Alan in Vermont
05-07-2012, 06:44 PM
When my Father-in-law died he had been doing some scrapping. The copper had been sold but he had a pile of lead patties, formed in a 6" cast iron frying pan. My BIL had no use for the lead so it came home with me.
It has been sitting under cover for almost 6 years now, waiting for me to get back into casting. The time has come to do something with it.
I haven't weighed any of it yet, but I dragged it out of the corner today and got it on a skate so I could at least wheel it to the door. The pile on the right rings real sharply when tapped with a hammer, the left pile just thuds and the ones in the middle are, well,, in the middle.
I'm thinking 150-200 lbs with it being roughly WW and lead pipe scrap in equal amounts with the "in the middle" stuff being mixed. I've got probably 30 lbs of 50/50 bar solder on hand as well. Plan is to weigh the patties and try to get them into roughly equal batches that will fit in the plumbers pot I have here, melt the patties and add 2% or so of tin. That will give me a sizeable stash of ingots which are very close to the same which I can modify further as/if needed.
It has been sitting under cover for almost 6 years now, waiting for me to get back into casting. The time has come to do something with it.
I haven't weighed any of it yet, but I dragged it out of the corner today and got it on a skate so I could at least wheel it to the door. The pile on the right rings real sharply when tapped with a hammer, the left pile just thuds and the ones in the middle are, well,, in the middle.
I'm thinking 150-200 lbs with it being roughly WW and lead pipe scrap in equal amounts with the "in the middle" stuff being mixed. I've got probably 30 lbs of 50/50 bar solder on hand as well. Plan is to weigh the patties and try to get them into roughly equal batches that will fit in the plumbers pot I have here, melt the patties and add 2% or so of tin. That will give me a sizeable stash of ingots which are very close to the same which I can modify further as/if needed.