cast from ore?

[Rockydog]

I grew up on a farm in Southwest Wisconsin. My uncle farmed next door and that property is still in the family. This land is about 70 miles north of the heavy lead deposits that brought the Cornish miners to the territory, and gave it the nick name the Badger state as they lived in the earth like Badgers. However, there is a minor lead vein on that farm. Has anybody on here ever smelted lead from ore? I don't know if I could find this vein as I haven't walked that land for 40 years. I probably don't want to until fall either as there is a big timber Rattler den there too. Wondered if it would be worth the bother to try smelting raw ore.

I'm here just gathering ideas as I get ready to start casting. I've got molds, a sizer. lead etc. just need a smelting and casting pot and I'm ready to go. RD

[dwtim]

I know there are some folks here who worked in the mining industry. I'm wondering how one would get rid of the sulfur with minimal equipment and in small batches.

[MtGun44]

A quick look at the web indicates that PbO (lead oxide) can be converted to metallic lead
by heating with carbon, liberating carbon dioxide. If you have some lead ore, try breaking
it into fairly fine granules and mix about 50-50 ground charcoal (BBQ type should work) and
heat the mix and stir. Probably get some molten metallic lead, crud (non-oxides, like maybe sulfides
which are common with many metals, maybe not with lead) and outgassed carbon dioxide.

It would be interesting to try.

Bill

[Jim]

Might work, but doesn't sound like it would be fuel/time efficient.

[dubber123]

I just watched a show on lead mining. It takes ALOT of ore to make a useable amount of lead. At one point in the process IIRC, they mix it in with soapy water, and the finely ground lead ore suspends itself on the soap bubbles on the surface. This was skimmed off, dried, and smelted.

Seeing the absolutely HUGE ingots in the foundry made me drool. Another method might work on a small scale. I would sure like to try. Even if you only got enough for a few boolits, how cool is that?!

[Mtman314]

I took a metalurgy course for the non-metalurgist at the foundry I was working at in Penna. During that course they mentioned that galena was processed by the Woodsmen by putting raw ore into hollow stumps and packing firewood around it and setting it on fire. After it burned out they would then dig through the mess left to get the cooled lead to make bullets. This was the only time I ever heard anything about this. I don't even remember READING ANYTHING IN THE FOXFIRE BOOKS ON THIS SUBJECT AT ALL. {@#%@# caps}. I have never come across it in any other reading material nor in factual books at all. Perhaps someone has a mountain man publication with some of this in?

[Milton]

Have you seen lead ore on the property? If there is lead ore present it probably occurs with zinc ore and a few other minerals.Probably the lead ore is in the form of the mineral galena or lead sulfide.It is easy to separate from the other minerals as it looks like lead and is very heavy like lead but it is not malleable like lead.
Processing it is another thing altogether.You can do it and it might be profitable IF you have a lot of ore.
Many years ago galena was processed by heating a mixture of iron and lead ore in the presence of excess oxygen to just over 1000 degrees.The iron "pulls" the sulfur from the galena leaving a crude mass of material containing elemental lead.
Sounds like some interesting property!

[fourarmed]

I don't recall just where I read it, but Elmer Keith wrote of making bullets from run-of-the-mine ore. Claimed that the alloy was one of the best he ever used.

[rockrat]

Probably had some Silver in the ore.

[Dean D.]

You definitely would want respiratory protection, one by-product of smelting galena is H2SO4...Sulphuric Acid. Not to mention lead exposure.

I'll be interested in hearing more on this subject, there are many galena deposits near me and if wheel weights become too hard to find a guy's gonna have to find lead somewhere!

[Boerrancher]

I have a few veins of lead on my place along with iron and tiff, and countless other minerals. I have smelted galena into lead, and found that it was a good deal of work. I crushed the galena into dust, started heating it in my WW melting kettle, and stirring the stuff with a cedar rod on occasion. What I ended up with out of 100 lbs of galena was about 6 lbs of lead and 94 lbs of crap that I couldn't do anything with. I also used a good deal of propane, along with a lot of muscle and sweat while I was grinding it.

If I ever try it again I will try smelting it in a stump. Every year I end up with a few stumps and brush piles to burn. If it works I have gained some lead with little effort, and if it doesn't I haven't lost anything but a few min of my time, because I needed to burn the stump and brush pile anyway. I will say that until the day comes that I can no longer get lead, I will not smelt galena in a pot with propane again.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[snaggdit]

It sounds like you could combine the advise given above and make a try at it. Get some ore, break it into small pieces with a sledge, add taconite pellets and crushed charcoal, heat to 1000 degrees and stir a lot! You might want a recycled 20# propane smelter to do a large batch in. Would be interesting to see what the hardness of the result turns out to be.

[JIMinPHX]

What does galena look like anyway? Does anybody have some pics?

[C A Plater]

You can probably find a picture via Wikipedia. I've seen some in person and it was a gray colored rock with a soft metallic sheen and some what crystalline structure. As I recall it seemed heavy for it's size compared to a regular rock but memory fades. This was in some tourist trap in Galena, Illinois my ex dragged me to.

[Dean D.]

You can see pictures of galena over on http://www.MinDat.org :wink:

Boer, probably the reason you had so much waste is from oxidation. Next time you try it throw a bunch of charcoal on top of the ore. Charcoal acts as a "reducer", not allowing oxygen to oxidize the melt. I believe they use coke in industrial smelting processes. Basically this does the same thing as burning it in a stump with firewood stacked on top. I found a few interesting articles concerning smelting galena by just googling "smelting galena". :coffeecom

[Rockydog]

Thanks for all the replies here. I didn't expect this much interest and input. As I remember the rocks I saw it in were heavy for their size as compared to the chert and limestone native to that area. The ore was an inclusion in other igneous rock, appeared metallic and sheared along straight lines leaving flat faces. I seem to remember it having a gray, green, purple sheen. Not sure. As I said this was 40-45 years ago. RD

[snaggdit]

Well, we're all addicted to lead on this forum and always looking for the next fix...

[JIMinPHX]

Thanks for all the replies here. I didn't expect this much interest and input.

Are you kidding me? It's no big secret that legislative creep constantly eats away at our rights & our access to shooting supplies. Anything that smacks of a permanent, unstoppable supply of material for us, gets center stage attention. At least that's the way that I feel about it. ;-)

Thanks for bringing the subject up.

[JIMinPHX]

You can see pictures of galena over on http://www.MinDat.org :wink:


That website is an excellent resource.

[Dean D.]

I agree Jim, MinDat rocks <pun intended>! [smilie=l:

If you dig deeper on MinDat you will find reported localities listed for the mineral in question. Sometimes this helps if you are trying to collect a specimen for yourself. I have been visiting and using MinDat almost since it's inception. Jolyon has done a fantastic job with his site over the years.

BTW, if you hold a chunk of pure galena in your hand you will know immediately what you have. With a specific gravity (weight) of 7.2 - 7.6 it is very heavy for it's size. For reference, gold's SG is 19.3, pure lead is 11.3, cast iron is 7.2.

Now we just need to perfect the mini-smelter for us casters! :idea:

[GLL]

Here are some cleavage fragment samples of galena from my teaching collection.

Be aware that galena occurs with the mineral sphalerite which is (Zn,Fe)S so zinc is a potential problem !

The cost of smelting galena would be prohibitive and very "messy" ! :)

Jerry

http://www.fototime.com/FF710CEA50F2952/orig.jpg

[ghh3rd]

GLL - did you wash your hands after taking that pic? :wink:

[MoldyJoe]

Probably had some Silver in the ore.

I know that would be great for casting Werewolf boolets, but what about zombies? joe

[jgt]

I guess I was just lucky when I was a kid but my best friend and I was doing our usual "hike the countryside" thing when he grabbed my arm and said stop. He had seen a gray looking vein of something running through the black gumbo soil. He said you know what that is? I said no. He said that's lead. I was always impressed at the things he knew that I didn't so I took his word for it. We looked around and found an empty Folgers coffee can and dug some of it out and into the can. We took it home and built a fire under the can and like something magical it turned into this shiny liquid with some stuff floating on top. We skimmed it off with an old serving spoon. We drilled holes in a two by four and made fishing sinkers from it. Being only nine or ten years old at the time I thought it was neat to get free sinkers but reading on hear I get the idea it must have been something that is not common. We didn't have to smelt more than a three pound coffee can full of ore to get about a cup of molten lead. I never did it again because that make all the sinkers we each needed at the time. The ore was grey but more like dirt than clumps of heavy stuff as I recall it now. You folks seem to know much more about this so was our experience extremely unusual ? I was seriously thinking of trying it again until I read this thread and was surprised at the things said here.

[Jim_Fleming]

JGT, the main thing is safety and that DEFINITELY includes ventilation... There very likely would be no harm and no damage done, etc... Just so long as you make sure that the ore fumes are forced away from yourself and anyone else.

I'm not saying the other folks on here are wrong, just be careful.

Wear safety glasses, and a .full. face shield, long heavy sleeves, a full leather apron, heavy heat resistant gloves, you get the idea. Don't get hurt.

Again ventilation is .most. important in fact I'd say it's more important than everything else I just wrote, because as awful as this is going to sound, small burns will heal in a few weeks, ingested lead takes months if not years, and maybe never to get rid of.

I've cleaned up a lot of wheel weights in my time, etc.. And I knew at the time I didn't have intensive ventilation, but I've also not had any troubles with lead. and yes, I have been checked a few times since those days.

Jim

[geargnasher]

So, what do you think, Rockydog? Are you still going to try it? I think that it would be very neat to try just to at least say you've done it. Plus I'm curious.;-)

Gear

[Rockydog]

geargnasher, If I get over there and find some I'll try to smelt it just to satisfy my curiosity. Hell, everything in life is worth trying once. By the way I learned to drive on a 53 International 2 1/2 ton truck with a 4 and 2. If you learn how to double clutch down and split shift up those gears don't gnash. RD

[zxcvbob]

When I render dirty lead scavanged from the outdoor range, or badly oxidized WW's, I save the black sand and other skimmings. When I get enough to mess with (maybe 10 pounds), I smelt them. I put the stuff in a stainless steel pan with a lid, and I mix in a good amount of sawdust and old motor oil. Then I cook the devil out of in on an electric hotplate with the lid on tight. Over half of it converts back to hard lead.

It's not really worth the trouble and the electricity, but I feel better about making boolits out of it rather than sending lead oxide to the landfill.

[NoZombies]

I know that would be great for casting Werewolf boolets, but what about zombies? joe

Nah, For Zombies, any run of the mill projectile, if properly motivated, will do the trick :)

[Mtman314]

we used to use a very small rock ram crusher it wouldn't take more than about 5 lbs of metal at a time in the foundry to do samples. That might crush the raw particles alot faster.

[Bloodman14]

Check out the website "Instructables", and type in 'forge'. I built one to melt/recover the lead in TV tubes & monitors (got the idea from this forum!), but cant seem to maintain the heat long enough. I'm still working on it! It may be possible to adapt it to ore smelting.

[wallenba]

Could be Galena ore, some deposits are high in sulfur and silver. I suppose though, that the silver would have played out by now, or is not cost affective to mine.

[Jim_Fleming]

Dumb question Gunnerd: Is it possible that you simply started running out of whatever fuel gas you were using? I'm assuming it was propane, but natural gas is most certainly not out of the question...

Jim


Check out the website "Instructables", and type in 'forge'. I built one to melt/recover the lead in TV tubes & monitors (got the idea from this forum!), but cant seem to maintain the heat long enough. I'm still working on it! It may be possible to adapt it to ore smelting.

[76 WARLOCK]

My great grandfather used to own a lead mine near Joplin MO, but I have no idea where it is.

[Jim_Fleming]

Warlock that information, ...should be... in the public records for what ever county Joplin might be in, or at least the surrounding counties. Bear in mind that old mine might be sealed off, or at least be on *private* property.