What was the "Biggest" chunk of lead you ever laid hands on and let it go because....

[WILCO]

I've told the story before. Many many moons ago, before I knew better and was a full blown scrapper, I came into a chunk of lead from an industrial culdron. This damn thing was sooooooooooooooooo huge that it flat out crushed the farm tractor tire that it was sitting on. The owner said I could have it, if I was able to get it on the truck I was driving. Took almost two hours to drag it up an outdoor loading ramp and snapped my steel cable twice! When I rolled it off the end of the dock and into the truck, it was just like a cartoon as the truck suspension dropped and the front end came up like a bucking bronco reaching for the sun! I was positive the axle plumb broke in two. When the dust settled, I did a walk around and things seemed well enough. Jumped in and drove that pig right to the scrap yard.
Hard time steering as the front end kept climbing like I was on a dragstrip. Wheelie bars are for sissies! Made $300.00 on that one. Now that I'm a caster, I often think about that score. Really was a lifetime supply in one fast deal. What big chunks have you all let go?

[mold maker]

After Hugo came through, there were upward of 180 sail boats sunk in one marina. I was offered the keel weights off a bunch of them just to clear the wreckage. At the time had to pass. I was too busy clearing downed trees and fixing roofs. Lead was cheap then.
I'd estimate there was 16000 lbs involved in what I was offered. Last I heard there was a floating crane and lots of flat bed 18 wheelers busy for nearly a month. There is still some debris sunk in the deeper water. I'd bet there is still several sail boats down there, but I'm too old to fool with it.

[frankenfab]

None. I stopped on the side of the road yesterday to check a bunch of mangled pipe that had been dug up. There was LOTS of it. To my dismay, my magnet stuck to it. I had already been dreaming about how I was going to ask for it, and then rush home to get my chain saw...

[John in WI]

I asked a fiend of mine who's a maintanance man at my old job if they had any "lead laying around".

He emailed that he had some for me, I just had to run by and pick it up. So I took my wife's Carrola over there, and sure enough if it wasn't the ballast piece for an outdoor forklift. It was about 1'x2'x3'. I just had no way I could move it, and no way to melt it down if I could manage to get it home. He didn't need for anything, so he helped me Sawzall a chunk off of it, and we split the profits when we got the local scrapper to pick it up.

[Smithy]

When I was casting 58 caliber mini's among other bullets I was scrounging lead anywhere I could. Had a deal with the tire shop for spent wheel weights (when they were all made of lead). And had a friend whose late father and he use to cast for everything they ever shot so he had a bunch and every time I made a deal with him it included a bunch of his lead. His best friend was a junk yard/metals dealer and my friend had got a big bunch of lead from him. I'd also sift backstop bullets from the local outdoor range. Then I was roommates with a graphic arts major. The school paper was changing their typeset for their paper and I got I don't know how many pigs (30 lbs each) of Linotype.

Shortening the story a bit, I had so much lead I bought a 175 lb gas fired bottom drop pot. My ingots were 35 lb hunks made by pouring lead into a cast iron bowl. I had in excess of 2000 lbs of lead. The biggest individual piece was a 125 pound 2" thick trapezoid piece that was a military aircraft wind ballast. (from the junk dealer and my friend).

Well with 57 bowls of 35 lb lead lying around I really buggered up my back in the collection and smelting operations and was never in my life ever going to use that much lead. Then one day I was hurting badly for cash. Just got married and had a kid on the way so in a pinch I sold the lot, pot and all with a full tank of propane for $150.00 bucks. If that isn't letting it go I don't know what is. The guy that bought it started casting sinker molds of any and all descriptions and made a sizable fortune of my misfortune. Smithy.

[WILCO]

wOw Smithy! That hurts.

[nanuk]

I found a recycler and offered him $$$

ended up with one ingot around 2000lb

He had 4 more ingots around 4000lb each, but I couldn't afford it. Last I heard they were going to the recycle depot in the city.

[Smithy]

ended up with one ingot around 2000lb

How do you plan on (or did you already) getting that sucker down to usable form? That wind ballast section I had took forever to whittle down with a torch/saw/chisel/any thing I could think of. It was a foot wide tapering down to six inches during its three foot length and was also two inches thick. It was a monster. I just can't imagine what a 2000 pound hunk of lead looks like? Good luck on your lead chopping. Smithy.

[Plate plinker]

On a large chunk, couldn't a guy drill holes into the lead at intervals then cut with a chisel or torch? Maybe a wedge for splitting tree trunks?

[Smithy]

Any power tooling I used would gather lead on the cutting edge and then be unable to drill or cut any further. Grinding worked a little better but would do the same after the grinding blade got leaded up. Chisel's just sank into the lead and offered no additional splitting of the lead. It's a mess. The only thing that worked on it was heat. I essentially had to torch the entire wing section into puddles of lead that could be transferred to my lead pot. Smithy.

[glowe]

I was renovating my two washrooms 3 years ago. Both toilet flanges were huge chunks of lead. I had to cut them in to 3 pieces to get them out. I asked if anyone wanted them, but had no takers. So, out to the curb they went.
This was before I got the casting bug.
Finding free lead now is taking more time then its worth. Found a guy that sells WW ingots for $1cdn a pound. not to bad.

[GabbyM]

Purchased a counter weight from a fork lift once.
After a day of sawing it up into large chunks. Finally started to melt some down only to discover it was contaminated with zinc. Retuned it to the yard to swap for other lead. Suffered about eighty pounds shrinkage on over a ton. About forty dollars worth of saw blades.

After that you bet I’ll cut a piece off for a test melt. Before spending a day hacking.

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

6" wide X 16" high X 16 feet long sailboat keep. A little over a ton. I could have had it for free, but Jaguar XK-8 convertibles don't have much of a trunk or load capacity. 500 miles from home in Seattle, bad news.

Rich
Sua Sponte

[Smithy]

Sometimes lead is given out for free for a reason: It's either contaminated or just such a horrendous load to handle/process it makes you wonder if it really is worth it? Smithy.

[EMC45]

I have seen and drooled over Aircraft ballast flightline weights. 2 400 lb weights with a cable in between them. Like an 800lb pair of nunchucks. They hang them off aircraft on the flightline in inclement weather. I didn't fool with them because they belonged to my rich uncle.

[WILCO]

I didn't fool with them because they belonged to my rich uncle.

Great way to stay in the will.

[markshere2]

FYI a circular saw WILL cut up lead elevator counterweights.
Just make sure you keep the blade moving cause if you let it get bogged down it WILL get stuck.

[Kevinkd]

Ok, so about 25 years ago I started casting and looked for 'lead'. Found a local old gentlemen who still used linotype printing in an old house/garage. I asked him what he did with all the type he made and he put it in a metal shed in metal pails. He said he PAID to have it hauled away (would only use virgin 25 pound bars fed into the machines pot via chain).
I said can I buy the pails off of you and he said please take them for FREE!!!!! I said are you sure you dont want any money and he said no. My old GM pickup made MANY MANY loads to get approximately 13 TONS of linotype (super clean in the small letter bars).

I made a crazy amount of bullets and decided to sell off some of it (wife thought it was worthless LOL). I stumbled onto the cast bullet association out of Traverse city Michigan and almost all advertising was looking for linotype. I put an add and was swamped with calls. I sold tons to locals and Michigan people (few retired police etc). I even shipped 250 lbs in a metal pail via UPS ground to a california person (cut a round plywood to cover lead, taped on To:/FROM: and sent it off).

Anyways, still had probably 9 tons left after a few months and didnt realize what I had so I sold about 8 tons to a SCRAP YARD for SCRAP LEAD prices. OMG DONT KILL ME!!!!! Still have alot (gave to family for sinkers/duck decoy weights etc) so easy to swap out and have alot myself, but DAYUM.

So thats my story. Sad huh?

[bigjason6]

Go ahead and drool over these!

[Smithy]

Hey bigjason6, what exactly are we looking at in your picture. Ie. form that the lead is in, where is it, and what Was its use? Just curious, Smithy.