Just thought I'd ask around here 1st. I've got a good bit of sheet lead laying around and really need to clean it up and make it a little more compact. It's from old roofing pipe vents and shower pans, and a few wheel weights. Just wondering what are y'all's favorite melting pots ahead sources. Would one of those old turkey fryers work ? Cast Iron pot or pan ? I do know , or think , most impurities will float to the top , what type of rig could you use to skim that stuff off with ? Thanks for any suggestions.
I usually used soup cans to hold the lead, wood fire, metal soup ladle to skim the junk which could be resmelted later. Used an old baking pan tilted at 45° to cast ingots.
I do have a couple of old blacksmith ladles I got from my Dad after he passed away. Figured they could come in handy for dipping and pouring.
Be careful to only use iron or stainless spoons or ladies, do not use your family Sterling! Visit old second hand stores or curio shops and see if you can find old soap or butter molds, or porclin butter lids, these make great moulds for ingots! I always save the slag and use it to make krap fishing weights, especially when I was still Sturgon fishing and needed heavy weights, these worked great as they are just about worthless, and easier to use then rail road spikes! I just remembered, you can mould heavy clay soil to shape and cure next to a fire and pour ingots that way as well, depends on your A.O. soil.
Keep the soft lead separated from the wheel weights, Soft lead is what the muzzle loaders love. Wheel weights are pretty toxic so keep the place well ventilated. I use a 5.00 cast pot from the flea market and a roux spoon, It has a flat bottom on it so you can stir the bottom of the pot. Use pine shavings to pull the dross from the lead or impurities rather.
Oh forgot to add, WEAR safety equipment like a face shield,long sleeves,gloves One drop of water/sweat/bug will sound like a 38 went off in your pot and YOU will take a hit!
Before you start, do an image search for "lead splatter burns" and then read everything you can find on lead smelting safety. Then separate the wheel weights from everything else. Pure soft lead is desirable for antique firearm bullets that need to expand into the rifling and round ball. Without a Brinell hardness gauge you can identify soft lead pretty easily by trying to scratch it with a fingernail. If you leave a line on it with a fingernail it is soft. Wheel weight lead is something else entirely. A mix of antimony, tin and lead, it's suitable for most modern pistol bullets and some slower rifle bullets. (and faster ones with a gas check) Wheel weight lead is great until the moment you get the temperature high enough to melt zinc. (787 vs lead at 621) Once you have zinc melted in with a batch of lead it is pretty much useless for bullets. (won't pour well, alters weight) A quick run through with a diagonal cutters can eliminate much of the steel, zinc, and other hard alloys. If you can't make a substantial bite in it with a wire cutter, it's too hard. (it'll also float until it melts, but temp is hard to control with a turkey fryer.) So now you have the lead sorted. I prefer an iron pot. Ideal size would fit rim deep in an old truck brake rotor to help hold the heat and give me a surface to knock slag out of the ladle. There are about a paragraph of safety concerns that you need to read before you even strike a match, but lets assume you have leather gauntlets tucked into leather sleeves, a face shield, a roof (or a good weather report) and good ventilation. Now you need a ladle, with a dross gate, and a mold. Steel muffin pans will work. I make them different sizes for soft and hard lead. If you don't have a use for the lead yourself I'd just fold the roofing lead as neatly as possible and scrap/trade the wheel weights. You'll surely have more labor into sorting and smelting them than they are worth. Both Lyman and RCBS make cast iron lead pots that are very nice, and cheap. (inexpensive) Lee has gone to steel. I'm sure it would work, but it wouldn't sit inside a brake rotor the way I like. (Reduces potential of spill to as near zero as I can get.) This is the style ladle you need for handling bulk lead. The smaller ones from Lee and Lyman are designed for bullet casting, and are way too small. I can't find a new production ladle online with a dross gate, but it is really handy to have especially working with wheel weights.
A steel kitchen spoon will do the trick, just make sure it is LONG handled. There are a lot of safety precautions to take when melting lead, so do some research before putting fire under the pot. HD has more complete info above, but there's still some things to be aware of.
I'll look into picking up one of the smelters online. Probably safer. The ladle's pictured by Hot Diggety are the ones I have , just without the gate. Thanks for all your info.
Dad did lead plumbing and cast iron sewage pipe . He showed me the process and we played with lead all the time ,some where in his stuff there is a mold for toy soldiers we cast dozens of . Dad found a convenient method of storing lead by pouring it into angle iron and casting long rods . they melt easier and store better than heavy bocks that take forever to get to temperature . If your casting bullets it's simpler to chop off what you need not attempting to melt more then you need . We used gasoline blow torches and iron pots for melting the lead .still have them . I took a square corn bread pan and filled it and use it for shooting into . Rounds ( fire arm and even pellets seem to melt right in the the rest of the lead. Better than loosing the lead in the hill side . I don't waste much.
That's a good idea on the smaller molds. Yea , people nowadays waste an awful lot of stuff. I can't seem to throw out anything. Thanks for the ideas.
My brother said he had it and would give it to me but I haven't seen it yet. It's ok I found a soldier mold , much larger of course ,I think intended for baking or chocolate . Thing is once you use them for lead you cannot use it for food. They might stand up to .22 or pellets but not bigger fire arms. We'll see .
