you never know what uses will come up

[RogerDat]

I keep some sheet lead on hand for use to pad vice jaws. Or to form a flexible trough for draining fluids like oil or transmission fluid from awkward locations. I'm sure there are some who have a lead block or lead hammer for pounding without damaging harder metal parts.

But here was a new one on me. I know a nurse who while we were comparing the relative mess in our garages I said I had a pallet with 350 lbs. of lead right where dear wife would like to put her car, my mess is heavy so I win. She asked what the lead was for, I explained casting. She wondered if I ever made any weights. She wanted them to attach to birds so they could fly but still be anchored and unable to fly off.

Just so happens I had some 4 oz. fishing weights in a bucket that I had picked up as scrap but not really decided to melt yet. Sent her a picture with a quarter for size comparison, she said perfect. After I dropped them off she sent a picture of a smallish domestic bird about quail size on a thin red line being used to train their youngest bird dog to "lay off" and not attack the bird. The line lets the bird fly up away from the dog but the weights on the other end of the line make the line a sort of a tether that gives.

Never having trained a bird dog I had no idea that these weights could be useful for that purpose. Glad to see them getting used, and finding out about this use was interesting. Fishing friend will probably get the rest of them.

Any other interesting uses for lead other than bullets and door stops come up?

[john.k]

My brother used lead sheet to fix a water leak in his tile roof around the chimney......the builders had used plastic and silastic.

[truckjohn]

Fishing sinkers.

I whomped up about 40lbs of 1, 2, and 3 oz bank sinkers about a month ago..

What fun is a lead hoard if you aren't going to do anything with it....

[RogerDat]

Fishing sinkers.

I whomped up about 40lbs of 1, 2, and 3 oz bank sinkers about a month ago..

What fun is a lead hoard if you aren't going to do anything with it....

Does sitting in a chair, drinking a cold beverage while admiring the hoard count as "doing anything with it?" I have considered getting some sinker molds but don't have enough use. I do find the sinkers in scrap lead bins from time to time. Not knowing the lead alloy of them tends to keep me from purchasing them most of the time.

I'm will probably keep a few of these to use as a quick and dirty plumb line weight.

[Winger Ed.]

Interesting.

I keep a bunch of one pound ingots handy from a Lee mold that I use for different things.

I use them instead of a wooden block to use as a pad or drift when hammering on something.
When one gets mashed up, I'll toss it back in the bucket and get a fresh one.
The smashed ones still fit in the pot when casting.

[Dusty Bannister]

Exercise weights and blocks to hold wood pieces together while the glue is drying. Lead shot and epoxy to get the stock balance one likes. Winter driving weights to put weight over the drive tires in the winter.

[kevin c]

My club wants some weighted stands for moveable "No Parking" signs. There has been some interest in the ten pound lead ingots I have rather than the classic cement in a plastic bucket option. We shall see.

[Bookworm]

My club wants some weighted stands for moveable "No Parking" signs. There has been some interest in the ten pound lead ingots I have rather than the classic cement in a plastic bucket option. We shall see.

But, concrete in a bucket is so inexpensive.....

[Onebad06vtx]

It is a sin to use lead for no parking signs,just use concrete.
Plus if I seen no parking signs with lead bases,they might come up missing. lol

[wyofool]

Along those line, I toss the steel w/w in empty 1 gallon paint cans for weights.

[jsizemore]

Fella wanted a garage door on his boathouse. They use jon boat sized wood skiffs with electric trolling motors. I built the door from treated plywood and metal roofing. I used some lead ingots that were high in zinc for a counter balance to ease opening and closing the door by hand. Ingots were cast in large cupcake tins and a 1/2" hole drilled in the middle.

[Hossfly]

My wife needed some paper weights for holding plastic down on art project. Took a Lyman 1/2 # ingot, power coated it with Eastwood Ford light blue. Ok now she wants another, so powder coated with HF red, did not like that so gave up another in the Blue. Thought I found a way to get rid of that red but no she likes blue.

[Rooster]

Weights for my outdoor gazebo for stability on windy days. Just mounted them to the bottoms of the posts.

[lightman]

I've used lead for many of the things listed above. A couple of plastic milk crates once provided traction for a 2 wheel drive truck after an ice storm. A couple of ammo cans full of ingots held down a threshold until the adhesive dried. A couple of pieces of sheet lead made pads for my vice jaws. I'm about to melt enough zinc weights to make my son an anchor for his kayak. I plan to use a 16oz beer can and a stainless eye bolt. I've poured molten lead into Pine Wood Derby cars to bring them up to weight. I've also used new stick-on wheel weights for this. It looked pretty cool! I've poured lead Duck Decoy weights. I also have a few interesting weights, a few plumbing ingots and a few pieces of type on display just for conversation purposes! I once found a lead ingot in a field while hunting for Indian Artifacts! ( Its pretty common to find old home places where there are Indian Artifacts )

[kevin c]

I made a quarter sized swinging target to let me practice at home (laser or airsoft) on one style of moving target used in action pistol. The full sized targets have heavy, steel weighted pendulums. I used lead fishing weights (this was before I got my ingot molds, with which it would have been easier to get up to the weight needed).

[jonp]

Friend of mine wanted some weights for a lead sled. Told him I could give him the real deal in exchange for the use of the sled every once in a while.
Also use them to prop open doors.
Mashed a couple a little to level the washing machine.

[Eddie Southgate]

My lead holds the shop floor down when I'm not making bullets out it .

[David2011]

This is a very timely subject. In less than two weeks the movers will arrive. I've been working with the lead inventory today. There are four significant types of metal I'm dealing with and I'm trying to get everything into 100 pound or lighter containers. I think I have between 2000 and 2400 pounds so I haven't bought any for several years. I've been casting for a friend for several years because he was not able to lift the molds for extended periods of time any more. Once in a while he would come up with Linotype and would send it my way because he wanted 50/50 COWW and Lino. He died recently and the estate executor gave me another 5 gallons of Lino in slugs and set type.

I had the idea to keep just the ingotized WW, the Lino, Monotype and pure Pb and try to sell my intact wheelweights locally for 50 cents/pound but I know there aren't a lot of casters in this area and there's no significant water nearby so no great prospects of fishermen wanting to cast weights. I looked up TheCaptain's threads and saw that she quit selling COWW ingots in May so that's a factor. Then I looked at Fleabay, knowing I wouldn't REALLY want to buy metal there but it's a way to check prices.

The going price on Fleabay seems to be $2/lb with some at $2.50-$3.00/lb without knowing what you're actually getting. That puts paying $0.48/lb to move it in a whole different light. I'm still trying to determine how much weight of each type lead I have so I can buy new buckets. Some of the old ones are coming apart; no sense risking them dumping their contents in the moving van. I could move the lead myself for less but that would mean another 1400 mile round trip with all the associated risks of moving that much weight with a 19 year old F-150 and watching out for idiot drivers.

[georgerkahn]

David2011 -- reading your post, best wishes vis your new digs! Just a thought re your lead: I've had a few F-150s, and it is no surprise why they are so popular! If I still had one, I'd make a call or two to U-Haul and/or other trailer renters, and look into the cost of getting a tag-a-long for your lead move. Two most important -- but perhaps win-win add-ons, is to place your buckets of lead together on one level, perhaps filling ENTIRE floor/bed of trailer; and, then put a 2nd level of lead at the very first one or two rows -- to ensure sufficient tongue weight. In the Spring, wife & I took a rented trailer load "south" with machinery, tools, furniture, etc., to be dropped off at both sons' houses: The total rental coast was about sixty dollars; this was "one-way", albeit trailer place necessitated another 30-mile distance to drop it off. And, the gross weight was 3,000 pounds. (The second "-win" is the space above the lead, to add LOTS of light, say bulky, stuff which would ADD $$$ to movers, versus compact heavy stuff to readily fit into their van)
Of course, I know *I* kept the thought, "What if a sudden STOP -- e.g., braking -- would be necessitated?", so we drove extra slow and carefully -- e.g., just about the speed limit. A nice thing vis trailers is you're only pulling one way; we noticed in our case, albeit I expected a great decrease in miles-per-gallon -- to our surprise it was almost negligible, too.
Good luck!
geo

[truckjohn]

I cast lead strips for balancing model airplanes. It's perfect for this. Most model airplane guys used to use lino or wheel weights - but both of those are thin on the ground.

I am also seriously considering a lead hammer mold. A lead hammer would be super convenient.