Cleaning Lee iv Pot

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BigL

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Hi All. Any ideas on how I can remove the crud that sits on the sides of my melting pot. The stuff is rock hard and interferes with my skimming. I am worried about chipping if off as I might scratch the surface and create a weak spot for rust.

As a side note, would fluxing the lead help separate the impurities from the lead or would it mix it in? This is for round ball, so soft lead is required.

Thanks. Cheers
 
I have a 25 year old Lyman pot that I have to clean every so often. I'll heat the pot up until the lead is molten and then pour off all the lead into ingots. Then let the pot cool down until I can handle it. Then I use a blunt chisel (screw driver) to clean the sides of all the crud that forms. This is also a good time to work over the bottom pouring spout if you have one. A little work with steel wool to polish up the plunger will help. You don't want to clean the sides of the pot when it is hot and full of molten lead, a splash on the skin is an instant 3rd degree burn.

I have found that it seems to work best to have a pot for melting the scrap lead into ingots and then have a separate pot for casting. My casting pot is a bottom pour and it doesn't do well with dirt.

Many Klatch
 
I use an old bent spoon, with a wooden handle attached that I use for skimming the doss. I melt the pot, then scrape the sides and bottom and all the crud just floats to the top, for me to skim. So far I haven't had much of a problem with the bottom pour hole other then using a paper clip to run in it for cleaning. Leon
 
Big L said:
Hi All. Any ideas on how I can remove the crud that sits on the sides of my melting pot. The stuff is rock hard and interferes with my skimming. I am worried about chipping if off as I might scratch the surface and create a weak spot for rust.

As a side note, would fluxing the lead help separate the impurities from the lead or would it mix it in? This is for round ball, so soft lead is required.

Thanks. Cheers
I use the Tablespoon as Leon suggests, also a thin piece of hardwood can be used to scrape the sides. The stuff scraped off will float on the molten lead and can be skimmed off...or if no lead, just tip the pot upside down and brush out the crud. Definitely use a flux when first melting your lead and any time you add new to the pot. Stir it around and it will bring the impurities to the top of the melt to be skimmed off, rather than depositing on the side of the pot
 
Mostly, I have used the stainless steel spoon, and wood sticks to knock off the dross that clings to the inside of the lead pot.

But, I acquired a pot in a junksale that was badly rusted and had dross caked on the sides. I used all the above, including a cold steel chisel, and then use a wire brush on an electric hand drill to remove much of the remaining dross, and the rust around it. Because of pitting, I used a grinding wheel on my handdrill to smooth out the sides and eliminate most of the pits.

I then heated the pot up veery hot,and oiled it to "cure " it just as you would a frying pan. This burned the oil into the metal.After that it has been used to make lead several times, and is working just fine. The shortening or oil forms a scale( which fills the pores), that resists further oxidation. Even under the higher heat of molten lead, dross does not stick to the sides, and is easily cleaned. I have not thought to try this process with modern Electric Lead pots, but its a thought. :hmm:

I did inspect the pot for how thick the iron was before beginning the project. You are limited to how much metal can be removed to " save " an old pot that has been neglected like the one I found. The one I found was very thick cast iron.
 
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