I did as “ordered” and fluxed with parafon wax.
btu was wondering what it actually does?
I learned my lesson the first time i tried this yesterday... wow it caught fire like gasoline
I almost fell over backwards lol!
well i learned anyway and no burns.
I need to order the book on casting.
Jeff
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Antimony doesn't actually fuse into alloy either. It will melt and dissolve slowly into Lead/Tin and disperse in floating crystal patterns with Tin as they attract each-other. The pattern locations can also be relocated by heat treatments to finished bullets. We use up to about 5% Antimony in some bullet alloys and get it to behave as a a hardening additive in bullet alloys, but it doesn't distribute as a soluble in alloy like Lead with just Tin.
This characteristic of Antimony is what makes it most practical to get Antimony into bullet metals by adding an already Antimony rich metal to Lead or the bullet alloy. Sure some casters will buy pure Antimony and dissolve it into Lead/Tin and are successful at it. This also leaves them with the problem of determining the % of Antimony that actually did dissolve into their alloy and assay is not cheap.
Linotype alloy is commonly used as it is Antimony rich and alloys readily with Lead. Linotype and Pure Lead at 1:1 by weight will yield a BHN15 alloy similar to the traditional “Hardball Pistol” alloy.
Virgin Linotype is alloyed at very high temperature close to the fusion temperature of Antimony and the Antimony is dispersed into virgin Linotype much better than any one of us here could hope to do with our bullet casting, melting pots. But once it is in there, it is easy for bullet casters to make use of it.
Virgin Linotype has 12% Antimony with 4% Tin and 84% Lead. Getting that much Antimony into Lead/Tin is way beyond hobby skill level. It is much more practical to buy Antimony rich scrap or certified alloy. I buy certified alloys from RotoMetals and avoid worrying about the accuracy of home made alloys:
I actually use only 2 metals for all my bullets, either Lyman #2 alloy for hunting bullets or pure Lead for muzzle loading projectiles and very low pressure subsonic center-fire bullets.
Gary
I too, use only Lyman #2 and or pure lead. I like to keep it simple.
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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Antimony doesn't actually fuse into alloy either. It will melt and dissolve slowly into Lead/Tin and disperse in floating crystal patterns with Tin as they attract each-other. The pattern locations can also be relocated by heat treatments to finished bullets. We use up to about 5% Antimony in some bullet alloys and get it to behave as a a hardening additive in bullet alloys, but it doesn't distribute as a soluble in alloy like Lead with just Tin.
This characteristic of Antimony is what makes it most practical to get Antimony into bullet metals by adding an already Antimony rich metal to Lead or the bullet alloy. Sure some casters will buy pure Antimony and dissolve it into Lead/Tin and are successful at it. This also leaves them with the problem of determining the % of Antimony that actually did dissolve into their alloy and assay is not cheap.
Linotype alloy is commonly used as it is Antimony rich and alloys readily with Lead. Linotype and Pure Lead at 1:1 by weight will yield a BHN15 alloy similar to the traditional “Hardball Pistol” alloy.
Virgin Linotype is alloyed at very high temperature close to the fusion temperature of Antimony and the Antimony is dispersed into virgin Linotype much better than any one of us here could hope to do with our bullet casting, melting pots. But once it is in there, it is easy for bullet casters to make use of it.
Virgin Linotype has 12% Antimony with 4% Tin and 84% Lead. Getting that much Antimony into Lead/Tin is way beyond hobby skill level. It is much more practical to buy Antimony rich scrap or certified alloy. I buy certified alloys from RotoMetals and avoid worrying about the accuracy of home made alloys:
http://www.rotometals.com/default.asp
I actually use only 2 metals for all my bullets, either Lyman #2 alloy for hunting bullets or pure Lead for muzzle loading projectiles and very low pressure subsonic center-fire bullets.
Gary
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You have to get the metal in the pot hotter than fluid point of any individual metal in the pot for them to alloy and flux well.About 650 F. does it well.
OK, but antimony has a melting point of 1167.
??
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You have to get the metal in the pot hotter than fluid point of any individual metal in the pot for them to alloy and flux well.About 650 F. does it well.
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thank you onondaga. makes much sense. I was hoping to slide by without buying a thermometer but it doesn't look like thats gonna happen. I will try again and let you know.thx again. tom
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You cooled the metal in the pot by adding the rejects and then did not get the pot hot enough again to re-flux. You skimmed off and threw away good metal that was not hot enough to re- alloy and flux.
A casting pot thermometer and knowing what temperatures you need to re-alloy and flux will avoid that problem every time.
Dross is a light weight gray powder of lead and trace metal oxides, so light that you actually could blow some of it away. You threw away metal that could have easily been re-introduced to your pot and made into bullets.
Gary
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very interesting word"dross". never heard it before. i had been calling it slag dross.my issues are that after my first casting i decided to recast some of my rejects.during my second casting, still using the same mix with a little more flux added, i started accumulating some serious “dross". i hadto constantly shovel this stuff to continue. my initial casting was near flawless, at least in my world. the second cast was sort of discouraging, especially after myfirst cast. i am using parafin as a flux in a bottom feed pot
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Abslolutely when making ingots. In my experience WWs usually are coverd to varying degrees with dirt, dust, oil, etc. They stink and smoke when melting. When flux is added to the smoking smoldering mass of WWs, tire stems, cigarette butts, sunflower shells, and adhesive from tape on WWs When lit, the resulting flames burns off the noxious cloud of smoke and who knows what else. The pot marks on the “muffins” seem to occur only with the first batch of the day, I have never worried about it. When your ingots are poured they will be nice and clean, then you sit down to cast you do not need to focus on cleaning up you melt before getting started. Flux a bit just before starting to cast and you are good to go. Michael
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Ok, newbie question here. It appears most people don't flux WHILE making bullets, but how about when you're making the ingots. I've only make about 15 muffin sized ingots so far out of old wheel weights. I kept the stick on weights to melt for fishing weights and have the clip on ones for bullets. After the initial melting (no flux) when I poured the lead into the muffin tin it was full of pock marks. When I remelted the lead ingots and fluxed it, they poured a lot smoother. Is that not because of the flux? Or just from the second melting? Thanks in advance.
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I don't usually flux. I take my spoon and rub the slushy junk against the side of the pot until I get regular old dirt. I keep a stainless table knife around to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot to get the stuff that doesn't want to come up by itself. Fluxing didn't help to release this junk for me so I just kind of forgot to do it after a while.
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Fluxing makes my shop smell like a smoker because I use Lizard Litter ground walnut shells to flux with. Even the wife likes the smell of it. Hardwood smoke. :cool: Most of it goes out the big vent in the roof of the shop anyway. I like to put a couple of spoonfuls on and just let it sit there and disintegrate. Keeps the sludge from forming in the first place. But mostly, it smells great!
I tried wax... once. :shock: Holy crapoly! BONFIRE! You know... paraffin is made from petroleum. And Petroleum is made of dinosaur poop. So I don't like poop in my melting pot.
Now this post can go back to resting...
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The best flux I have used is thin slivers of Ivory Snow; workks well, little smaoke or smell, and cheap.
Jim
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Got to put my 2 cents in. I think Dicko is closest to the truth here. Dross forms only on the surface of a melt, it is oxidised alloy.It can't form under the surface so why stir and scrape the bottom of the pot. The alloy will not seperate , tin comes to the top, just does not happen so again why stir. I have been casting since 1960s and I quit fluxing years ago. I cast using a 10 lb. pot,when dross builds up I use a stainless serving spoon to skim the dross to the front of the pot and just leave it sit there. Continue casting and repeat as needed. When the pile of dross is big enough I use the back of the spoon to roll over the dross against the side of the pot wringing any alloy out . Then with the bole side of the spoon scrape the dross pancake up the side of the pot and discard . As to the old wives tale that flux will reduce alloy oxides to alloy returning them to the melt , Not at casting temps. This is my understanding and I welcome a metallurgist to weigh in here. I cast nice clean bullets without inclusions etc. all without flux and smoke .
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Fluxing cleans the impurities. I think it actually breaks the surface tension of the junk allowing it to float to the top. If it ignites spontaniously, you may have the temp up a little high. Usually, I cast @ about 700-750 and I have to light it off.
That is what I do. A small bit of bees wax added to the lead and it starts to smoke. Touch it with a lighted match and it burns off and the garbage rises o the top ready to be scooped off.
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Well howdy stranger! The material that is left when the beeswax burns off is the remnants of the beeswax and perhaps a little of oxidized metal or the commercial flux. I stopped using commercially made fluxes because I didnt like the mess it left in my pot.
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Hello, everyone..Interesting posts! Wonder who can tell me why this is so? No matter what commercial brand of flux I use, either NEI, Bill Ferguson's, Marvelux..after skimming & metal is mirror bright..if I drop in a small piece of pure beeswax..I get all kinds of junk floating to top..like I had never even fluxed!
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I flux when I make up a batch of alloy, or when I clean up range lead.
When I cast I look at it this way. The crud that forms on the top of the surface of the alloy is oxidized lead/tin and other junk. I Leave it there so it forms a layer so no more of the desirable metal will oxidize. I will push it around to get a clean scoop with a rowell #1 ladle. For those that dont know what that is, it is a bottom pour ladle. I have found that the weight consistency of the poured bullets are much better with a tighter spread. And it makes for some very good looking bullets!
I dont always flux, but when I do, I flux with church candle remnants.
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I did as “ordered” and fluxed with parafon wax.
btu was wondering what it actually does?
For all practical purposes fluxing does absolutely nothing. I stopped doing it well over 25 years ago and in the 750,000+ bullets I've cast since not fluxing has made no difference.
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Yeap this is all correct. Chemically it's a reducing action. Carbon, coke etc grabs all the bad stuff and basically turns it in to Al Gore's gas or CO2. Candle wax is fine, but you light it to remove the smoke. Pure powdered carbon is best, insulates too. Charcoal briquets have a lot of dirt in them and will float to the top and should be skimmed off. I find it interesting these ideas have been around of a couple hundred years.
Charlie
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Chemically it is known as a reducing agent in what is known as oxidation-reduction reaction. In short it causes the slag scum etc to be freed or reduced by forcing the reaction to go the opposite way. Oxidation is just a direction of the reaction not to be confused with Oxygen. Generally carbon from wood chips, paraffin forms CO (carbon monoxide) which is the reducing agent in fluxing. 'Protecting' the surface from further oxidation.
Charlie
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Wilderness
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