Stinky!

H

Hardcase

New member
Yesterday evening, I decided to finish up the last of the nasty wheel weights in my bucket. I set up the old pot on the patio and started smelting.

Now, when I say "nasty", I mean it. These things would not clean up, so I've just been putting off melting them down for quite a while. And while there weren't billowing clouds of smoke coming out of the pot, it did look pretty noxious. But I had a mask on, so all was good. Or so I figured.

I was wrong.

Somebody...ok, not somebody, it was me...left one of the windows open in the back of the house and the breeze was blowing just the right way.

Oh, man, when my wife got home, there was trouble. Thankfully, an hour or so with the windows open and a fan blowing cleared things up. But I'm pretty sure that I've got a pretty deep hole to climb out of now...

On the bright side, I ended up with about 30 pounds of ingots that look a whole lot nicer than what they started out as!
 
If the stink is mainly in the form of smoke, one can throw in a chunk of paraffin and ignite it. If you can get the smoke to catch fire, most of it is consumed in the fire and will give off less oder. That is the reason I like to flux with paraffin; it helps control oder.
 
With stick-ons I've adopted a 5 mph wind minimum rule, no problem out here on the N TX prairie but something to thing about in other areas.
 
I've just added "close the windows" to my mental checklist. Everybody will be happy :p

As far as fluxing goes, I use some commercial stuff - the name escapes me. It doesn't burn, just bubbles and gets all crusty.
 
As inferred above, if you put the stick-on type wheelwieghts in the melt, the latex rubber in their adhesive and the foam gap pad will smell things up pretty badly. I don't usually get that many of them that I can't sort them out and set them in a glass tray with a little Goof Off until the adhesive loosens up.
 
IllinoisCoyoteHunter, you're right - even with the mess, it's well worth it. It's been raining for the past few days, so I haven't been able to work on my new bucket of grime. Hopefully it'll dry out today.

Unclenick, you're also right about the stick-ons. I've been able to peel most of the gunk off of them.

It just always seems to be that the ones that drift to the bottom end up being the nastiest of the bunch. Probably because of all the gunk that filters on down from the top.
 
It's all relative !!

Reminds me of the time I was boiling out some cow horns that I got from a Veternarian buddy. Did not lose it but gagged and spit for quite a time. Not only was the wife complaining but the neaighbors as well. ...... :eek:


Be Safe !!!
 
Little off topic but it reminded me of a time I used molasses to make some home brew. The smell, and a PO'ed wife, woke me up in the middle of the night and it got moved, barefoot in the rain, to the detached garage.

Edit: On topic, I use bees wax to flux and it does not smell bad.
 
That's a good point, fellas. I should have mentioned to my wife that it didn't smell nearly as bad as the time that a mouse shorted himself across the 220V terminals of our electric range.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that anything other than, "Sorry, I won't do it again" might have been pushing my luck. :D
 
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