Melting pot for pouring pewter nose caps.

[Rolf]

The pot is made boring out a piece of 40mm round stock Spout and handel are threaded to the pot and secured by welding beads on the outside.

I plan to use the pot on a elecric stove to melt the pewter. I've heated oil on the stove to 300 celsius, so it should work. Pewter melts at 270 celsius. Hopfully the spout will reduce spillage.





Best regards
Rolf

[James Rogers]

Very nice Rolf! Makes my wired, spouted tuna can look like......a wired, spouted tuna can.

[Dennis Glazener]

Looks good but i suspect you will want a larger pour hole. Can't see tell what size yours is but it looks too small but you will know when you start to use it. I have a bottom pour Lyman ladle that appears to have a much larger hole and I wish it were a little larger when pouring pewter nose caps.
Dennis

[alyce-james]

Good morning Dennis; Sir, in the past I have drilled or reamed Lyman bottom pour ladles out for larger pour requirements. AJ 

[Dphariss]

I have poured hundreds with a stainless soup ladle from the grocery store I bent the handle on. Holds enough for several if doing a more than one.

Dan

[Dennis Glazener]

What I use the most is one I made from a Tomato Sauce can that I soldered a length of old brass tubing to for the handle. Flattened one end to wrap around the can, put two pop rivets in it. Made a slight vee in the lip so it pours a tighter stream. It works great. Much faster than using the Lyman ladle, seems to stay hotter and fills the void better than the small hole ladle. I have melted pewter in the can but most of the time I dip it from melting pot.
Dennis

[Hungry Horse]

 I found my regular lead ladles weren't what I really needed for nose caps. So, I went out into the shop, and the first thing I see, is a  smooth copper tank float in the junk bin. I heated it up, and separated the two halves, opened the bench vice 3/8ths of an inch, picked up a 3/8ths drill bit, stuck the edge of the float over the vice jaws, put the drill bit over the edge of the float, and wacked it a couple of good one with a hammer. Made a nice handle out of some scrap metal, and riveted it on, and done. I've been using it for years. The copper sure heats up quick. I also use it to demonstrate casting bullets over an open fire.

                   Hungry Horse

[brobb]

I have good results with a stainless steel measuring cup and a pair of vise grips.

Bruce Robb

[Rolf]

Looks good but i suspect you will want a larger pour hole. Can't see tell what size yours is but it looks too small but you will know when you start to use it. I have a bottom pour Lyman ladle that appears to have a much larger hole and I wish it were a little larger when pouring pewter nose caps.
Dennis

Dennis, the hole in the spout is 4.0mm = 0.1575". What size would you recommed? I can make a new spout.

Best regards
Rolf

[Dennis Glazener]

Dennis, the hole in the spout is 4.0mm = 0.1575". What size would you recommed? I can make a new spout.

Best regards
Rolf

Rolfe I am not sure to be honest, I quit using the Lyman ladle and have been using the one I made out of the tomato sauce can Since you have this one done I would try it out, you may have more luck than I did.

I suspect the Lyman has around a .1875" hole but its packed away out in the garage so this is only a guess.
Dennis

[Dphariss]

As usual Rolf has made a nice tool.

However, in my experience the metal needs to be poured fairly rapidly and to prevent heat loss to the barrel even when the barrel is warmed significantly.

The more complex the nose cap the more important the speed of the pour.
Complex nose caps or nose caps with a large bearing surface on the barrel or true food save pewter alloys, like some lead free solders, require a higher pour temp than 50-50 lead-tin alloy does to carry metal to fill the entire nose cap inlet. Care must be exercised to prevent scorching the wood and the higher heat results in more off gassing by the wood making bubbles in the casting. While these can generally be "welded" shut by melting metal into the void with a hot copper/brass punch (which I heat with a propane torch) or soldering iron it is sometimes necessary to use the punch/soldering iron to melt off all the metal and repour.  I heat the punce very hot and must again use care that it does not burn the edges of cuts etc. The second pour is usually good since the first heat drives off the moisture in the wood and there are no bubbles formed or if there are they are small.
While 50-50 pours easily filing and sanding produces a lot of dust and as a result lead free pewter is preferred. 50-50 is also a little more lead colored than is desirable for my uses.
Dan
 

[Habu]

I use the same ladle for pouring pewter as I use for casting large roundball and conicals for bigbore cartridge guns.  It is just an old Lyman ladle, with the pour hole bored out to 5/16" (.3125").  I'd bore it bigger if I could, but the casting won't allow a 3/8" hole. 

[Hungry Horse]

 I much prefer pure tin as a nose cap material. It pours well, and seems to not have the porosity problems I've had with some alloys. Overheating is a problem I had in the past. Now I melt the tin to just liquid state, flux it with bees wax, skim the dross off, heat the barrel up good, and hot, and pour.


                     Hungry Horse

[Rolf]

Finshed pouring my first muzzle cap following Ken's tutorial . The pot worked like a charm. No spilling, no splatters, no leaks. If the pewter had run out any quicker out of the spout, I'd spill all over the place. I heated the pot on an electric one plate stove at 1000W. Took 10 minutes to melt the pewter. The pot holds enough pewter for 3 muzzle caps of the size I poured. The cap cleaned up quickly using a coarse wood rasp and a smooth cut metal rasp. If you look at the upper corner where the cap meets the stock, the corners missing. I think the pewter did not fill the corner because there was not enough extra space here in the form. Next time I' going to make sure there is room for a "large blob" of pewter in the corners. Three more muzzle caps to go.

Best regards
Rolf

PS. I used pure pewter. No alloys.

[Nit Wit]

Rolfe:
very nice,what a great site to see such talent!
Nit Wit

[Shreckmeister]

The end result looks great.  Could I suggest that the reason the designs on these pewter nosecaps
are continuously connected is so that the pour fills the cut out areas.  I would think that if you wrapped
the nosecap area and poured from the muzzle end, the liquod should fill the cutouts and leave you with
much less excess to remove, saving you considerable time.

[Rolf]

The end result looks great.  Could I suggest that the reason the designs on these pewter nosecaps
are continuously connected is so that the pour fills the cut out areas.  I would think that if you wrapped
the nosecap area and poured from the muzzle end, the liquod should fill the cutouts and leave you with
much less excess to remove, saving you considerable time.

Tried that. Did not work. Melted pewter has a high suface tenison. If you carefully spill a drop of pewter it does not run thin like water, but makes a domed blob/surface. If you don't fill the cut outs so they overflow, they won't be completly filled along the edges.

Best regards
Rolf

[Shreckmeister]

what if you fluxed the cutouts?

[Rolf]

Flux effects surface tension very little. It only stops oxcidation and cleans the surface.  The problem would still be there.
Take a  piece of low temp tin solder, flux  and melt it.  You now have a dome shaped puddel.
Now take a piece of high temp silver solder, flux and melt it. It will run over the whole fluxed suface like water. This is because it has a lower surface tension.

Best regards
Rolf

[Shreckmeister]

Well you just disproved a story I had been told about how it was done....in the day.
Every day I learn something on this sight.

[Bible Totin Gun Slinger]

Is pewter that stuff I scape off the lead when I make balls?

[necchi]

No,
Pewter is almost pure tin with a small amount of copper.
Many different alloy's make up what's called pewter, lead and antimony can also be present.

Once tin and antimony are added to a lead melt, no amount of drossing by the home caster will remove it.

[Ryan McNabb]

I've never done this but Hershel's original videos showed him using a graphite pencil to blacken in the grooves which he says allows the pewter to flow smoothly.  He poured from the nose and it worked perfectly.  Worth a try?

[j. pease]

I learned from Herschel House t pour nosecaps and bolsters on knives, always used graphite from a pencil to cover the area to be poured, have had no problems. Also heating barrel help, use a large bolt and heat red , put in muzzle and allow heat to flow, really helps pour

[Ryan McNabb]

Love the bolt trick!