afterward. This should react with the oxygen making the metal oxide powder, reducing it and recovering the metal. The oxygen that combines from the powder with the flux usually is smoked off. It forms bonds with carbon and hydrogen from the wax and sawdust fluxes, so it becomes carbon monoxide and dioxide and water vapor. The metal is left behind to return to the melt.

That's about all I ever did, and do, when melting lead. Now, I rarely get off my butt and add any flux, and don't see much of any need to except when I sometimes get lead ingots that clearly have some indescribable junk in them. Lately, I've been melting the 1 lb Lyman ingots I get off ebay and there's almost nothing unwanted in the melt.

Actually, I don't spend much time taking anything off the surface of the melt, either, figuring it's just a protective layer that helps reduce exposure to the atmosphere. Doesn't seem to do any harm, near as I can tell. If I sometimes find there's enough slag floating around I can't find a nice place to dip my ladle, I do exactly as you're describing, then drop the slag off onto the floor for later attention.

The story's completely different when melting coffee cans full of ourdoor range lead, of course, but I just don't do that anymore, being all too happy to pay someone else for that service. :)

I like to flux with Marvelux. using something like a spoon and mushing it to the side you will get a fine powder of grit on top... that can be taken off and all the tin that came to the surface will go back into the pot.

Try stirring your pot with a wooden dowel and turn up the heat a little.

The wooden dowel (make sure it's dry) acts to help flux the tin on top of your melt back into the alloy.

That's a thought.

The problem with failing to flux at all is the powder is mainly tin oxide, so your alloy's tin content gets lower if you remove it without fluxing it first. I'd have to weigh it sometime to see how much difference it makes? But with wheel weights you usually only have about half a percent to begin with. Can't afford to lose too much.

Heck guys, I dicovered this waaay back as a kid. That's the way you squeeze out the maple syrup from the porridge, read breakfast concrete my mom used to make. Yep, the sponge analogy is correct
JohnJay

When I flux,I make certain that the lumps get pushed down into the mix,and get heated.I also make sure that I scour the bottom edge with my spoon when I stir.I stir with a motion the raises the mix from the bottom to the top.
Frank

The problem with failing to flux at all is the powder is mainly tin oxide, so your alloy's tin content gets lower if you remove it without fluxing it first.I thought this made sense at first, but then it didn't. If it's tin oxide, how will fluxing (or anything at all) recover the tin and get it back into solution?