How are y'all ventilating your casting areas? I cast in my basement, and do it in front of an open window with a fan drawing the fumes outside. Don't dare cast when there is a threat of rain.
Just wondering what other wonderful ideas y'all have come up with.
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I do my casting in the attached garage. I prefer to do this when it is raining as there are so many other things to do when weather is good. My method consists of proping the garage door up about 6” (for cross ventilation), opening the garage window but shielding the area with cardboard, leaving only a square hole about 1 1/2 foot square open at the bottom corner of the window. A 15” dia. household fan is placed in this opening to remove smoke, etc. from casting. This exhaust fan is about 3 1/2 feet below the ceiling. The casting pot is on a workbench below the window about 3 feet to the left of the fan. This has worked OK even in cool weather. However, if you enter the garage the next day, a strong odour of casting remains so it seems that ventilation could be improved.
My next trial involves placing a forced-air furnace fan on a stand at the upper corner of the window. Window shielding is altered to accomodate this and all else remains the same. The furnace fan has a square wooden tunnel extension placed on the fan outlet to reach to the outside of the garage. The opportunity to try this arrangement hasn't occurred but it should give a much improved flow of air (more cfm from the fan)and better removal of smoke, etc. as it draws air across the ceiling area.
If you are trying to move air out of an area, you have to have at least an equal sized opening somewhere else to get good cross ventilation.
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If you think the smell from the cast is objectionable then i suggest you proceed with your next trial.
I have a old stove hood that I have rigged a 900 cfm fan to at the window via a piece of plywood and a rough crafted wooden box to house the fan motor & blade. It works fairly well, but I still get a degree of casting odor the next day which I fix by casting again and burning one of my wifes scented candles. As long as I am getting quality bullets I can put up with the smell.
Speaking of smells, if you think casting odor stinks, you should try making bullet lube! Now that really leaves an odor behind.
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How about sprinkling your way out of the area with Hoppes #9?
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Funny, funny, funny.
Casting with clean lead alloy doesn't create many odours. However, sometimes I use hardwood sawdust or ground charcoal briquettes as a flux (cleaning agent) or sometimes pulled and lubed bullets, sometimes melt wheelweights complete with debris attached. I haven't gotten around to melting the reclaimed indoor range lead with backboard and rubber belting included nor to the tar contaminated roofers lead but but there is still time.
Ask my wife if casting stinks. When I was young and didn't know any better, I used to melt lead and homemade lube on the kitchen stove and do my casting there - ah those were the days. (After 37 years, I'm still happily married to the same forgiving woman.)
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I used to cast in my basement with the rangehood setup, but when I fluxed the wife raised hell.
Now, I do it in a detached garage with the door up and the people door open.
Processing wheelweights is done in a large cast iron pot in the backyard. I still have to dodge the wind.........:?
LeeG
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I made an exhaust fan with a furnace blower. I needed to get creative and cover the sides with plywood and add some duct pipe but it's worked great for years. I can clean wheel weights in the basement and not get a smell upstairs.
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I built a small hood that hangs over my pots and installed a bathroom vent fan in the top of it. Seems to suck out any smoke from fluxing just fine. If melting scrap lead I open the shop door and turn on a big exhaust fan built into the wall. It'll suck your hat off your head I believe. I'm lucky enough to have a small building that's pretty much just used for casting and shooting which I can do out the front door. Range isn't fancy but I've got 25, 100 and 200 yard berms for backstops.
Mike
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I do my casting at a dedicated casting station in my utility outbuilding. When the building was being constructed, I had a squirrel cage furnace fan installed in an overhead, built in “hood". It works TOO good as it sucks all of the heat and cooling (depending on summer or winter) air out of the shop.
So, I bought an inline fan for 4” dryer vent pipe and am running it through the wall directly from the top of the RCBS Casting Pot. It fastens onto the pot at right angles and just sucks all of the smoke and fumes off the pot. The volume is such that it doesn't take all of the heat or cooling out of the shop. The components cost about $50.00 from Lowes. I supply the labor.
Dale53
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This makes me remember and laugh. I made up a similar arangement years ago. I was casting on a camp stove then. One day during a long session I heard this god-awful noise from the fan. When I looked up in it the heat from the stove had melted the plastic vanes in the fan and they'd wrapped around the motor. :?
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delmarskid1; Using the vent pipe at right angles to the pot limits the amount of heat that is taken through the vent pipe. It just sits on top of the pot, secured by one of the pot top bolts,and “s**ks” the fumes from the pot. It has the advantage of allowing the heat to rise into the room (to a certain extent). I know of commercial bullet casting operations in use for some time that have a separate vent pipe running off of each auto casting pot without a problem.
Dale53
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Not sure you can see it too well but I got a fan that blows out in my room.
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Hey! Is that one of those Marlin Camp 45's? I WANT ONE!
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Camp Gun but in 9mm. It's been a great little gun. I didn't like the red dot so I took it off.
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That kindof looks like a radiator shroud on the fan. Am I close? I also apreciate the label on the outlet box.
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I use the plastic clipies to hang pieces of cardboard to keep the smoke from the stirring/fuxing stick from escaping
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I use the range hood like ZAP has pictured here. I Opted for the 7” diam duct instead of the 3 1/4X10 that he is using. Mine vents striaght up into the rafters of my shop. Eventually I will climb up there and vent it out of the roof.
The draft created from the heat going out the pipe is enough to pull all the smoke out without the fan even on! I need to install something to block the pipe for when it is not in use now... I might need the fan in the summer but for now it works great without it on.
$99 for the hood and 7$ for the ducting at HD. The hood has a max 190 CFM Rating.
I used to use a 4” forced hot air duct with a 6X14?? “hood” of sorts and a “booster” fan but it didn't work all that great. The Range hood is the way to go!!
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I never paid any attention to ventilation until my blood lead level went up. I was having that check once every couple of years and one day I had an elevated blood lead level. I stopped all my casting, securely boxed up all my lead and waited several months to see if it would drop. It went up.
To make a long story short I tracked the problem to a gun I was shooting. Stopped shooting it and the lead level dropped like a brick.
Now I have a fan right behind my furnace blowing the fumes out an open window. That gets cold in the winter but it works. My lead level has stayed down. And I don't shoot that one gun anymore.
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What brand caliber and type of gun are we talking about here?
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A very nice condition, early Mauser Model 1891. Really beautiful gun.
The problem was that if you loaded it up so that the breech sealed properly the accuracy was absolutely horrible. If you downloaded it to where the accuracy was good the breech didn't seal. Lots of obvious blowback on the brass and you could literally feel the crude hitting you in the face.
By the time I got good accuracy I was shooting a REALLY mild load so the blowback didn't bother me any. And I never thought that it could raise my blood lead levels but it could.
This is such a nice rifle I'd like to work with it again BUT I don't want a rise in my blood lead levels so I probably will not.
Maybe I'll go back to jacketed bullets.
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klw,
Thanks for the info on 'ventilation' when it has to do with the chamber. I too have shot mild loads that didn't seal the neck. Good advice to some others who may be shooting such loads. I had such a load in my 308win using H322.
Have you tried annealing the necks? I don't know what caliber your Mauser is, but I'd think IMR4198 would be a good choice for a powder to seal the chamber. In the 30-06 it seems 21grs is a good choice. I'd think 18-19gr starting weight will work in the 7mm, 7.65mm, and the 8mm going up gradually from there. Water dropped wheel weights or a 50/50 mix of WW/Linotype should hold up to the 4198 velocity.
Hope you give your Mauser another chance. If you have 2nd thoughts, you could bring one of those little battery powdered desk fans with you to the range. If you shoot off the bench you can have the fan blowing in a direction to blow any gas venting away from your face..............Dan
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