A question about heat/flame and melting lead

I picked up a homemade lead melter. Its nothing more than a 12" bit of
pipe with a nice larger burner in it, hooked to a bit of pipe with
some corrigated steel welded to the top of it as a table.
In operation..the flame is blue for about 2" in hight, and above that
its yellow and almost..almost sooty.
The top of the corregated steel, where the pot sits, is almost 3.5"
above the burner..so I have almost 1.5" of yellow flame below the pot.
The pot is the same diameter as the melter..so there is little flame
coming up and around, unless I crank the valve wide open. In any
flow rate the flame is indeed touching the bottom of the pot. Hot
enough to keep the corregated steel "top" a nice red color.
The question is...should the blue part of the flame be bearing on the
bottom of the pot? All the heat is rising upwards and is striking the
bottom of the melting pot..but am I losing much heat efficency this
way?
In the past couple days Ive melted down about 250lbs of wheel weights
and cast them into ingots with about 2 gallons of propane, so it is
working well enough and melt time is only about 10 minutes from a cold
start and 1/2" of lead sitting in the pot. I fire it up, fill the pot
with wheel weights, go do something else, come back and flux a bit,
then with a big spoon with holes drilled in it...seperate the clips
that are floating on the top, mix a bit more than ladle into the ingot
molds, refill with wheel weights and repeat.
The ingots will be used to fill my various 20lb electric bottom pour
pots and be used for casting bullets during the cold winter evenings
when the fog is thick
The reason I ask, is that Im considering modifying this and replacing
the melting pot with a nice big bull plug and a valve and spout so I
dont have to use a ladle to fill my 1lb ingot molds and when I do, I
can drop the bull plug down a bit into the blue flame.
Or is it simply guilding the lilly?
The current "melting pot" is nothing more than a nice heavy, thick
walled aluminum "skillet" sort of thingy I had kicking around.
Curious about opinions on this. I gave $5 for it at a yard sale and I
believe it was used to melt babbet in the oil patch. Had a good hose
and regulator in my Stuff and dogrobbed the BBQ bottle off the BBQ.
I built one 25 yrs ago that ran on natural gas, hadbottom pour lead
valve etc etc..a very good working unit and loaned it out..and the guy
disappeared. As best as I can recall..the bottom of the bullplug was
just about in the blue of the flame and it worked quite well for both
casting bullets and keeping the shop warm.
For those that dont know what a bull plug is....


I can snag em here in the oil patch all the way to 18" or bigger
diameter if I ask for a "used one that is no longer needed"
Gunner
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