I've been told that you need to be careful of that big box sawdust because of the plywood glue in it.
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I just dump mine in with the next batch of scrap when it's time to make more ingots. That way it doesn't cost any more time or effort.
It'll cook down to a glob of carbon something or other...it'll come out with the dross. I've got plenty of melamine white backed composite board shavings in my table saw and plenty of multi layered cabinet plywood sawdust too, it doesn't cause me any grief in the ingot smelt...generally there's a lot more other foreign matter in there with the dirty wheel weights or roof sealant and paint with the flashing Pb.
The sawdust does it's job and seals off the melt if you use enough of it. In a 40 lb. pot of Pb I usually have at least 4 cups of sawdust in there...don't really measure it, just pile it in as the melt starts so it will cook down and cover the smelt from the beginning.
No, I give it to my buddy who scraps it.
Doesn’t washing and fussing with dross increase your exposure to bad stuff and also contaminate your property?
Yes, I do as Mary does, but I just resmelt it during the next smelting session with whatever amount I have saved up.
It could...but if you just save it in soup cans or such, then just process it with other scrap lead, then I can't imagine you are increasing your exposure...you are just exposed as you would be, without re-processing the dross. Always take appropriate precautions when handling lead...washing your hands before eating/smoking/drinking is a BIG one.
I was thinking of this as I smelted 700 lbs of lead yesterday. That small box of dros left over surely contained a few boxes of 45acp worth of lead, but I was happy to remove it from my property rather than expose my self to it yet again for maybe 1$ worth of lead. I know we are cheap but I draw the thrifty line there personally.
I have dross, and pot skimmings, and drips, and chips, and rejected bullets, and <whatever else> in bread loaf pan. When I get a couple or three filled I dump in dutch oven and use a wooden 2x2 to crush the stuff against the bottom to work the lead out. Let cool, dump remaining ash/dross and keep slab of lead in bottom. I may pursue the metal can on campfire approach in one of the posts just because I burn stuff and would save cost of propane. I NOT cheap, thrifty. Very thrifty.
I have 3 slabs that total around 20 lbs. from doing this. XRF said it was low grade COWW lead with a few percent of tin. Will melt one in bottom of 100 lb. batch of Wheel Weights and should be pretty good. Or I could melt them together and get tested so I could "adjust" to a known good alloy. Bottom line is 20 pounds of lead is 20 lbs. of lead. Be very odd indeed if I were to be throwing that out.