Lead home made casting pot Magmaw 2 of 20

I can not call the melting pot I want to build a Magma Type Melting pot as it is made from the scrap and diffident in nature as to how it was made and the design was different as well, but it is close in design and should function no differently when it is finished. I will make some improvements. Four our purposes from now on we will call it Magmaw why because it is the mother of all melting pots. But some of you will call it Magmaw the mother of Mickey Mouse. Perhaps! But in the end I think you will be presently surprised. Given that the inside dimensions of the pot is the same than we will conclude that the pot will melt 90 LB of lead . The legs and downspout position of the Magma pot was not user friendly for using other types of ingot molds so I will center the hole and make the pot a rectangle so the legs are as far apart as possible. Theoretically there is a 50% loss of heat out the bottom of the melting pot towards the floor. Yet though I do not know the math involved I know that a heat sink draws heat away from one area to another and so the casting pot itself as well as the metal in the pot should conduct or attract some of the heat naturally which should eliminate some loss. Yet from using a Magma pot and from sliding a Magma mold under the pot while it was heating up the mold became very hot in a short period of time. By spacing the legs of the pot it should be possible to take advantage of some of this lost heat by warming some wheel weights or other lead scraps under the pot while working the metal in the pot. Perhaps I am ahead of my self.     

In making this pot you must when it comes to scrap steel need to look at it from a perspective of what can be done with metal and you have to get rid of the idea that it is ridged and unyielding. Instead you must begin to look at metal as plastic something that is form-able, bend-able, cut-able, shape-able and weld-able. This means that there is no bit of scrap that can not be made into something else.

The trade off of working scrap is the fact that it will cost you extra on abrasive blades and welding rods. This project will probably use 1 & 1/2 cutoff saw (also called a Chop Saw)  blades and 3 & 1/2 grinding wheels for my hand grinder and a good sized hand full of welding rods.

Nearly the right size for the base

In relation to the making of things one ancient text said " Yonder is mater un-organised let us go down and create a world where these may dwell" Making something out of nearly nothing is an eternal principle

This 1 inch steel plate will need to be cut

There is two ways to cut such a large piece of steel one is with a torch and the other is with a chop saw. By setting the part on end the saw did not have to work as hard for each cut. My torch was experiencing some problems and was left out of this project.

After welding

A Blog has the ability to up date material and even though time has passed and this is an old post I noticed that a lot of people will only view one page and move on. So it seemed practical to place a photo of the finished product on each post.

The pot base is a rectangle 1 inch thick and 9 X 10 in To view the next post click

Richard W Norman             
   If they pass laws against guns then you will either make your supplies at home, salvage or do without. Isn't it time to know what you can do at home to keep your guns going if you could not buy it in the future.   "American Handbook on Guns Ammo and Freedom" the book the anti gunners say you shouldn't buy