Saturday Afternoon Smelt and Experiment

[lightman]

While cleaning up in the shop today I found a bunch of crossarm pins and pole top pins ( the thing that the insulator screws on ) that I scored. The threads are lead, maybe 3 or 4 ounces of soft lead on each. I had left some wheelweight alloy in my big pot so I loaded them in the old Dutch oven that Grandpa used years ago. They were slow to melt, being bulky and not having much contact with the pot. I got them melted and fluxed and started pouring ingots when the tank ran out. I'll finish up tomorrow and get some more pictures. Here is what they look like. It might be another source for some of you!





I'll count the pins and ingots tomorrow and see if it was worth the effort. I'll also check the hardness and test for Zinc. We worked a lot of overtime last Summer and Fall doing maintenance and these were being thrown away and I forgot about getting them. I've never seen anyone post about these so I thought I would. I'm pretty sure the lead is dead soft. I got about half of a Dutch oven full, so I'm not sure it was cost effective. It was still more lead than a dental x-ray foil, although it was dirtier than I expected.

[labradigger1]

I'm not sure at what temp it becomes dangerous for airborne galvanic poisoning but most utility pole hardware is hot dipped galvanized. Smelting indoors could be an issue. You may also get zinc in your melt.
Lab

[jsizemore]

That looks like a goodly amount of lead on each. Did you try splitting them off with a hammer and chisel? Might have helped seed up the process a bit

[zuke]

That looks like a goodly amount of lead on each. Did you try splitting them off with a hammer and chisel? Might have helped seed up the process a bit

I'd have to agree with him. Hammer and chisel, and maybe a hack saw?

[lightman]

Labradigger1, you're right they are galvanized. They are very weathered and most of it seems to be gone. I'm pretty sure that I'm not hot enough to melt it. The shop has a 36" exhaust fan in the end and I run my 48" floor fan in the doorway, so I think I'm safe enough. When I drop something dirty or greasy in the pot I can see that the smoke is being sucked right out, and I can feel the air moving. You can't see the fans in the pictures, but you have a valid safety concern and I appreciate it!

Jsizemore, I tried that on a few and it will split but it was very slow. I also considered cutting the ends off in a chop saw. It was easier to wait the little extra time for it to melt. If I had a hydraulic press I may have been able to rig up something to split them with. Hum, another toy for the shop!

I'll get out after while and finish pouring ingots. I want to count the leftover pins and determine if it was even worth the effort. After yesterdays ingots age 24 hours I'll check the hardness and do an acid test for zinc.

[lightman]

Well, I'm a little disappointed. I ended up with 27 full 1# ingots and a short pour to empty the pot. With 117 pins that is a little under 4 ounces per. An air cooled sample about 22 hours old tested .075-.077 on my Cabine Tree tester, which is about what new wheelweights are. I have no idea what alloy it is, just its hardness. A test with acid showed no Zinc and the melted lead showed no signs of it. They felt softer than that. Here are a few more pictures.









I guess any free lead is good and I was paid overtime while I scrounged these, so Win Win! Sorry about the size of the pictures, I'm still struggling with the whole pic thing!

[spokeshave]

If you have access to a good anvil and have an arm like Popeye, try giving them a few good whacks with a 3-4 pound hammer and see if the lead will loosen up, should be eaiser than using a chisel and would melt faster without the additional "heat sink" attached

[country gent]

Might try putting the steel end in a vise and a big pipe wrench to twist them off.

[lightman]

Thanks for the replys, Guys. Since I've retired I doubt that I'll get a chance to get any more of these. The end with the lead was knurled so it did not want to unscrew. They did not want to separate even when I busted them pretty good. The easiest way seemed to be to just melt them. Once I got a puddle started I could let it cool, remove the steel, add another load and go from there.

I mostly just posted this out of boredum and in the hopes that another caster might run across some of these. If you live in a place where lead is scarce it might be worth while. I'm not sure it was worth my time and effort. As lead is getting harder to find I though another source would be interesting to other casters.

I will probably just add these to the next batch of wheelweights that I melt since the hardness is about the same and 27# is not really enough for me to keep as a separate batch.

[lolbell]

I too am a lineman and have not given PTPs a thought until reading his. It's not every day you change one out but after a storm or restring their are usually quite a few in the scrap bin. I have 4-5 years before retirement to collect. Do you think it was worth the effort?

[lightman]

Well, I really don't know. If lead is hard to get where you live I would say to go for it. I had 117 pins and netted 27 pounds of lead, or about 4oz per. It took a couple of hours to do this. I thought it was going to be soft lead but it tested out to be about the hardness of wheelweights. They were a little slow to melt because there was so much air space in the pot but there are a number of ways to work around that. At one time our company used metal meter seals with a little lead slug in them for the installer to press his ID into and the demand seals were wire with a lead slug. You might watch for them too, although its like collecting 22 bullets!

Also, try to make friends with your counterpart at the phone company. There is still some lead covered cable around and lead splice covers.

[JSnover]

I'm not sure at what temp it becomes dangerous for airborne galvanic poisoning but most utility pole hardware is hot dipped galvanized. Smelting indoors could be an issue. You may also get zinc in your melt.
Lab

Melting the zinc may not be hazardous (though I could be wrong). No one has brought it up as far as I know. In my own experience the zinc in my pots has never bothered me but that is just melted zinc. If you burn it you will have problems. I inadvertently burnt some zinc off a galvanized part I was trying to weld years ago. Lots of smoke and a splitting headache.

[lolbell]

Right now WW are not too bad hard to come by, but I am seeing more steel and zinc in the mix. I have a friend that works in our training center that instructs our underground crews. 3 or 4 times a year he holds classes with real time hands on instruction. The splices are sealed with pure lead sheeting. After the splices are graded they are trashed. My friend saves those splices and brings them to me. The lead sheeting from each splice is about 15lbs of pure lead. I get 12-15 of these after each session. I am fairly new to casting and have not gotten into mixing alloys yet and don't have need for pure lead. After retirement I'll get more involved with this venture and try mixing for a suitable alloy. Until that day I'll use WWs, I think I have enough to get me by until then.

[10 ga]

I'd try a chopping block and a hatchet and I'm thinking they'd come off with just a few whacks. Wouldn't hurt to try rather than heating all that steel. JMO 10 ga

[lightman]

Well Guys, Thanks for the replys and suggestions. I tried several things to separate the lead from the steel and melting them was the easiest. It would have been quicker but for my rule of never adding solid lead to molten lead. After the pot full of pins melted I would let the lead harden before I added more. I've met the Tinsel Fairy and not found her to be all that attractive!

I posted this mostly to show fellow casters another source of lead, although a pretty uncommon one. There are a lot of sources of lead that are not that well known. In this day and age, lead is getting harder to find and any source can be welcome. At 4 ounces per pin this was like finding 117 4Oz wheel weights!

There has not been a lot of activity on this thread since its gotten hotter, and I was getting bored! I'll post up some more pics of my next smelt, hopefully in a week or so. Ingots take up so much less room than 5 gallon buckets!