An unwelcome visiter

[Kevin Stenberg]

Today I started to melt the bullets I salvaged through the summer. I was using wood fire to melt my bullets It was not the best day for me. I started using a LG stainless pot from a turkey roaster. When I started to remove the brass jackets from the melted bullets, I was getting near the bottom of the pot and then started to scrape the bottom of the pot. I started wondering where the lead was. You becha when I had my back turned a gremlin had used something to put a hole in the bottom of my pot. About 40 lbs of lead had leaked out of the pot and through the fire.
It started snowing but I only had 1 more bucket with bullets to be melted. What could go wrong? I filled my 2 melting pots and set them on the fire to melt. The pots finally were ready to separate the jackets. The first pot was removed from the fire and the lead was just above the melting temp. It was too cold to fill my ingot pans. So I left it to be remelted and clean the lead better.
Second pot was removed and at a higher temp than pot #1. Jackets were removed and the ingot mold was moved to be filled. The first ingot was filled with just a little sputtering from the moisture from the snow (no bells or whistle yet) The second ingot was filled and I noticed a LG bubble appeared in the lead. And that little voice whispered in my ear, that wasn't good and you better turn away. I turned my head 90 deg. to the left. And immediately the last ingot I poured exploded. Am I fortunate that the ingot was only a 1 pounder.
No immediate pain except in my right thigh. Which came from LG splatters on my jeans. The one thing that kept me from getting more burns, was that my outer clothes were damp from the snow. And all of my inner clothes were wet from sweat.

 

[yodogsandman]

Glad you are not more seriously burned! Thanks for sharing your day. You might save someone else from repeating it.

Good that you started with cool but filled smelting pots. I once dumped the last 4" of range scrap of a 5 gallon pail into my #120 smelting pot and it all blew up! About #70 sprayed every where! I had the sense to push the bucket down into the melted alloy and that protected the most of me from the spray. The bucket must have had about a cup of water in the bottom! No problem with the first bucket I melted. I got just a few blisters on my fore arms. Took days to clean up scraps from the grass, table, stove and concrete.

 

[David Reiss]

I tell this story all the time to help prevent this happening to others. When I was 20, on top of the world and dumb as dirt at the same time, I was casting and dropped an ingot into the pot just like I had done hundreds of time. The difference this time was that it slipped out of the tongs a little too high causing the lead to splash. A tiny piece came up and stuck the sclera (white part) of one of my eyes causing an intense burn & immediate pain, you know the kind that can make you piss in your pants. Yeah I wasn't wearing glasses, which is a mistake I have never made again and am glad I only have a small yellow scar on my sclera to this day to remind me just how lucky I was.

 

[RicinYakima]

Thank you for your stories! You are 10,000 times more likely to get burned than poisoned! I won't let anyone in the shop to watch me cast without long sleeves, long pants, shoes, gloves and eye protection. Some folks don't seem to think that pain hurts.

 

[SierraHunter]

When I first started casting on my own I was in a rental trailer house and the spare bedroom was my gun room. I had a small bench set up under the window so I could vent my lee pot out the window. I was using some ingots that had been in the back of my truck, and were just a bit damp. I found my very slowly lowering the ingots in with pliers I could get them in the pot without making any splatter. Well, one slipped out of my pliers and what a mess. I learned at this time that the walls had vynle wall paper. What a mess.....

 

[KHornet]

Cast long enough and you will in one way or another be visited by the tinsel fairy.
Have scars to prove it. An old friend of mine who used to have to give safety talks
once in awhile to our squadron used to get up and say: "It hurts to get hurt", and
then he would sit down. Probably as effective as any half hour safety lecture I sat
thru.

 

[Todd M]

All good reminders. I've had splatters from dropping spruces or ingots in too fast, but no moisture yet.

 

[KHornet]

AND, I have always said: Women have bad hair days, and Casters have bad casting days.

 

[freebullet]

I'm the kind that tries to research the risks & mitigates them before starting. Being that we remediate mold & water damage I'm pretty safety conscious. Haven't had any bad accidents with melting but....safety first.

I saved a buddy on his first melt. He didn't research & just about learned the really hard way. Fortunately he realized it wasn't working & gave me a call instead of winding up calling 911. He had 200lb melted outside & it was starting to rain....

 

[Kevin Stenberg]

Well there was a bright spot today. I found most of the lead that was lost in the stainless pan. 1 very large puddle under the embers.

 

[Dick West]

I was fluxing with sawdust that had somehow gotten some ice crystals in it since the last time i used it. Lead spray hit the overhead light and everywhere. I had glasses and gloves on, but I got some blisters on my face.

Lesson learned. Hot lead reveals sloppy habits in spectacular ways!

 

[Ian]

Well there was a bright spot today. I found most of the lead that was lost in the stainless pan. 1 very large puddle under the embers.

Good deal. I've heard of others having similar experiences recovering lost alloy from a wood fire.

 

[yodogsandman]

I've thought of melting down a few well shot up stumps!

 

[SierraHunter]

I was fluxing with sawdust that had somehow gotten some ice crystals in it since the last time i used it. Lead spray hit the overhead light and everywhere. I had glasses and gloves on, but I got some blisters on my face.

Lesson learned. Hot lead reveals sloppy habits in spectacular ways!

I always wear long sleeves, welding gloves when casting, but when I am refilling the pot, I put on a face shield. I saw what happened one time when my dad somehow got a live primer in with his flux.