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I've got a TON of leftover "sprue" bits from my pair of Venators. Has anyone tried melting down Forgeworld resin to reshape it, or reused it in some other way?

The most common usage I've seen for leftover sprue is as rubble and barricades on bases. Resin is actually quite toxic, and melting it down and releasing fumes would wreck your throat and lungs.

Bad idea, I recommend you don't try.

My mate said he tried to melt it down in a pan once...

FW resin is just a type of polyurethane plastic which is usually recyclable depending on it's type and composition. You can look into what is involved in plastic recycling; it's far beyond what almost anyone has at their home.

There are almost no fumes from the melting of the plastic but a lot can be released when it burns. The line between melting and burning can be incredibly close; as in impossible to not cross without some really fancy heating gear. How plastic is normally processed is with pressure and highly controlled heat. Plastics that have a very close line between melting and burning are usually only processed with pressure alone. Trying to heat it to melt it is almost guaranteed to burn the surface plastic as the deeper plastic melts.

There is always a lot of talk of the "toxicity" of resin when in reality it's not really toxic at all. The issue is the dust accumulates in the lungs and with moisture in there can turn into a solid, hard mass. As you can probably imagine having rocks in your lungs is really bad.

Plastics can't really be dissolved into blood easily so it doesn't accumulate chemically in organs which is what normally happens with toxic substances.

you could totally melt down old pewter crap and forge new stuff though!

Sandcasting wouldn't capture the details but you could mess around with different molds.

It does like a decent way to hold the model if you keep it on.

I've seen a video where leftover palstic sprues were melted down in pots of plastic glue to be used as a type of liquid greenstuff which I thought was a cunning idea.

The most I'd suggest doing with leftover forgeworld resin is heating it and bending/moulding it as you would whilst repairing or modifying other resin. You won't be able to make new model pieces, but you will be able to convert a lot of it into usable basing material that doesn't just look like left over resin sprues ; p

You could just try carving it into new things and do something like my hut made from plastic sprue.
The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination.
Don't worry about your skill, as it's free material to practice on.

I would certainly chose carving over trying to melt it down and cast with it (and if you really want to you could melt down the "failures" and shavings from the carving. The smaller pieces would melt easier anyway).

If it's cast two-component resin, it cannot be melted for reuse, to my understanding. Basically, when it goes through the chemical setting reaction, it's bonded so tight it will not melt before burning.

If you want to try it, do it outside - burning plastic can really stink up the place.