My plug half came from Dan hull 20
My dad made up the box to hold the concrete, he smoothed off the plug as it had few dents in it.
We half filled the mould with a mix of mortar I had lying around from house building projects, we covered the plug in hair wax/pom to protect the plug. Once half full we screwed the plug into the mould. Once the mould was full we tapped the sides and plug to try and remove any air bubbles.
After 24hrs the plug was easily removed with no damage, there are a few air voids but nothing that can’t be filled or ignored. We will leave it set for several weeks.
November 2022
Made melting pot/crucible out of a old propane (LPG) tank.
Removed valve, let stand for a week, put in fire pit till paint changed colour, cut opening in side, scavenged some pipe and bed rail for handles, cut base to to give a place to weld handles on.
December 2022
Purchased Lead from local scrap dealer, mostly unused sheet lead for flashing on roofs.
To seal the mould i used 3 coats of water glass sanding between coats to try and smooth it out. DO not do this. See why below.
I cut the lead up into more manageable pieces to go into the crucible and to make getting equal weights for both pours. In the end I had 75kg for one and 74kg for the other, I figure with the goal weight being 72kg that should be close. 75KG was suggested by Peter K and Dan T.
Once in the tank I melted down one batch, I wanted to check how it would react once liquid hanging under the crane and that it would all fit, surprising how little room 75KG of lead takes up once its melted down.
December 31st I the shop to my self and was able to set up the mould and crucible,
I levelled the mould and melted the lead, using two propane tiger torches and a oxy/acetylene torch with a rose bud tip, the oxy runs hot so you have to keep moving it around.
Once melted i dropped in 50grams or so of paraffin wax to flux/clean (do some thing) apparently when the wax lights on fire it helps to draw out contamination from the lead. There was more dross floating after the wax I presume it worked.
