Sailboat Keel

[kevin c]

Most of the lead keels I've heard about were cast solid lead. Are you saying that you can actually see that yours is shot embedded in resin? Like F_L said, that could be a very smokey melt out.

[BallisticExpansion]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0wwih5zgy...73202.jpg?dl=0

See pic of keel. Yes it is shot I can see. In the top left you will see some pieces already removed. The lead chips off fairly easily once exposed and attacked.

[BallisticExpansion]

I've cut a few sailboats and salvaged some keels. A sawzall works on fiberglass buts beats you death and wears out blades. My favorite tools for cutting fiberglass are a 4" angled grinder and skil saw with the diamond blades.They look like this:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Diablo-4...102P/305506537
These blades have a small kerf so less dust. They cut fiberglass easily.
The keel sounds like lead shot encased in resin. The resin is probably brittle. You should be able to break it into chunks with a hammer and chisel. The resin is flammable. LOTS of black smoke!
Good luck.

Yep. I had the same blade for cutting a stone mantle for my fireplace a few months ago, might be able to dig it out without buying a new one. I'm going to get a lead dust respirator at HD this weekend. When I smelt the lead I'll build a hardwood fire surrounded by cinder blocks and rest my pot on edges of block. Dump lead in and walk away for a half hour or however long it takes to melt.

[BallisticExpansion]

I did a fiberglass coated keel. Used a hatchet to get the fiberglass shell off. Then hung the keel and used a propane torch. Water filled buckets caught the liquid lead.. the area under the buckets was covered with a canvas tarp.

This keel was only 190 pounds

I could do that. I have an excavator and skid steer to move it/hang it with. You used a normal handheld propane torch? How much propane did you use??!

[Conditor22]

Problem with an unattended fire is lead gets toxic when you overheat it.

Can you use a chisel and remove most of the fiberglass?

I'd go at the rebar with some crowbars and get it out, a torch would help with any stubborn spots.

[Baltimoreed]

I couldn’t get lead shot locally at one time because of Fountain Powerboats in Washington, NC [high speed cigar boats] kept buying it up as soon as the gunshop got any in. They used it in their keels too.

[BallisticExpansion]

Problem with an unattended fire is lead gets toxic when you overheat it.

Can you use a chisel and remove most of the fiberglass?

I'd go at the rebar with some crowbars and get it out, a torch would help with any stubborn spots.

It wouldn't be unattended, just viewed from afar lol. I have a digital laser thermometer to check temps as well.

[David2011]

Ever see a boat burn? Polyester resin based fiberglass burns like gasoline mixed with dirty oil.

[uscra112]

If it's really lead shot as for shotguns, it'll have an unpleasant amount of antimony in it. Also some arsenic.

[BallisticExpansion]

If it's really lead shot as for shotguns, it'll have an unpleasant amount of antimony in it. Also some arsenic.

I'm not too concerned about it. I will powder coat it and water quench and shoot. It will only be used for 9mm 124gr bullets pushing 900FPS mainly. I'm going to experiment with high velocity with gas check and see what happens as well.

[David2011]

Unpleasant amount of antimony = too hard to obturate. Shot is really hard. It would mix well with some pure lead for a softer alloy more appropriate for 900 FPS loads.

[Dusty Bannister]

Might reconsider the comment about unpleasant amount of antimony and arsenic. According to Cast Bullets - E H Harrison, at the time of the article (1979) shot had about 6% antimony with a BHN of 13. Other sources gave the hard shot (magnum shot) as 15 BHN and chilled shot as 12 BHN. Chilled shot of course is precipitation hardened so would be softer after melting and air cooling.

I would not be too concerned about the hardness at this point. If you would read about others experiences with recovered shot from trap fields, breaking the oxide coating was the hardest part of smelting this shot. I would not expect a boat builder to buy the magnum shot just to pour into a ballast block, but the cheapest soft lead is going to be more likely. Good luck, this will be an interesting chore ahead of you. Dusty

[tja6435]

I cut one up with a chainsaw, set a tarp under to catch all the shavings, as there will be a lot.

[Chainsaw.]

Use an axe to bust off the fiberglass. Weed burner torch to welt away swaths of lead on a sheet of steel?

[garbler]

I have salvaged and cut up thousands of pounds of keel ballast lead. Keep in mind every hurricane results in hundreds of thousands of pounds of lead keels. So anyway I almost always pass on envelope keels or keels where the lead is encapsulated in a heavy fiberglass envelope. These are just too much work for me but where there is a will there is a way. I prefer bolt on keels that can be cut loose or unbolted to drop.

Your keel can be stripped of the glass by using an abrasive cut off wheel on a circular saw. Cut 4-6" wide strips then with a wrecking bar peel it off. It never bonds very well to cast lead. But you need to make sure your keel is indeed a cast lead keel. Most envelope keels are made by pouring in all kinds of crud from lead shot, boiler punchings etc and then dump left over polyester shop resin on top to form a big heavy plug. If your keel looks like this walk away. There is no reasonable way to salvage it.

I always cut up lead keels with a chain saw. Short bar and make sure the blade rakers are not filed down for aggressive wood cutting. The saw will buck if you back off the rpms so keep them up and it will work fine. I always put down a plastic tarp since you will end up with lots of pound of chips. I worked in a shipyard in Fla about forty-five years go and was on a crew of four men chainsawing big chunks of lead. Not sure why or how it works but we always poured turps in the cut periodically. It helped lubricate the cut ?

The big keel casting companies run about 1.5-3.0% antimony in large keel pours to reduce shrinkage. I've never ran across commercially made keels with zinc. It's generally good quality stuff

Rick

[Chainsaw.]

Thats really good to know Rick. I’ll have alot of scrap sail boat keels in my future so this is great!

[BallisticExpansion]

Keel is off the truck and onto a tarp

I've decided how to attack it. I'm going to pretty much what grabler said. Cutting strips in the fiber glass with a diamond coated saw blade on my skill saw. I can get behind the fiber glass quite easily now so I should be able to peel off the strips with a crowbar/pry bar. Then a pickax will break off most chunks of lead. A hammer and chisel will work for some of the tighter areas I hope.

PPE: Lead Dust/Mold Respirator, leather gloves, safety glasses.

Thank you for all of the suggestions folks!

[uscra112]

Might reconsider the comment about unpleasant amount of antimony and arsenic. According to Cast Bullets - E H Harrison, at the time of the article (1979) shot had about 6% antimony with a BHN of 13. Other sources gave the hard shot (magnum shot) as 15 BHN and chilled shot as 12 BHN. Chilled shot of course is precipitation hardened so would be softer after melting and air cooling.

For his 9mm you're right - it'll be OK. I'm biased against antimony because I mostly now cast for old guns that prefer softer alloys. And I honestly thought that shot had more antimony in it than it does.