While looking around another [nameless] web site I found a long detailed discussion on lead pouring which centered on fluxing melted lead. There was a lot of Q&A on the subject.
I had never paid much attention to flux when pouring, but I will from now on. Sometime the jigs didn’t want to pour as I thought that they should. SOMETHING JUST DIDN’T SEEM RIGHT !
I have a lot of hard lead [tire weight] ingots that I poured a few years back that inherently has alloys, salts, and dirt.
I cleaned the empty pot and melted 10 lbs of lead, added a sugar cube or slightly bigger piece of beeswax and as the smoke began to boil I started stirring, FIRE FIRE FIRE and SMOKE bit it wasn’t unexpected due to reading about earlier. The lead poured like a smoothe water stream out the bottom of my Lee Pro 4-20. I re poured 20 lbs or so twice after fluxing each time.
I always knew that there was a lot of junk in that lead but the Beeswax really made a difference in the quality of the pour, especially after the second flux.
The bottom line is that the fire wasn’t bad and it dissipated after a minute or so and the lead is hard but real clean. I poured a few 1/32 and 1/16 jigs [about 50 each] and they came out almost perfect !
Felt like I’d been to WALLY WORLD !:)
Squall Line

