Smelting?

[msp2640]

I'm a lucky recipient of a milk crate full of free lead roofing/ sheeting from the gent who manages our landfill. My question is - it appears most of it has some tar/ asphalt applied to it. Should I just smelt away and skim it off or proceed some other way. I mostly have dealt with wheel weights, working with this stuff is new to me. I know it's soft, so I realize I'll have to harden the alloy, just looking for anything else I should be aware of - Thanks Bill L

[ilcop22]

I can't give a definitive answer to this question, but I can offer the following:
Roofing tar has a flashpoint of over 500 degree Farenheit. Some tars give off toxic gases when burned. Not sure if this is true for roofing tar.

Best bet is to try and scrape the tar off (if possible) and, as always, add it to a cold pot in case there's some trapped moisture.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge on this can help out!

[Marlin Hunter]

You could try soaking the lead in turpentine, or paint thinner. Gasoline may also work but is too flammable.

you should also wear a respirator mask with a P100 filter

[canebreaker]

You could post it on craigslist.org as a awap for harder lead. Fishermen want it for split shots, duck hunters want it for decoy anchors.
Soak it in any flammable liquid as Marlin said. Save it for other parts cleaning, or bottle it for EPA day. You could go to a junkyard and ask about removing some old gas from a fuel tank. The stuff stinks and can't be use in an auto. You could melt the lead and have the neighbors complain about the odor of the melting tar.

[leftiye]

Melt it! The tar will become flux. yup, it will smoke!

[WILCO]

Sell it at the recyclers and use the cash to by a better grade of lead........

[odoh]

My experience smelting roofjacks etc is that it releases a LOT of dirt. The dirt seems to wanna stick to the sides and bottom of the pot. Scrapping those area during fluxing will release it to float on the top for skimming ~ using a screwdriver/chiesel imprint each ingot w/the letter L for (pure) Lead while still hot.

I know, its just me but I like to store lead in its simplist form and do the alloying later when needed as the future requirements may be different than what I'm thinking/seeing today.

[KYCaster]

Put it in the freezer for a while, then while it's still cold beat it with a hammer. Most of the tar will break and fall off, leaving you with much less of a mess to deal with in the melting pot.

Jerry

[mooman76]

I've done it before. It is a sticky smokey mess. Try to get off what you can and then melt.

[qajaq59]

Put it in the freezer for a while, then while it's still cold beat it with a hammer. Most of the tar will break and fall off, leaving you with much less of a mess to deal with in the melting pot.

Jerry Sounds logical. I wonder how well it would work?

[Nate1778]

Depends on what "tar" is, if its modified roof cement freezing it won't do any good. If it is tar from a kettle in the purest form then the majority of chunks that would fall off after freezing have properly already fell off. Being a gent that has run a kettle a couple times in my life, I would say it is a irritant, but would not breath it. Melt it down and skim the top, just stay upwind of the smoke. It will not flash off more then likely if you start the lead cold, if you throw it in a hot pot it will flash. I agree with the previous poster it would probably flux out.

Keep in mind it is pure lead, mix it with wheel weights and tin.

[XWrench3]

old gasoline, no matter how stinky it may be, is still very, very flammable! just because it is old, does not make it any safer. that being said, for more years than i care to think about, our family has used gasoline to wash everything from wheel bearings to garage floors. the only incident we ever had, was one that i had predicted 5 minutes before it happened, and any idiot could have forseen the consequenses. my older brother (the true idiot) was washing the floor in our garage with gasoline to cleann up a mess he had made from pulling an auto engine/transmission. we had done this many times with no problems. what made this time different, was that it was -10 degrees, and my brother decided it was to cold to leave all the doors open. so in his infinate wisdom, he closed all the doors, and lit the heater in the back of the garage. when the fumes were so strong, that my eyes were a stream of tears, i quit, went in and told my mother he was going to blow the place to bits. she came out and told him to open the doors back up. he never would. guess what happend next DUH! fortunatly, my little brother and older brother got out without more than getting singed hair. and really, the garage didn't turn out all that bad considering it had been a combustion chamber. my father was so mad, he wouldn't even talk to my brother for over a week, and when he did, it was UGLY. it was a good thing my brother was going back to the army. he had been home on leave for Christmas. so what i am telling you, is, if you use reasonable safety measures, you probably will not have any problems, but, if you are not carefull, it could get ugly, fast. my family was very lucky that december. all you have to be is careful. i have continued to use gasoline all of these years, without one single incident. you just gotta use that bump on your shoulders for more than growning hair on! it is just like a firearm. if you respect it, and treat it as if it could kill someone at any minute, you will not have problems. but when you get complacent, and get lazy, or careless, bad things happen in a hurry!

[msp2640]

Thanks for the info - I think I'll try a few small pieces to see how it works out and if it's worth the effort. I must have a couple of hundred feet of the flashing and it appears that most of it, is only partially covered. If the sample pieces don't work out too well, I'll try to use the best of the rest and scrap the remaining. Thanks Bill L