Semi load of lead?

[44fanatic]

On my way to Nashville yesterday, passed this semi, them let him pass me then passed it again to get pictures...Crazy what us lead collectors do.

32 "ingots" on the truck. Thinking that they weighed at least 4 tons (conservative guess) each, which would put the load at over 120 tons. After doing the math and looking at loads for semi's, I am thinking they are not lead.
SEB is the marking on the ingot. Found some information for a company in China that does some metal work.

If they are lead and weigh at least 4 tons each thats close to 7.5 million 240gr boolits I was looking at, probably more.

[Reloader06]

Probably aluminium. Just a SWAG.

Matt

[Guesser]

I'm thinking they are probably aluminum. I've watched aluminum castings from a major salvage yard melt and pour aluminum into large castings like that, similar anyway, and that was the way they were loaded. I've seen lead done also but in much smaller castings because of the weight and size. Just guessing here, HHMMMM, where did that come from????

[357 Voodoo]

its aluminum and each pig weights about a thousand pounds. the foundry my dad works at just received a load just like that last week. if it were lead than the truck would have mabe a third as much

[fatelk]

Wishful thinking, huh? I think that much lead would be a serious overload for a semi.

On the other hand, how many of us have dreams of a truck like that pulling up in the driveway to make a delivery?

[Beagler]

I say alum to. All our lead deliveries have to come in a box truck. And they are single stack piles of pigs right up the center of the trailor. Our big sow ingots are about 30 by 30 by24 and weigh a little over 2 tons. We melt down the sows and pig them out

[Longwood]

The foundry and smelter people call those, "Pigs".

[Echo]

I don't think one of those ingots would fit in my old SAECO...

[geargnasher]

If they were lead, DOT would $#!% a brick! That would be not only about four times the legal weight limit for 18 tires on the ground, but would be a major safety problem since the inertia of that much mass wouldn't begin to be contained by those straps during emergency braking.

Gear

[TCLouis]

NO probably to it, they are Aluminum.

But think about the size of the muffin tin they used to cast em.

[theperfessor]

There is an Alcoa operation just a couple miles from our gun club. I heard a story that years ago they used to ship molten aluminum in insulated vessels shaped like large flat drum to a local foundry that would reheat and pour the aluminum. Apparently they saved a lot of money that way but the timing was critical. One day one of the semis slid off the road and ended up sideways in a ditch. By the time they got it righted the aluminum had frozen in the container in a way that would make it very difficult to remelt to remove, so they paid a local farmer to allow them to dig a large deep hole on the edge of a field and they buried the whole thing and covered it up. Somewhere in southern Indiana there is 20 tons of virgin aluminum buried in a pit.

At least that's the story I heard...

Another time I consulted on a job of converting a chain saw to hydraulic power to cut apart aluminum ingots. The magnetic fields in the room from all the transformers and coils used to refine aluminum were so strong that a spark ignition engine wouldn't work.

[Houndog]

That's DEFINATELY NOT Lead!!!! It's Aluminum. More than likely that was a metal transfer for ALCOA from it's plant in Warrick Indiana to it's plant in ALCOA Tennessee, or vice versa. That used to be a fill-in run for me when freight got slow. A load of Lead pigs will be a single row of pallets about 18 inches high. Most of the time lead pigs are shaped like a wedge and will be placed right down the middle of the trailer between the frame rails.

FWIW: there is a Lead smelting operation just south of Nashville and they ship most of their product on flat bed trailers with sides.

[44fanatic]

I was wondering how I would load a "lead" ingot that size in my truck without blowing the tires and totally destroying the back end of the truck. Its funny what we think of when we see things out there.

[Trey45]

How many beer cans is that?

[mold maker]

More our interest, How many 6 gang molds is that????

[44fanatic]

How many beer cans is that?

at 0.48 ounces, or to more of our understanding...210gr (209.999)

32 (ingots) x 1000lbs (per ingot) x 7000= 224, 000,000 gr

224,000,000 / 210 = 1,066,667 beer cans

To much coffee this morning, time to clean the garage.

[Kskybroom]

7.5 million 240gr boolits..
1,066,667 Beer Cans
Yep That last about 3 or 4 Years.......

[TCLouis]

Houndog

Lead outfit gone from South of Nashville now.

The still ship Molten aluminum in this area with big insulated vessels mounted on a trailer.

[Reloader06]

Wonder how many gas check that would make??? ALOT!

[Houndog]

Houndog

Lead outfit gone from South of Nashville now.

The still ship Molten aluminum in this area with big insulated vessels mounted on a trailer.

I hate to hear about the lead smelting operation shuting down. They were good people to do business with. I've been out of trucking about 6 years now and lots of things have changed in that time.

ALCOA has used the large pots for molten Aluminum for eons, but transporting the metal in that fashion is severely limited. If it solidifies, they have a real problem getting it back into it's molten state. ALCOA in Alcoa TN transports metal in the pots from it's smelting operation to the rolling mill and to a lesser extent from Alcoa to the Mahle piston plant in Morristown. That makes me wonder if there is a foundry somewhere around Nashville making transmission cases or some other Aluminum cast product for the car factories.