It's Mostly SOWW, I Think

[308Jeff]

Found 4 full buckets today at a used tire place. At a glance, appears to be a lot of lead SOWW. I'm guessing there's 700-750 lbs total (unsorted).

Finally got smart today and dumped the buckets from the tailgate into a wheelbarrow and took them around back.

Gonna have another full weekend of sorting, but I've come to enjoy it.

[Loudy13]

I am jealous nice get!

[Beagle333]

Well when you get a mold, you are gonna be set up, dude!!!! Good load of lead there!!!

[Jr.]

Nice, all those fancy wheels down there in the valley make for nice pickins. What caliber mold are you looking for? Maybe can help???

[Mitch]

Looks like a good deal to me.Might be more coww than ya think.time to get to work lol

[lightman]

Good Score! You're on a roll! That looks like a higher % of stick-ons than I usually see. Thats the way I sort, dump them out so you can scratch through them.

[jsizemore]

Fun time begins. I separate the painted from the unpainted SOWW's. The painted ones are about the same as COWW's.

[308Jeff]

I am jealous nice get!

Thank you. Got really lucky!

Well when you get a mold, you are gonna be set up, dude!!!! Good load of lead there!!!

Yeah it's getting about time for me to actually start casting something.

Nice, all those fancy wheels down there in the valley make for nice pickins. What caliber mold are you looking for? Maybe can help???

I think I'm going to start with a Lee 175TC for 40. Thank you!

Looks like a good deal to me.Might be more coww than ya think.time to get to work lol

Could very well be. I started picking at it a little bit last night. Mostly just sat there in the chair staring at it though.

Good Score! You're on a roll! That looks like a higher % of stick-ons than I usually see. Thats the way I sort, dump them out so you can scratch through them.

Yeah I was surprised at how much S.O. there is. Thinking the sort might go pretty quick.

Fun time begins. I separate the painted from the unpainted SOWW's. The painted ones are about the same as COWW's.

Good advice. I'll segregate them as well if there's any of quantity.

[308Jeff]

Been hacking at it for 3 evenings now.

My early guess is it's about 60% SOWW, 30% Steel/Junk, 5% COWW, and 5% Zinc.

[RogerDat]

I find a comfortable chair, a tray such as a printer paper box lid or small plastic bin that I refill and put on my lap works well. I then set buckets or bins to toss into nearby as I sort. Allows me to do much less bending to pick them up since I load the tray with several handfuls each time. I test each one with dikes to see if it is soft enough to "nip" and it helps putting the weights close to my hands to speed things up.

Nip, toss, nip, toss until tray is empty, refill tray and repeat. 4 buckets does sound like a lot of repeats. A happy awful lot.

[308Jeff]

Not as heavy as I thought, but I'm happy.

652 lbs total

40% Steel/Trash
3% Zinc
43% SOW
14% COW

[lightman]

You guessed pretty close at 700-750#. The % of non lead was more than I would have thought. A cheap Harbor Freight 2 wheel dolly makes moving those 5 gallon buckets easier. Its good for other things too! I store my ingots in plastic milk crates so the dolly comes in handy when I'm cleaning.

[308Jeff]

More than I thought it would be too. Just sat on the porch for a minute and looked at those two buckets full of steel... Totally useless. LOL. Great idea on the plastic milk crates! I'm gonna pick up a few.

[huntnman]

Warning a milk crate of ingots is HEAVY. Two wheeler good idea. I'm saving all FE weights and clips, hope to sell to recycler.

[bumpo628]

I find a comfortable chair, a tray such as a printer paper box lid or small plastic bin that I refill and put on my lap works well. I then set buckets or bins to toss into nearby as I sort. Allows me to do much less bending to pick them up since I load the tray with several handfuls each time. I test each one with dikes to see if it is soft enough to "nip" and it helps putting the weights close to my hands to speed things up.

Nip, toss, nip, toss until tray is empty, refill tray and repeat. 4 buckets does sound like a lot of repeats. A happy awful lot.

I do the same, but I stick a strong hard drive magnet to the back of the dikes. Helps to quickly check for steel weights. I wear latex or vinyl gloves too since there's all kinds of nasty stuff in those buckets sometimes.


Used tire stores usually have more stick-on weights since they reuse the clip-ons

[lightman]

Warning a milk crate of ingots is HEAVY. Two wheeler good idea. I'm saving all FE weights and clips, hope to sell to recycler.

I figure about 700 1# ingots when level full. I've grabbed ahold of some of mine and scooted them around but theres no picking them up. The dolly was pretty cheap and is useful on other projects.