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what do you guys use to flux your lead to get impurities out before you cast bullets?? i was using some of the stick bullet lube a friend had given me to use but i'm out of that.... was thinking of using candle wax... i have heard of of all kinds of different stuff....... i want the least amount of smoke and mess possible........... i do have some of the lee liquid alox bullet lube......... would that work ok?? thanks JJB LIFE IS SHORT..... | ||
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Candle wax is good, and plain old paraffin works just fine, too. There is no reason on this earth to use high dollar bullet lube. Go to the store and buy some canning paraffin. Use a piece about the size of the first joint of your little finger. You don't need anything any more fancy than that... | |||
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there are some old birthday candles around here...... i think i'll use those............. thanks again.... i has been awhile since i cast anything i wonder if i remember how it's done......... LIFE IS SHORT.... | |||
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Regular old white el-cheapo candles work GREAT. Just let them smoke and strike a match to let it burn off while stirring. NOW if you really want a thrill, no mess, no fumes, etc go to www.brownells.com and buy a can of Marvelux. Just tried this and what a difference it makes. Wonderful product. Art | |||
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anything carbon based is best. a stick from the paint store works fine some wood ashes coal dust. lots of guys use kitty litter as a oxygen heat barrier and this works too as it breaks down over time and does the job as well. boraxo the cleaner stuff makes a nice flux too and is the same as marvelux just cheaper, and works indoors without the smoke but is hygroscopic. | |||
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All you really need is a dry stick---A VERY DRY stick. As mentioned a paint stiring stick works well or a 2 foot piece of 1x2, 2x2 etc.Hardwood lasts a bit longer but pine or cedar smell better and aromatic red cedar (juniper) smells best of all! Have a great day. | |||
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In the 670,000+ bullets I've cast in the last ten years I've never fluxed even once. You just don't need to do this | |||
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Sounds like KLW uses a bottom pour. If, so the stuff you flux out stays on top. You can also put kitty litter (recommended you use new stuff) on top of your melt and just leave it there. I've not used Marvelux but read many times it causes corrosion or something after long term usage. | |||
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I had a bottom pour and I used local sea-sand on top of the melt. Then the bottom pour 'died' and now I find a need to clear a spot to ladle dip through. But with the bottom pour I stired the melt with a stick - wait for it - a green stick! It bubbled and boild and smoked a bit. The idea was to agitate the melt and release and crud that might be adhering to the pot bottom or sides. I don't know that it made any difference but it didn't do any harm either. And no, it did not blow up in my face! (Even when the stick was wet with rain). However, I did wear eye protection and I did stand back with caution. Regards 303Guy | |||
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I used to cast commercially using two Hensley and Gibbs moulds and a bottom pour spout. I used a small knob of oridinary white candle ax about the size of 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/2" or a little bit larger. What you do not want to use is plumbers' flux as this will result in a fine layer of rust over everything iron in proximity to the pot! Later on I used a fine amber coloured resin flux that the people I sourced my linotype - Wilson and Jubb in Leeds - from at one tonne per delivery supplied. This was very good and smelt nice too! As others say ignite the smokiness, stir, take off the dross but NOT the fine "skin" as that is your tin. Stir that back in! | |||
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be careful with plumbers fluxes some contain zinc and will screw up your casting. Im another that doesnt buy into the flux often camp. Ive done test and proven to myself that overfluxing is worse then not fluxing at all. I flux when a render my lead into ingots and then flux once at the begging of a casting session mostly to keep my pot clean. Thats all i will flux even if im adding lead to the pot as i go. | |||
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Interesting.   | |||
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Aren't you the one that argues wheelweights aren't suitable/safe for casting bullets? I just use a plain old paint stir stick I get from Lowe's. Like Lloyd, I do my fluxing when I'm melting down wheelweights and other metals. My casting furnace only gets a light flux at the start of the session. But, you'll never catch Marvelux in any pot of mine. | |||
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I don't think that wheelweights are ideal for all possible applications. They work just fine in many situations but not all. | |||
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Some situations wheel weights don't work?? You have to blend them. Mix 50% free wheel weights and 50% wheelweights you didn't pay for and you should be good to go. | |||
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The purpose of fluxing is to create a reducing (oxygen stsrved) ennvironment over the molten metal's surface. Most easily done with carbon bearing materials like ... parafin or candle wax. This causes the oxygen bound with metal atoms at the surface of the liquid to be removed and the atoms to go back to their unreacted state. This will help keep the tin in the allow from being lost. Tin is important because it allows the antimony to stay in solution. You need the antimony to increase the hardness of the alloy. Chuck a piece of wax into the pot and the use a stiker, torch or match to light the vapor (heated wax) rising from the pot. This will keep the smoke WAY down. While there is a pool of liquid wax on top of the melted alloy, spoon the alloy up and pour in back ... stir the pot as it were. This will get the tin oxide up to the surface where can be reduced back to tin. While you're doing this, scrape the sides of the pot and get all of the detritis and slag out of it. You'll get nice clean and shiny alloy that just makes better bullets with fewer inclusions of junk. BTW: I too have made something on the order of half a million bullets over the years. I ALWAYS flux the pot ... I can't imagine what a mess you'd have if you didn't over time. Good luck! Mike -------------- DRSS, Womper's Club, NRA Life Member/Charter Member NRA Golden Eagles ... Knifemaker, http://www.mstarling.com | |||
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I flux after every 100 bullets cast, and at the beginning and end of every casting session. I prefer carnauba wax flakes...which is what I understand is what NEI Flux is. If I used a bottom-pour pot, I wouldn't flux that often, but with a dipper, more oxidation of alloy occurs, and fluxing helps return that metal to a top quality useable state. I prefer to stick with the dipper, as I seem to get much more consistent bullets with a dipper and a very clean "melt". At one time I used Marvellux (SP?), but quickly quit doing that. It is the messiest flux I have ever tried, bar none. While accidentally using too much wax will waste flux, using too much Marvellux results in a hideous black foam which sticks to everything it touches. At least that has been my experience, and I used to cast at least 300 very high precision rifle bullets once a week (for 7 years) for use in benchrest competition and practice. | |||
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There is an experiment you can do to see the effects of fluxing. Pick a single cavity mould that you know produces good bullets. Cast up some bullets and note where in this process you flux. Save the as cast bullets in their as cast order. Visually inspect and weigh them, again keeping them in their as cast order. Plot the results and see if fluxing had any impact on either the visual rejection rate or the bullet weight. | |||
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303 Guy Here is another interesting thing to try---Take a small piece of potato and push it under the surface of the alloy. I did this while standing well back and used a long piece of 3/8 re-bar. The potato will cause the alloy to "bubble", just like your stick. | |||
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tasco 74 I use NEI flux and I stir it in with a short piece of lath.. This in a bottom pour pot.. I also sometimes use coffee grounds or sawdust and there is a lot of smoke.. no problem when casting outside as I do.. | |||
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That is interesting! Since reading all the cautions about wet sticks and so on I now only use dry sticks and just let the heat do the 'bubbling' and stirring (and smoking - wet green or just wet sticks bubble and stir without all the wood smoke, which probably defeats the purpose anyway!). But I wonder why the wet stick and potato did not 'blow'? Anyway, that's beside the point. The dry stick seems to work just fine, especially with a layer of sand (which I intend to replace with clay). Regards 303Guy | |||
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That is essentially what I did in deciding to flux every hundred rounds. I tried a really heavy fluxing at the beginning of each session, and it was always the same....good bullets for a while, then an ever increasing number of "throw-backs". Then I tried "minimal" fluxing and removal of the residue after 25 bullets, 50 bullets, 100 bullets, 150 bullets, and 200 bullets. One hundred bullets between fluxings and surface skimmings worked the best for me, in my environment and with my equipment. Each experimental frequency covered a whole day of casting. I found that by dip-casting bullets and fluxing every hundred rounds from Eagan single-cavity brass moulds, I could usually hold maximum weight spread of 300 bullets to 0.6 grains, with the great majority in the middle of that range. The weights wwere spread over a bell-shaped curve when weight-plotted, with slightly more bullets on the low weight end of the curve than on the high weight end. The very great majority of them would be at the median, with a small number grouped at either side of that (+ 0.1 grain, and - 0.1 grain). When I went to a match I always wanted at least 140 bullets with 0.0 grains tolerance from each other to take with me. They were all cast of commercial linotype. I do not know if the fluxing frequency would work out the same for any other alloys. BTW, I also used a clock with a sweep second hand at the casting bench to time the frequency of each bullet pour, wait after each pour until sprue-cutting, and so on. I should also note that I didn't even bother to look at or keep the first 20 bullets cast each session...just threw im in the "re-melt" can. Wanted to be sure the metal and mould were fully up to temperature, which I also check every 25-50 rounds with a thermometer sold for the purpose. My country gal's just a moonshiner's daughter, but I love her still. | |||
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