Smelting setup? Best, cheap, choice?

S

stubbicatt

New member
Guys I came into 6, 5# buckets, of wheel weights.

Need to smelt these babies.

Been trying to find a smelting setup, prefer to use propane if possible. Any ideas/suggestions that have worked well for you? Cheap is important.

Very important.

I have an old Coleman camp stove my dad bought in the 30's that still works. I wonder if I were to just buy some sort of cast iron pot or the like if I could get it to work alright, or if the Coleman won't generate enough heat for the job. Or if the heat and weight would bend down the wire rack that the cookware normally sits on?

Thanks.
 
My Girlfriend thought we needed a small outdoor fire pit, and it also works perfectly for smelting. It's propane fueled. I bought a cast iron pot with lid at a thrift store and the setup works great.
 
This is what I use;

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If you think you would ever want to deep fry a turkey, or know someone that has a turkey fryer, get one of them. That's a ten quart cast iron pot on there. If it were full, it would weigh pretty close to 100#. That's too much for those spindly legs on that fryer. I reinforced that after I did that batch of scrap lead. Then I could fill 'er right to the top.

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You WILL need it again, it's nice to alloy large quantities of lead like half Linotype, half WW. Might as well get one, h to have in case you get lucky again.
 
I use a turkey fryer burner (already had it) and an 8" dutch oven (given to me).

That "little" 8" dutch oven can hold over 90 lbs of alloy, without breaking a sweat. ...Which happens to be more than the turkey fryer burner base is rated to hold (70 lb, total). So I limit my melts to 40 lbs.
I recommend keeping your own smelting operation well within the limit of the weakest link, as well.


My father used a Coleman stove and a cast iron frying pan for 5-6 years, when he was a poor college student. Didn't work well, but it worked within his budget.
 
I use a old Colman camp stove I had and a iron skillet. Works great for me. Been using it for several years now.
 
Yep the turkey fryer or crawfish / boiler setups aren't overly expensive depending on where or what brand you get. I picked up one for around $35 that came with a nice boiling pot, lid, and basket. It has a welded 1" thin flat bar frame and holds up well for batches of around 50-75#. I DO use a 10qt cast iron pot as well. If I went to the effort of adding a couple more braces it would easily handle a lot more weight, but that is plenty for me do make up at one time.

Look around those cookers should be going on sale here pretty quick. Just look for one that is welded and not screwed together.
 
I can answer the CHEAP part of the question. Pretty sure it's hard to do it for less than 20$. Walmart stand alone electric burner 11$. Flimsy pot from Big Lots, 9$. A couple cheap spoons, 3$. That's it. I have smelter and resmelted a half ton at least, but probably alot more, with this setup. I used muffin pans for ingots, but have since switched to the Lee ingot mold for keeping track of weight. The side burner needed the switch bypassed, so the heat control does not turn off the burner at a certain temp.

Some think its a little too cheap, but it works, and with the small amount of lead you have, you need not invest a bunch of money.


It works.


 
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When I started I built one out of a piece of pipe with a bottom welded on and wrapped a $12 3500 watt oven element from Sears around it.

I later turned it into a bottom pour pot for my casting machine, I did have to change out the heating element after 10 years though but that is still a lot longer than a tank of propane would last.

I did cut off the pour spout so just the U notch is left but the trunnions are still on the sides to this day.

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Smelting scrap lead

I use a old Coleman camp stove for heat and a 6 inch stainless pet dish.After the melt is liquid I skim off slag or what ever is floating and flux.Using a Vice Grip pliers I grasp the dish and pour the melt into a Lyman ingot mold and store ingots for casting bullets at a later time.I got around 300 1 pound ingots in the shed. hdbiker
 
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