Thread: Melting Lead - fumes

Originally Posted by Grey Kiwi

Yep, when you heat lead it starts to smoke. Bad stuff.
You also need to flux the hot lead for casting.
A 1/2 walnut size piece of dripping or a wee lump of candle wax will work well.
This gives off more smoke, which you hold a flame to and that smoke will ignite (I used a rolled up newspaper taper. A wee gas torch would be great).
That flaming 'smoke' is burning off a lot of the bad stuff but yeah, a mask would be handy.
Stir the hot lead with (for example) an old hacksaw blade. The crap will stick to that.
Bang that on the ground a couple of times and the slag falls off.
Give the hot lead another swirl anyway. No more slag on the stirrer?
Good to go.
I used to do this in a single garage, with the main door open but with no mask.
Probably left lead contamination right through that garage. But I did make some lovely shiny smooth lead Minie balls for my .45 and .58 cal muzzle loaders.

Where you used dripping I used bees wax.