Smelting Day

[161]

It's about 35 degrees misting rain. I have 8 5 gal. buckets of mixed WW. Sounds like a plan for the day. Stay dry drink coffee and melt lead.

[fishnbob]

Eight 5 gal buckets, that's a pile of lead to smelt, especially in one day. I wear myself out on two buckets!

[41 mag fan]

Stayed in the mid 50's here all night last night. Probably close to 60* here already!! Spring is here.
If my dr didn't give me orders of having to work my knee, up to 8 hrs a day simulating working in the mines, I'd be smelting this 55 gal drum of lead I scavenged from the range last month.

But instead i have to do yard work :groner:

[161]

Oh I'm not doing all 8 if I get two done I'll be happy.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Only 8 buckets? I've got 12 buckets of range lead to do. that makes 46 buckets in the last 6 weeks :mrgreen:
my stash is building quickly lately.
Enjoy yourself! While it seems that I should be bored sitting over the melting pot for hours, oddly, I find it relaxing.
Turn on the radio, find your pace, and have at it!

[WHITETAIL]

:coffeecomMy smelting day starts around mothers day.

[ACrowe25]

Wow sounds like a nice day to me!

[ffries61]

I'm with ya, 40 here and north wind howlin, got the dutch oven heating up now :D

[FN in MT]

I did five, full buckets yesterday, the LAST of my WW's. It was a long 4 hours but seemed to have sorted out every Zn weight.

Today I melted down the last 50# of plumbers lead I had in to 1# ingots, and did a hundred 2, 3 and 4 oz pyramid sinkers for a surf fishing buddy in NJ. The sinkers were a good use of the contaminated lead (zinc) I have.

Cleaned everything up today, sat down had a cigar...and just got in the house. A good couple of days!

FN in MT

[detox]

Do not melt all of them at once. Save the rest for another rainy day. What type of ingot mould are you using?

Whenever i find these laying on the ground in a parking lot, i pick them up. Today a found one wheel weight in the back seat of my car that i had picked up and forgot about. FUN FUN FUN !:D

[imashooter2]

Where do you do your smelting when it's raining out? Smelting is a strictly outdoors activity for me...

[Ranger185]

Same here a beautiful day melted a hundred pounds of scraped plumbers lead this morning....

[161]

I smelt in a 30X30 garage with the doors open and some fans on. I use cupcake pans for molds. Made 360 3lb. cupcakes out of 6 buckets.
64313

[imashooter2]

That's a fair pile for a day's work. Congrats!

[detox]

360 x 3= 1080 lbs

Thats 37,800 bullets @ 200 grains each

[161]

If my math is correct 360 X 3=1080lbs. 1080 lbs. at $2.00 a lbs if you can find bullet lead for $2.00 a lbs. Would be $2160.00 worth of lead sitting on my floor.

[jmsj]

Good going!
This does remind me that I have to find time to smelt down the 4 1/2 buckets I have in the barn.
jmsj

[Smitty's Retired]

It was about 60 degrees and sunny where I live. But all I could find at my favorite Mom & Pop tire shop was a little over a half of a 5 gal bucket. But I was proud to find that. After sorting out the steel & zinc and smelting I came up with 65 lbs 2 oz. Happy, Happy, Happy!

[CML]

Perfect weather!

[Ranger185]

I did about 120 pounds Saturday man you made me a lightweight.....

[blikseme300]

We are forecast to have our first day in the high 90's today. What is that cold thing y'all talk about? My zip is 78541.

[alfloyd]

I smelted 4 days last week. Had 2, 55 gal barrels of reclaimed 22 LR slugs to clean up.
Got just over one barrel done. :-D
This is just one day's worth. I get about 50 lbs a hour with all the sand and rubber backstop material in the mix.

Lafaun

[161]

I hate to admit it but my butt is still draggin. Legs are sore.

[prs]

alfloyd, with that rubber mixed in, they prolly smelt it all over the neighborhood.

I render scrap lead on about any dry day with a bit of a breeze. A 100# batch is enough for about two or three months and it lets me guess at the alloy content by percent without getting all complicated with too much math.

prs

[dudits]

afloyd- any pics of what you use to screen with?
the range i will be mining soon is basically all sand. i built a sifter box 40" x 30" with 1/4"
square screen. i am hoping it works well.


yall have me jealous, i have 4 buckets of WW about 60lbs of lead pipe and 50-60 lbs of roof flashing

[alfloyd]

I did not use a screen. We just picked up the large chunks and then took the top 1/2 inch off the bed of sand.
That is why there is a lot of sand in the mix.

Lafaun