Question about lead & lead vapor

[sharps4590]

TL;DR

Left lead furnace on.

I have been casting bullets for over 50 years and today I did something I never did before. I left my Lyman lead furnace on for 2-3 hours and it had no thermostat so it was full on. The volume of lead alloy is about 15 lbs. The tag is gone off the old Lyman furnace but my newer pot of the same size is 700 watts. The lead is obviously ruined and that's ok. My question is, would a bullet casting furnace get hot enough to create lead vapor? What is left in the furnace has a reddish, rusty iron color on the surface. The alloy also contained antimony and tin.

This was done in my basement shop and I'm wondering if there is any danger to my wife and I.

Maybe I need to rethink my bullet casting at 73.

 

[jrmichler]

Welcome to PF.

The surface color could be a lead / antimony / tin oxide. Are you sure that the lead is ruined? Did a measurable amount disappear?

Molten lead has a vapor pressure, so it evaporates. I searched vapor pressure molten lead, and found this in the Wikipedia article on lead:

The lowest temperature, 978 deg K, is 1300 degrees F. That's a dull red heat. Molten tin has lower vapor pressure, and molten antimony has higher vapor pressure than molten lead at the same temperatures. Any evaporation losses would thus be mostly antimony. I would expect that any evaporated metal would condense on nearby surfaces. Wiping up all dust in the room with a wet rag would be a good idea.

I assume that your username reflects your shooting preference. I grew up in a house with bullet casting in the basement. It was my job to dig used lead from the sand trap under the backstop at the local gun club. Dad cast on the order of 50 lbs of lead per year, mostly .44 and some .30 caliber. The .44 caliber went through his Super Blackhawk. That gun was how I learned to shoot handgun. It was a good introduction to momentum and reaction forces.