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.

 

[sharps4590]

Thank you jr!! That is greatly appreciated.

No sir, I don't know the lead is ruined but I'll have to cut the furnace apart to salvage it...and I could do that. I saw the red stuff on top and as the melt had solidified already I don't know what lies underneath.

From the mid-1980's until about the mid-1990's hunting with and shooting long range matches with my Shiloh Sharps rifles consumed about 75% of my shooting...and 100% of my hunting medium and big game. I still have the rifles and a couple weeks ago unlimbered my 45-90 just to put the hurt on some steel buffalo targets I made 35 years ago. It still puts a grin on my face. 80 grains of black powder and 480 grains of 25-1, lead/tin bullet makes even those 65 lb. targets swing and generates a resounding 'thwack'...

40 years ago I bought my first drilling and carried it while checking the cows and fence lines. Then about 20 years ago that German firearm piqued an interest in the rest of the German firearm world and that's where my head has been since then. Double rifles, drillings, combination guns, Mauser and Mannlicher/Schoenauer bolt rifles and stalking and Schuetzen rifles. If they're chambered for a cartridge completely unknown in the US or that hasn't been produce since right before WWII, that's even better. I have a lathe and a little vertical mill in my basement shop and spend a lot of retired time down there.

Handguns, mostly revolvers, muzzleloaders, and lever rifles have also consumed vast amounts of my time.

The first deer I took with a revolver was with a Ruger SBH. Shortly thereafter I sold or traded the SBH and migrated to the old 45 Colt in a Ruger Bisley and a Freedom Arms Mod. 97.

 

[Borek]

Just a comment: if you see a liquid (whatever, be it water, molten metal, anything), there is a vapor over it. The question is not whether it "can" evaporate (answer is yes, always, actually there is even some vapor over solids), question is "how fast" (and here I doubt you will get a better answer than the one already posted by jr).

 

[sharps4590]

Thank you Borek. I expect that bit of knowledge will be useful in the future.