you never know what uses will come up

[dpoe001]

My brother has a scrap metal dumpster at his house,a lot of people will drop off things .he called me one day to come pick up some lead(took 3 of us to load on my truck) some one made a parking block out of lead(the cement parking blocks found in parking lots).2 three quarter inch black pipes thru the center.You could see the layers as they melted it,when i tested it it is the same hardness as wheel weights.

[David2011]

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

I have a nice weather tight CM trailer that would be suitable. The axle is well aft on it so it has adequate tongue weight even when empty. It has a capacity of 2900 pounds; I just was hoping to not have to make another 1400 mile round trip. Lead is not the only thing I was trying to avoid having the movers transport. I don't want them to transport the firearms so they'll have to go in that trailer. The way people drive on some of the roads I take make driving pretty risky. Last trip in one afternoon I had 5 people pass in no passing zones and one of then forced someone onto the shoulder. They couldn't wait another 2 miles to a passing lane which is announced by signage well in advance.

[David2011]

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.

Fortunately I got a lead hammer from Theperfessor before he left the forum. It's really handy for aligning stock in a 3 jaw chuck. Unless it needs a lot of weight I use shot or boolits in a plastic bag to balance my airplanes so it fits in the space available easily. On a couple I've cut off part of an ingot and drilled it to mount to the firewall but drilling COWW ingots is almost as bad as drilling pure lead.

[RogerDat]

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.

A Home Depot Homer Bucket can stack 3 or even 4 high with around 75 lbs. of lead in each bucket. Three high is pretty easy, but that fourth bucket is a bit of work to get up that high. They nest inside each other and make a very solid column. A little less weight than 75# would probably be appreciated by the movers, the driver on the other hand wants a dense load. Which is why I mentioned stacking. Only dead space is the top of the top bucket. Should be solid enough to stack some additional items on top of the buckets, if the weight of those items isn't too extreme.

With moving your time is probably pretty tight. However one can make fast ingots using bread loaf pans. Fill them a couple of inches deep and you have approx. 15 to 18 lb. ingots that are in easy to stack flat slabs. Or lay flat along a section of floor for other items to stack on. With moving even if one could pour a hundred pound pot of melted WW's really fast in 8 bread loaf pans as opposed to smaller ingot molds it takes time to do the melting, skimming and fluxing. Time you might not have. If you decide to go that route Salvation Army and thrift stores can be a great source of cheap bread loaf pans. However they are not expensive for cheap ones and they work as well as good ones I think. Without non-stick coating is better.

If you look on the floor next to the blue bucket you will see some of those slabs. Mine are about an inch and run 10 - 12 lbs. There are also some on the next shelf to the right of bags of shot, and some on 2nd shelf up on the far right end.


The ones on the floor are sitting on a Harbor Freight furniture moving dolly with a rope attached to pull it out. I can tell you ain't no one pulling that thing far unless it is down hill on a smooth surface.

[Dusty Bannister]

If you are going to stack plastic buckets over a partial bucket of ingots, put a circular scrap of plywood over the lead of the bottom bucket or the ingots will punch through the bottom of the top bucket. Even thick foam insulation sheets will distort and support the plastic bucket without damage to the bucket. Also be watching for ingots pressing against the sides of the bucket as they will stretch and split the sides.

[RogerDat]

If you are going to stack plastic buckets over a partial bucket of ingots, put a circular scrap of plywood over the lead of the bottom bucket or the ingots will punch through the bottom of the top bucket. Even thick foam insulation sheets will distort and support the plastic bucket without damage to the bucket. Also be watching for ingots pressing against the sides of the bucket as they will stretch and split the sides.

Good tip. I only have used this to store actual WW's. Don't recall ever trying to store ingots in buckets. Did stack them in milk crates once, even a modest amount stacked 3 high ended up with all of the ingots piled in the bottom crate after blowing out the bottoms of the top ones. They did sit for a few years so it wasn't rapid collapse. I bet some wood in the bottom might have prevented it.

[lightman]

I have had plastic buckets full of ingots to fail over time. I use plastic milk crates but I do not stack them. And yes, a piece of plywood in the bottom helps. The only thing about milk crates is that a full one weighs over 700# so you need to plan where you want it to stay over the long term.

If I could go back to the beginning of my casting career I would buy a 12 inch deep pallet rack to stack them on and I would stamp letters on the ingots. But I have too many to go back and stamp now.

[David2011]

A Home Depot Homer Bucket can stack 3 or even 4 high with around 75 lbs. of lead in each bucket. Three high is pretty easy, but that fourth bucket is a bit of work to get up that high. They nest inside each other and make a very solid column. A little less weight than 75# would probably be appreciated by the movers, the driver on the other hand wants a dense load. Which is why I mentioned stacking. Only dead space is the top of the top bucket. Should be solid enough to stack some additional items on top of the buckets, if the weight of those items isn't too extreme.

With moving your time is probably pretty tight.

The ones on the floor are sitting on a Harbor Freight furniture moving dolly with a rope attached to pull it out. I can tell you ain't no one pulling that thing far unless it is down hill on a smooth surface.

Yes, with two somewhat injured shoulders and a torn bicep I find that three buckets high at 70 lb. is all I want to stack. After splitting all of the various wheel weights, linotype, ingots, monotype and COWW I had 32 buckets plus a little more in the reloading room, no more than another hundred pounds. The buckets are 12" in diameter at the mouth so the mover is going to set them one layer deep and lay a sheet of plywood over them so they can load more boxes on top of the buckets.

I replaced most of the buckets with new ones. Some were very brittle and some were just starting to split but it was worth it to me to know they were all in sound containers. Buckets that contained sheet rock mud seem to be especially brittle.

I have somehow accumulated 3 HF furniture dollies. All are garbage compared to what the pro movers use. The pro grade dollies have incredibly smooth wheels.

If you are going to stack plastic buckets over a partial bucket of ingots, put a circular scrap of plywood over the lead of the bottom bucket or the ingots will punch through the bottom of the top bucket. Even thick foam insulation sheets will distort and support the plastic bucket without damage to the bucket. Also be watching for ingots pressing against the sides of the bucket as they will stretch and split the sides.

The pro movers packed crumpled newsprint on top of the lead in each bucket last time I moved, probably 5 or sheets in each bucket. Crumpled paper takes the shape of the top of the lead and lets the bottom of the next bucket sit on a flat surface.