Cast Lead and Welded Steel Flower

I love making simple welded flowers from old rusty nuts and bolts, but when you use 5 nuts per flower and only 1 bolt, soon you're left with only bolts! Follow along and learn how to make a cute little flower from scrap around the shop!

This Instructable deals with fire and hot molten metal, which are extremely dangerous! If you've never worked with casting or welding educate yourself on safety and proper procedures.

Raw materials:

1. Some metal with a low melting point, I'm using lead because I happen to have some old wheel weights. Tin is also a great choice and melts at an even lower temp. Aluminum will work but you'll need a foundry type set up to melt it.
2. Scrap steel, I used a carriage bolt, a washer, and some metal rod. Also I made a crucible for melting using some scrap steel tube and 1/8" steel for the bottom

Tools:

1. Angle grinder, you can do this project without it but having one will make it a lot easier. You'll need a grinding wheel, a cutoff wheel and a flap disc.
2. Welder, I suppose brazing is possible but it might start melting the lead which would be bad.
3. Hammer
4. Sandpaper and files

Casting tools:

1. Crucible, I made mine from scrap steel, you can always buy a graphite crucible online which might be a better choice if you'll be casting often.
2. Tongs, I found some long kitchen tongs at a thrift store that I use to grab the hot crucible and control it while pouring.
3. Flower mold, also at the thrift store I found a cooking pan with flower molds. If you can't find an old pan you can also cast into sand into any shape you want!

Other:

I melted my lead in a small bonfire while burning up some scrap wood from the shop. Normal firewood will work, or other flammable things like charcoal or propane.

Did you know that even a campfire can melt lead? I was surprised myself because I've tried melting aluminum in a foundry and it has to get ridiculously hot to become molten, but the lead had no issue melting just sitting on top on of a fire.

This isn't a casting instructable so I won't get too much into the process. But put all your metal in crucible and place inside the fire pit and build a fire around the crucible. I lit my fire with a propane torch in order to get everything going quickly. Keep feeding the fire and you'll see the metal start to collapse and become a liquid pool. Use tongs or some other metal grabbing tools to pull the crucible out and pour into the molds.

Using low temp metals like tin and lead makes casting much easier.

MOLTEN METAL IS HOT! (crazy right?) Casting can be very dangerous and all it takes is a slip to end up in the emergency room with severe burns. Use extreme caution when casting, keep a firm grip on the crucible and allow crucible and molten metal to cool before touching.

Some casts will look good some will look terrible, do we need to remelt the bad ones? Absolutely not! All it takes is some sanding and a little hammering and now they all have a nice smooth and shiny appearance.

Mine had some bad air pockets in the pour, lucky for us lead is extremely malleable, just hammer those low spots down and sand if necessary.

Also clean out the middle if you have the same mold as I do.

If you're using lead like me, do your sanding outside and wear a mask or respirator. Lead can enter your body through your lungs and get absorbed into your blood.

If you're using an angle grinder be careful! Using a angle grinder on small pieces can be dangerous and also gets hot fast, protect your fingers and hold the lead with a pliers or other tool (be careful not to mar up the soft lead)

I have quite a few old carriage bolts so I'll be using a rusty one for this project(I cleaned it off for welding). The ones I had laying around were way too small, I will probably just buy some new larger bolts and nuts instead of fussing around with these smaller bolts without a nut to tighten it to the lead.

With the materials I had on hand, I welded a washer to the bolt to hold the lead pedals on. Unfortunately, it wasn't really that tight so the lead is kinda loose. That's why I recommend having a nut to pair with the bolt so you can tighten then weld it all together.

Weld it carefully and slowly, the lead will melt easily, so only weld a couple tacks and take breaks for it to cool. Also the lead even though it's not directly being welded is going to get real hot, even hot enough to burn you(ask me how I know).

Use caution and common sense on this step! Welding can be very dangerous, wear proper PPE and follow safety procedures.

Cut the rest of the bolt off, you don't need to cut it almost flush and probably shouldn't, you should leave enough weld to keep holding it on. Use a clamp or something to hold while cutting but try not to mar up the lead. Grind the cut surface if necessary.

Find some metal rod, preferably thick rod (at least 1/8") and cut it, I cut mine around 7 inches. You can go shorter or longer, it's mostly personal preference/what you're using the end product for.

Put your freshly cut metal stem up against the flower and weld a couple tacks to it. It's as simple as that, and if you want, you can finish right here. I think it seems a little empty without leaf so I'll be adding one in the next step.

There are many options to make a leaf, you could use a washer, bend some wire, cutout a leaf shape, or use expanded metal like me. It's quite simple really, put the leaf up to the stem and weld it. Boom, it's done.

Beautiful isn't it? well I guess that's one way to describe it, it looks better when you squint.

Don't be afraid of messing up on this project, there are a lot are hard steps that are very easy to mess up. Failure is natural, use your ability to learn and try again. If you mess up, there's nothing wrong with you or your skills, keep trying and you'll get it, the only real mistake you can make is to doubt yourself and give up.

Also if you want to spice it up a little make or use a little flower pot, fill it with gravel, sand, or wood shavings like I did. Makes a good office desk decoration!