RCBS Pro melt?

[Jig Man]

I’ve had mine for 3 or 4 years and have done a bunch of jigs.  I flux when I add lead.  I have a variety of lead types from plumbers lead to printers lead and even some physics balls.  They all get mixed in depending on how hard I want the lead.  I have never emptied it and cleaned it like the Lee pot that I had.  It isn’t flowing fully.  I ran a spinnerbait wire up it and nothing changed.  Do you guys run yours out occasionally and clean them?

[cadman]

I have had mine for about 8 years and have never cleaned it. I probably should but I don't have any problems with it yet.

[smalljaw]

You got bad lead in there and now the material in it has caked the bottom. I had to clean my pro-melt once because a friend gave me "pure lead". He didn't understand what I meant by pure lead and after I had the same issue I found out what he meant. He smelted down a bunch of scrap and poured ingots with it. He was using it to cast no-roll sinkers and he offered some to me when I said I needed some pure lead to get the ratio of hard and soft lead right. Well I added 6 pounds of his lead in my pot and yes, I fluxed it as well and after 4 days of pouring the flow began slowing down. I emptied the pot and saw some kind of build up on the bottom around the spout entrance. I scraped it all out and took the entire 18lbs to the scrap yard. After that I just ordered the 3-5% antimonial lead and use that for everything. It turned out that his "pure lead" was from a lot of scrap that he wasn't sure where it came from. He knew there was old lead pipe and some other stuff as well as some old shot, wheel weights, and some stuff given to him from someone else. I don't know what the stuff caked around the opening was but it came from that lead, it has been over 5 years since that happened and I have not had anymore issues and have not cleaned the pot since. You got something in the lead you have and the flux didn't remove it just like it didn't remove it for me. Whatever it was it didn't float to the top, it settled in the bottom and was like a hard clay, I'll never use scrap lead in my old style pro-melt ever again.

[Jig Man]

Thanks for the response.  I think I will clean it out and be more careful in the future.

[Jig Man]

Wow it was nasty.  It took a long time to clean it up.  I even had to use a torch to clean the plunger.  I will endeavor to be more selective in my lead and more diligent in fluxing.

[cadman]

Jig Man, I'm not saying you should do this, but for the last 5-6 years I've been buying my lead from Roto-Metals. 99.9% pure and then antimony to make my lead harder. I just have faith in their lead that it comes in clean with no other foreign impurities. So far so good. It cost a little more, but I have not had any major issues since I've done this. On your lead, just try to be more selective if that is even possible. Glad you got it cleaned out.

[smalljaw]

Jig Man, I'll echo what Cadman said. I started buying my lead, the 3%-5% antimonial lead from Rotometals after my Lee pot was ruined from bad lead. I also got some before from a trusted friend that was bad and I had to clean out the RCBS, that was the last straw. My pot works perfect and there is no black slag or any slag or dross that comes to the surface when I melt the lead. I just skim off a small skin coat and begin to pour and no more issues, it costs a little more like Cadman said but it is worth it for my equipment.