uh oh, warning...

[armoredman]

The wife has been following this stuff, and is now alarmed that this whole deal is very dangerous. I said the airborne lead is not safe, so it's done outside, with mask, and the molten metal ain't exactly safe to spill on you, so it will be outside, with PPE, and no child around.
Anything else I can tell her?

[Blammer]

yea, don't spray you with the hose when melting lead... :D

and that lots of other guys do it and they have no lead problems at all!

[tommag]

Lead has to get pretty hot to vaporize. Outside will give you plenty of ventilation.
Don't smoke or drink while casting, to eliminate contact with your mouth. From what I understand, that's where most of the ingestion comes from.
Lead spilled on the ground is harmless, unles the little one is small enough to still be eating everything. If so, you have to think about that in advance.

[armoredman]

No problem with him eating everything, 6 years old, loves yogurt. Ick. I think I had enough lead in me when I worked at the indoor range years ago. I'm not worried...:-D thanks.

[357maximum]

I'd just tell her "It'll be aaaahright" and do it with supreme confidence and a little crackle to your voice..:mrgreen: Whenever I do that my wife turns tail and rapidly leaves me alone.[smilie=1:

[MT Gianni]

Lead vaporizes at 1150 F. Tell her you need a thermometer to make sure that your melts don't go over 800 F and you can forgoe the breathing PPE. Don't forgoe the 100% cotton, long sleeve, hat, gloves, leather boots and eyewear. Gianni.

[montana_charlie]

The wife has been following this stuff, and is now alarmed that this whole deal is very dangerous.
She must be reading the 'cautions', but not the rest. Otherwise she would have noticed that this (making things from melted lead) has been done for a couple thousand years...and the human race still walks the planet.
Yes, there are precautions to be taken, but those that work for frying bacon will work for casting bullets. Only difference is...you can eat the bacon.

I said the airborne lead is not safe,
Now, that's a good way to scare a wife into banning the whole project...and it's not exactly true, either.

You probably don't have the capability to get lead hot enough to create harmful vapors, and it's assumed you will keep any powdery residue under control. That pretty much leaves airborne lead in the form of flying bullets as the only remaining hazard.

so it's done outside, with mask, and the molten metal ain't exactly safe to spill on you, so it will be outside, with PPE, and no child around.
If those are rules you can live with, they should keep everyone safe from 'dangerous lead'...but perhps not from frostbite, or rain falling in your molten alloy.

Anything else I can tell her?
Yep. Tell her to give you any old Pyrex measuring cups she is thinking about replacing (you might want something for making bullet lube)...and thick sliced bacon is a whole bunch more gooder than that thin stuff in the restaurants.
CM

[armoredman]

Copy, no casting naked.

[scrapcan]

armoredman,

Good copy, much like bacon, best not to fry it naked either. My wife ran blood lead samples for the Public health lab here in our state for a couple years, she saw greater lead levels in mechanics, painters, and petroleum workers than she saw in adult shooters/casters/reloaders (she tested me several times to make sure I was not loading myself with heavy metals).

As with most things don't eat, drink, smoke, or slather yourself with the things you are working with.

Also make sure you wash your hands both before and after you visit the little boys room or the bush outback. Before to clean your hands of residue and after to clean your hands of different residue. Your wife will appreciate you very much for not making everything shoot lead boolits. Sorry just had to mention that.

[Springfield]

Casting the bullets is pretty safe if you don't eat the lead or eat while casting, and wash up well afterwards. Now getting burned, that can be bad. Always wear long pants and wear GOOD gloves. You should wear long sleeve shirts too but I don't. But mostly ALWAYS wear eye protection. ALWAYS. Those little lead droplets can go 3 feet at times. A burn on your arm hurts, but hot lead in your eye is permanent. I wear a pair of safety glasses and a flat shield over that most of the time. Especially when melting down bulk lead, like wheelweights. Sometimes ya get a little water in there and POW! tinsel everywhere. Ya just can't brush it off fast enough to not get burned. It isn't hot water at 212, it's lead at 700. Makes a big difference. That being said, I cast over 20,000 bullets a month, by hand, in my shop. Take your time, and be careful, and everything should go OK. It's just like shooting. Follow the safety rules and nobody gets hurt. If you are a safe shooter you will more than likely be a safe caster.

[oso]

...
Anything else I can tell her?

I'd just ask her for help. If that doesn't scare her off you might get more done. If my wife didn't help occasionally I wouldn't be able to keep up with her shooting,

[trickyasafox]

my concession to my parents was to wear a cotton mask . . . the kind that painters wear. i dont know if it does a darn thing but it makes the family happy

[357maximum]

Something i would like to add seeing as this is a safety thread and there have been alot of new members since the last time I stood up and preached smelting pot choice safety.


Aluminum pots....never, never, never ever melt lead in an aluminum pan I do not care how thick it is or whether it is cast or drawn aluminum. They can and will fail at any given time without notice or warning.....a large avalanche of melting lead will hurt you if it can get you, I have the scar on my ankle and calf to prove it. Being thrifty on this aspect and using an aluminum pan is false value trust me.

Also.
Never ever use a wood board with holes drilled in it for a fishing sinker mold either, it may not be as dry as you think[smilie=1: Safety glasses were the savior that day of my mispent youth, with out them I would have likely lost my left eye. I looked like the worlds worst herpes victim for quite awhile.

[grumpy one]

At the risk of annoying everyone, I'll point out that if you store lead and work with lead for years, there's a good chance there will be some contamination of your house site. This is a hazard to future occupants, especially since they probably won't know about it. You'd want to do a fine job of washing root vegetables grown in lead-contaminated soil, and I'm not sure you'd overcome the hazard even then.

If we are going to sustain the argument that we are responsible people, we have to keep the lead where it belongs, not spread through the soil, the basement floor, and as a fine deposit over everything stored in and around our workshops. Otherwise our kids, and eventually other people's kids, will grow up in a lead-contaminated environment - with well-documented effects on their health.

One of the biggest hazards is safe disposal of the dirt and oxides skimmed off the melt. That stuff is no health food.

[eka]

With the equipment we are using you aren't going to get things hot enough to create lead vapor. However, when scraping and cleaning out smelting and casting pots, you run a risk with the lead dust. Do that outside and upwind with a mask. Otherwise, just basic precautions you use when shooting and reloading. Fingers out of the mouth and nose. No eating, smoking etc. until your hands have been washed.

[kodiak1]

Tell after three bouts of Casting you will be sterile so it is safe to have sex 4 times a week.
If she buys that one then man you have a real problem.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Ken.

[montana_charlie]

Copy, no casting naked.
Some don't wear a thing, but may prefer a thong beneath a harvest moon.
But no one that I know of stirs alloy while naked...even when adding eye of newt.
CM

[OLPDon]

I would think we get more contamination when we tumble our Brass as I am sure like most we do our tumble cleaning of brass somewere in our household.
What say you?
Don

[buck1]

The most daggerous thing you'll ever do is get in a car!!........Buck

[piwo]

Hey Armoredman. As I recall, Mrs. Armoredman is a pretty level headed lady. In this instance, more information is better then less. The facts attest themselves that this is a hobby that is as hazardous as most others when common sense isn't followed, and sage advice ignored. Otherwise, the nature of the metal and the way it's handled is quite safe. I do cast indoors in the winter with a setup that includes an induction fan in tin ductwork that sucks the fumes out of the little furnace through a basement window. Since I cast only pure lead for my muzzleloaders, I cast quite a bit higher temps then many others. If you're casting with wheel weights and tin, and linotype and other metals, you will be casting much lower then I. Yeah, you'll probably get a burned fingertip one when you forget and touch a red hot boolit you just dropped (which wouldn't hurt a bit if you were wearing the gloves you were supposed to). In other words, ask the questions, search the forums, and enjoy as many years of safe and fun casting as you want.

PS: I cast outdoors today for a little while. Ended up taking 121 boolits indoors and after weighing them, kept 96. VERY poor by many people's standards, but I wanted to keep only perfect looking boolits that were within 1.5 grain of each other. Since the boolits average weight was 413.5 grains, that's pretty tight quality control I think.

Still have a ways to go with my casting, but getting better, and having a lot of fun doing it. :drinks:

[felix]

Having fun is the only thing that counts with any kind of hobby. When it becomes work, even for just a little bit, then do another hobby for the time being. If that one becomes work, then do real work and get paid for it. ... felix

[armoredman]

I love my hobby. Shooting and reloading are really the only hobbies I have, other than surfing the internet!:)
I look forward to starting soon!

[Baron von Trollwhack]

So you have an "alarmist" to put up with. Depending upon the degree, there is not much you can do. Take most of the above with a grain of salt too. BvT

[TAWILDCATT]

I had tests many yrs ago when this lead panic started.several of the casters in my club were tested and came up at 45/50 ppm.never could get answere from doc. how to get rid of lead.we all washed parts in gasoline,stoped washing parts in gasoline problem went away.also don't eat drink or smoke while casting.last check I was 9 ppm.:coffee: :Fire:

[nelsonted1]

We did the same thing- wash in leaded gasoline. I always wondered how bad we were leaded before it was banned. Now my ex took in two little nieces, their mother died Dad in jail treatment type guy. One of the girls has way high lead levels. We all hope there is no damage. The county looked at the home they were living in and the house was condemned until it was repaired- mostly painting and cleaning. No paint chips or dust- that sort of thing.

What I can't figure out is how everyone before 1978 dealt in lead all over the place-lead paint, leaded gasoline, dishware was even painted and glazed with lead- so therefore everyone older than whenever they decided lead was dangerous is totally brain damaged and stupid yet they survived even flourished. How can that be?

[MT Gianni]

Lead affects the brain and as is evidenced by our compulsive behavior toward our hobbies we are all dimwitted. Just ask our wives. Gianni

[JohnH]

Sounds like it's time for a new wife ;)

[grumpy one]

The material on blood lead levels I read several decades ago indicated that children were at risk mainly from two practices. One was chewing wooden objects while teething - in those days of lead paint - and the other was a fairly common childish practice of swallowing small objects such as stones while playing. The lead-in-gasoline problem was considered to be from ingestion of small amounts after it was deposited in metallic form all over everything, so people ended up living in a lead-coated environment and not washing their hands enough. The gasoline issue was pretty minor compared with the risk of children eating the stuff in the two ways described. Way back then, the horror cases that came to light generally involved small children.

If anyone sees from this why I tend to bleat occasionally about being careful about lead contamination, especially if we have children living in or visiting our homes, so much the better. Some small kids swallow things - it is considered normal.

[armoredman]

JohnH, sorry, love this one. She normally is VERY supportive of my reloading hobby, it was just the molten lead issue she was worried about. She carries a CZ, too.

Hers.:-D
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/armoredman/Newavatar.jpg

Nah, I think I'll keep her.:mrgreen:

[piwo]

Sounds like it's time for a new wife ;)

Nah... As any concerned spouse she just wants to know the facts.. :drinks:

[Ricochet]

I think you'll have a mighty hard time casting outdoors, due to the problems of variable environmental temperature, wind, precipitation, blowing dirt...

Smelting bulk alloy outdoors is the thing to do, of course.

As for casting indoors, I don't bother with any special ventilation because as has been pointed out, my lead isn't hot enough to pose a vapor hazard.

Tumbling brass to clean it indoors has been shown to be hazardous, due to the lead oxide dust from primer residue mobilized during tumbling. Emptying the brass and polishing medium is the particularly hazardous step for airborne exposure.

[Bob Jones]

I take reasonable precautions when I smelt and cast, no smoking, eating, etc. I smelt only outside in the summer (when it's not raining in Oregon) and cast in the doorway of my shop so there's lots of air flow. Had my lead levels checked last year and it was around 20, which the doc told me was average in the population for a guy of my age (50). I shoot maybe 10K of cast rounds a year in handguns, but always shoot outdoors.

From what I've seen the two big exposures are (1) shooting indoors and (2) tumbling brass. I don't do either, so that may help. BTW, instead of tumbling I put my brass in 5 gallon buckets with hot water and a spoonful of Naval Jelley, stir them and let them sit for a few minutes then rinse thoroughly. They come out clean and shiny, not as perfect as tumbled but shoot just fine. You can do 1000-2000 cases at once and be done in 10 minutes without having to listen to a tumber and avoiding the dust exposure.

[scott wegner]

How do you guys safely dispose the stuff you skim off the melt? Scott

[armoredman]

Coffee can. When full, dispose of as hazmat, I suppose. Or, as some have done, melt down the dross, and find the good lead hidden within. :)
Ricochet, happy to report little to no difficulty casting outside, wait for windless cool days, (guess I only cast during winter, bummer), and go for it. Need a table and chair, now, only limiting factor is the lower back, casting while sitting Indian Style. One hour max, and I am done.

[schutzen]

armoredman,

This is the best time for you to justify the purchase of a quality lead thermometer and an inexpensive optical pyrometer. Keep you lead temperature below 1000 (lead vaporizes at approx. 1150) and wash your hands frequently. You'll be fine.

The lead contamination most of us read about is airborne lead dust released during remodeling. Lead based paints are sanded to dust and inhaled. As far as wearing the painters mask. You may as well clip a paper towel to each ear. The minimum would be a 1/2 face respirator with organic vapor filters.

[Ohio Rusty]

Tell her that cooking on the stove is just as dangerous. You could spill boiling liquid on you ...food could sputter and spit, get in your eye and blind you, you can burn yourself from the oven ..... And washing dishes ... Oh MY !! all that glass could break and cut you severely .....
Tell the other half don't worry about it as you will continue to use good safety pratices while enjoying your hobby.
Even knitting is more dangerous ...you could slip with that sharp needle and put your eye out .....
Ohio Rusty

[targetshootr]

Thousands of guys who work with ww in tire shops year round are still alive and kicking. (So far as I know.)

[Lloyd Smale]

dan ive been treated for lead poisoning. Why? because im a dumb ass bullhead sob that was to lazy to do things right. The average guy with his head screwed on right will never have a problem with it. The only consession you really need to make to your wife is to insure her that your children will have absoultely no way of getting exposed. If i had kids around id try to find a room i could lock or make a small outbuilding that could be locked to keep there nosy little fingers out of things.

[DeanoBeanCounter]

I am really glad this thread came up again. I just did some smelting the other day and now I can see what I did wrong. :oops: Can't wait to start casting boolets.

Anyway.
schutzen, I sorry I don't quite follow what you mean.
"As far as wearing the painters mask. You may as well clip a paper towel to each ear. The minimum would be a 1/2 face respirator with organic vapor filters." Are you saying it does no good to wear those paper masks and only the more expensive respirators can do the job? :confused:

Anyway (again). My wife :cool: doesn't seem to mind, it's just the start up cost. She's more worried about my weight and is all for anything that will give me more exersize. :groner:

Lloyd Smale, thank you, I try to learn from other peoples mistakes.

Now, somebody pass around the rood beer. :drinks:

Deano

[shotstring]

Just one other small note. If you have pets, particularly of the bird kind (I have parrots), you want to be sure and sweep up any small bits of lead or zinc that might fall to the floor and be picked up on the soles of your shoes and transferred into the house where your children, birds or other pets have access to them. Birds are naturally curious and always looking for food as well as toys, and those small pieces of linotype look to be just the thing. :roll:

There have been several cases of some very expensive vet bills as well as some dead birds from ingesting pieces of lead and zinc and getting them caught inside their digestive systems so that instead of being eliminated, they poison the birds - a moderatly slow and painful death.

[armoredman]

No birds. Birds should fly, can't fly in a cage. Just 2 dogs and 4 cats, and I sweep up the porch area after use. Sweepings are dumped in the dumpster.
I actually have an OSHA approved respirator and filters, from working on an indoor range, but have been saving that for something serious.:roll: I keep the temp reasonable, but maybe a thermometer is something I should get - a good cheap one out there?

[Lee]

I've heard the same about the paper masks. Wear one and you see some "junk" on the outside of the mask. But the concern is that w/o a good seal around the edges, you are also drawing in quite a bit of "junk" from the edges.
So they work, better than nothing, but should not be relied upon to prevent poisoning.
(Also, they work on particulates, not necessarily on vapors.........)
............................Lee:wink:

[schutzen]

Deanobeancounter:

The paper painter’s masks do not filter out the really bad lead dust. A paper towel will do as wel. When abating lead based paints, painters wear a 1/2 face respirator with organic vapor filters. Some of the extraneous BS you learn when you are a supervisor in a 60 year old lead based paint and asbestos filled building.

[MT Gianni]

All odor is particulates, if you can smell something it is getting through your protection. Gianni