Lead Bricks

[MikeS]

Hi All.

I have a chance to buy some "Pure Virgin Lead Bricks" that are 8"x4"x2" and weigh 26lbs each for $25.00 each. The guy that has them has what he calls 'tons' of them, and they're supposedly pure lead. Is this a good deal? The guy is local to me, so there wouldn't be any shipping involved. Is this something that folks here would be interested in?

I might go grab a single brick, and melt it down to see that it truly IS pure lead. It was ordered as ballast for a yacht, so there's no telling what the alloy is, as I don't think it would really matter for that application.


http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/thum_177914dbdff7bbb8a2.jpg (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=719)

[buck1]

wheel wts make better boolits, but pure lead makes better muzzle loader boolits.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

Some of the guys here might be interested. You really should melt some down and make sure it is pure lead. The price of lead is only going up so if you can swing it.......... go for it. Nice find.

[Tom W.]

Slightly less than $1 a pound? Go for it!

[2wheelDuke]

If there's really tons, hook me up here. I'm always looking for lead.

[white eagle]

I have some of those
good mix

[MikeS]

If there's really tons, hook me up here. I'm always looking for lead.

I sent you a PM with the details.

[cbrick]

If it is indeed pure lead I would hock the house to get as much as possible. My experience with sail boat ballast is they use whatever they can get so perhaps some caution is advisable.

I just checked pure at Midway, a shocking $4.15 per pound.

At RotoMetals today, $2.29 per pound.

Your source at under $1.00 per pound. So you can see my point . . . If it is pure . . . Well.

Rick

[MikeS]

Well, I went down and bought a single brick, with the understanding that if I like it I was going to come down and get more (that's assuming 2wheelduke doesn't buy them all!). He said he has around 200 or so of them, so at 26lbs each, that's a lot of lead! I don't have a hardness tester, but I do have a set of pencils, and a 6B (which is the softest pencil I have) scratches the surface of the brick, so I'm going to have to say that there's a 99% chance that this is pure virgin lead as the seller said it was. I wish I had both the money, and the transportation to buy them all! I wonder how many I can fit into a Chrysler PT Cruiser without killing it? :) For that matter, I wonder how many of those I could carry without it killing ME! 26lbs doesn't sound like a lot, but in a brick that size, it sure feels like a lot!

Hey, does anyone know if I could use a single burner electric hot plate with a cast iron skillet to melt this down? I don't really feel like messing with my turkey fryer, but if I could melt it using my hot plate, I would be tempted to melt it down into 1lb condiment cup ingots!

[MikeS]

Another question: Assuming (as I am) that these bricks are pure lead, how would I go about making it into Lyman #2? I have a source for the tin, but where do I get the antimony? Does Rotometals (or anyone else) make an alloy that's 50:50 tin/antimony without any lead, or very little?

[Ole]

but where do I get the antimony?

Linotype, or you could use Rotometals superhard.

[cbrick]

Melt the brick with a thermometer, lead melts at 621F, if it melts any lower than this there is something in it.

For antimony (Sb) here is a link for you.

Super Hard from Roto Metals (pdf file) (http://www.lasc.us/Kelter_Super_Hard1.pdf)

Rick

[2wheelDuke]

Well, I went down and bought a single brick, with the understanding that if I like it I was going to come down and get more (that's assuming 2wheelduke doesn't buy them all!). He said he has around 200 or so of them, so at 26lbs each, that's a lot of lead! I don't have a hardness tester, but I do have a set of pencils, and a 6B (which is the softest pencil I have) scratches the surface of the brick, so I'm going to have to say that there's a 99% chance that this is pure virgin lead as the seller said it was. I wish I had both the money, and the transportation to buy them all! I wonder how many I can fit into a Chrysler PT Cruiser without killing it? :) For that matter, I wonder how many of those I could carry without it killing ME! 26lbs doesn't sound like a lot, but in a brick that size, it sure feels like a lot!

Hey, does anyone know if I could use a single burner electric hot plate with a cast iron skillet to melt this down? I don't really feel like messing with my turkey fryer, but if I could melt it using my hot plate, I would be tempted to melt it down into 1lb condiment cup ingots!

My pickup can haul a pretty good amount. I don't have enough money to clean him out, I wish I did.

It's a hell of a deal though. If we did come up with the money to buy him out, we could make a couple bucks and still pass on a hell of a deal packing it into FRB's to sell here.

[uscra112]

Linotype and Monotype have enough antimony to do you some good.

[2wheelDuke]

Linotype, or you could use Rotometals superhard.

I was going to suggest that. Superhard and a bit of tin would make that into some real nice virgin casting alloy.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I have a bigger chunk of lead that was given to me by an almost stranger.

He got it at the Nevada Test Site some years ago. There were some walls constructed up there which utilized these bricks of lead. It was his understanding that the walls were to protect some very expensive testing equipment that was used in nuclear detonation tests many years ago.

He said that there are piles of them up in the middle of nowhere in the Nevada Desert. However to get there you have to have all kinds of Top Secret clearances which he told me takes years to obtain and are very scarce.

Anyway the brick I have makes a dandy counterweight for my TV table on which I sometimes mount a single stage press. With a heavy press on the tiny table it tends to fall over towards me. The heavy lead brick is perfect to balance the table and allow me to work whilst watching TV.

[MikeS]

Melt the brick with a thermometer, lead melts at 621F, if it melts any lower than this there is something in it.

Rick

Ok, I have a good digital thermometer I can use when I melt it. I'll ask my question again: Can I use a cheapo 1000W hotplate with a cast iron skillet to melt this? (do the electric hotplates (the type sold at Walgreens or Walmart) get hot enough to melt lead?) Also, I just got a new Lodge skillet (cast iron) basically to replace my HF dutch oven, do I need to anything special to it before I use it to melt lead?

[Defcon-One]

If you plug your hotplate in on its highest setting and it gets visibly (red) hot then it will do the job. I had one that never glowed and would not melt lead even though it was rated 1,000 watts. Another I got later worked fine. What I am saying is that some get hotter than others, regardless of rated watts, but if it gets red hot then it should do fine. It may take a while to melt a large brick, but it should get up to temp and melt it eventually.

Make sure that your skillet is large enough to handle all of the lead brick. There might be a volume issue there, deeper pots or dutch ovens are better. And don't try to pour from a full skillet, it is too risky, just ladle it out.

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Mike,

If you have an old Colmen gas stove, they work great.

I have cast over an OLD 3 burner Colman for years. The stove was new over 60 years ago and until my son gave me some newer guts for it a few years back, that old stove melted a lot of lead after it was taken off of cooking duty.

The gas is pricy now, but the stoves work great for casting!

Keep em coming!

CRusty Deary Ol'Coot

[cbrick]

I'll ask my question again: Can I use a cheapo 1000W hotplate with a cast iron skillet to melt this? (do the electric hotplates (the type sold at Walgreens or Walmart) get hot enough to melt lead?)

Dunno Mike, never tried it. Probably a lot to what Defcon-One said. You'll have to try it and see.

As he said, make sure the skillet is deep enough to hold the entire melted ingot,

Rick

[MikeS]

If you plug your hotplate in on its highest setting and it gets visibly (red) hot then it will do the job. I had one that never glowed and would not melt lead even though it was rated 1,000 watts. Another I got later worked fine. What I am saying is that some get hotter than others, regardless of rated watts, but if it gets red hot then it should do fine. It may take a while to melt a large brick, but it should get up to temp and melt it eventually.

Make sure that your skillet is large enough to handle all of the lead brick. There might be a volume issue there, deeper pots or dutch ovens are better. And don't try to pour from a full skillet, it is too risky, just ladle it out.

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty sure that my hotplate glows. I'm going to try it later and see what happens. I went with a Lodge skillet rather than a dutch oven for a couple of reasons. First is that I already have a Harbor Freight dutch oven, but I've heard of a few horror stories of them breaking at the worst possible times, being made of thin chinese cast iron. I don't smelt on a large scale, and using a dutch oven when you only have a couple of inches of lead in it makes it hard to ladle it out, so I figured that a skillet would work better as it will still hold the lead, and I'll still ladle it out, but when I start getting to the point where the ladle can't really pickup much lead, I can use the handle, and either tip the skillet so I can get more lead in the ladle, or if the level is low enough, just pour right from the pot. I like the fact that the Lodge stuff is made in the USA, and it's fairly thick. I bought a 10.5" skillet, and it weighs almost as much as my dutch oven! I don't think it's going to break to easily.

I also want to use my hotplate rather than the turkey fryer for a couple of reasons. First I think the turkey fryer is too hard to regulate the temp, the propane is loud, sounds like a jet engine, already had one neighbor ask what the noise was! With the hotplate, I can work on a tabletop rather than having to bend over the turkey fryer. I was thinking of putting the turkey fryer on a concrete table we have in the back yard, but I'm not sure how well that would work. With the hotplate, I'll just move my Lyman bug dipper pot off to the side, and put the hotplate in it's place, and be able to work at a comfortable height.

What I really want (but don't have anywhere to set it up) is one of those Hammond Easy Kasters (linotype remelter that holds 500lbs or more!)

[cajun shooter]

Mike, You may use lead shot to equal out your alloy of #2 from the lead blocks. Sail boat keel weight that has already been in a keel does vary as that was my lead source for a few years. You have to check each load as it went from a BHN of 5 to a BHN of 8 It was very good lead to use and If I was back in Clearwater I would be at all the boat docks for sure.

[Defcon-One]

Mike:

Sounds like you have it under control.

I use a Lodge 5 quart dutch oven with lid and bale handle on a fryer. It is loud and uses a lot of gas but it has never cracked yet, though it is hard to get the last 10-15 pounds out. I tilt and later pour like you said.

Probably don't need to say this but, if you are working from a table, do not sit down in a chair or on a bench. This puts you below the hot lead and if there was a spill, you'd get lapp full. Not the place that I want 20 pounds of molten lead flowing to, if you get my drift. Always stay standing so that you can move away quickly if need be.

Try that hot plate once and you'll know! I bet it works OK.

[cbrick]

Mike:

Probably don't need to say this but, if you are working from a table, do not sit down in a chair or on a bench. This puts you below the hot lead and if there was a spill, you'd get lap full. Not the place that I want 20 pounds of molten lead flowing to, if you get my drift. Always stay standing so that you can move away quickly if need be.

Is OUCH an adequate word?

I always stand when smelting and keep the pot and burner low. Yes, I have to bend over but . . . . . .

Defcon-One nailed it, that is exactly why.

Rick

[MikeS]

Well, I tried to use my hotplate, but no go. I gets up to 650 degrees then shuts down. I got hot enough to melt a stick on wheel weight with no problem, but it just didn't have the guts to heat a brick of that size to melting point! So I setup my skillet on the turkey fryer, and fired it up with a low fire. Within 20 minutes the lead was all melted, and at a temp of 635 degrees, so I would say it's pure lead. I now have 20 ingots cast, some are 1lb, so a bit more. I had about 3 lbs that I couldn't ladle out from the pot, so I thought I would try and pickup the cast iron pot, and pour the last few directly from the pot. Wow, that was a big mistake! Wearing both an Ove-Glove as well as a welders gauntlet over it, I grabbed the handle, got one more ingot mosty filled up when I hat to put the skillet down in a hurry, and rip off both gloves! My hand still got a very very minor burn on it! Ok, so when everything had cooled down, I thought I would take the piece from the pot (it weighed right around 3lbs and throw it into my Big Dipper, and try casting some boolits. I have some linotype here, so I figured I would make a 1:1 mix of lead to lino, and wouldn't you know it, I stuck the folded up piece of lead into the pot, then I weighed out the same weight of lino (I have it as actual type, I won't buy lino of eBay unless it's type, that way you can be pretty sure of what you're getting) and while adding the lino to the pot (without gloves one) one of my fingers touched a piece of the folded up lead that was already in the pot and burned one of my fingers!

I gotta be more careful with my hands, as it is I have diabetic neuropathy. arthritis, and trigger fingers (that's a medical term), so all I need to do is burn them too! (I suspect the neuropathy is why I burned it, don't have the feeling I should in my finger tips, so didn't notice I was touching lead until it was too late! Getting old is for the birds!

[lwknight]

I wish I could find a ton of lead under $1.00 per pound.
I would take 2 tons of it.

[ColColt]

I have a brick just like that that I got many years ago and only recently got my next door neighbor to help with cutting it to make four bars suitable for fitting inside my Lee Pro 4 pot. It's the softest lead I've ever had and goes off the Lee scale...beyond .10 so, it's at least BHN5 and less buy can't measure past what's on the scale. My brick weighed around 27 pounds.

BTW-I can't stand more than 2-3 hours at best and that's trying. If you have a hernia it starts getting real sensitive down there and you have no choice but to stop and sit down.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x220/ColColt/Misc%20Stuff/_DEF3790.jpg

[MikeS]

Stand for 2 - 3 hours? I wish I could do that! I always stand while either smelting, or casting (I sit near the pot while it's getting up to temp). That's one reason why I have to keep my casting sessions short. I usually cast between 100 - 150 boolits from a double cavity mould, or 75-100 from a single cavity mould. I just bought a 452460 four cavity mould, my first mould over two cavities, so I'll soon find out how many boolits I can cast from it.

While I like many of Lee's products I'm starting to dislike their boolit moulds. Today to test the lead brick, I cast some boolits from my Lee two cavity TL452-230-2R and I ended up with only 36 keepers out of a batch that must have 70 - 80, perhaps more, I ended up putting more than half back in the pot! The alloy was 1:1 lead brick to linotype with some 95:5 solder to aid fill-out. I had lots of boolits with sags in them, lines like they were poured in 2 steps not one, a few the bases didn't fill out, etc. I only have these problems with the Lee moulds, the one SAECO mould I've cast with as well as all my Lymans don't give me nearly as many rejects, in fact once I get the mould up to temp (usually by the third pour) they're good to go!

When I first got started casting I only had Lee moulds, and I wasn't as particular about boolit quality, so I had lots more keepers than I do now. Even now I find that when using my Lee moulds I have lower standards of what's 'good' than when I'm using other moulds.

My Lyman 311041 casts really nice looking boolits, and it's only problem (really a non-problem) is it drops boolits at .310 when using clip on wheel weights which makes attaching the gas checks more difficult. I don't know the 'proper' method of attaching a gas check, but what I find works for me is using an old Lee pound thru sizer, I drop in a boolit, then drop in a gas check, then using a small brass hammer I hammer the boolit thru and it seems to seat the gas check straighter than if I try and snap it on before putting the boolit into the sizer. I bought that sizer used (I got it along with a few others, but with only one kake cutter, a 44 cal which I have no use for yet) and while it's marked .309 it seems to size the boolits to .3105 which is fine for use with the 311041. for my 45 & 38 pistol boolits I use a 9"x9" metal pan to pan lube, but for the 30 cal rifle boolits I use a couple of the small pans that came with the old Lee lube & size kits (before they went with press mounted sizers and LLA), I size and attach gas checks to 25 boolits, placing them into the lube cake as I go. Once it's full, I put it on my single burner portable stove out in the garage (Mother doesn't like the smell of NRA lube), once the lube is mostly melted I turn off the heat, and go back inside, and size & load up the second pan. By the time I'm done with the second try, checking email, etc. the first one has cooled off, and hardened, so I swap trays, melt second one, turn off heat, then take the first one inside and cut the boolits out of the lube. I then size another 25, placing into the lube cake as I go, then swap, etc. This workflow works well for me, it's not the fastest, but I'm not in a race, and it works for me.

[MikeS]

I've been casting boolits from the one brick I got so far. I've been mixing it with an equal amount of linotype and that seems to make a nice alloy, some of the shiniest ones I've every made (that were good boolits). I'm going to find out this week if I can get large quantities of these bricks, and if I can, I will be offering them for sale here in the proper area.

[Hardcast416taylor]

When I was going thru Chemo therapy after my cancer surgery a few years back, I saw these bricks. The technician that mixed up my IV had a 3 sided wall on his very sturdy lab table of these bricks. I asked about them, his description was to the letter what you have. At $1 a lb. I`d still get as much as I can afford.Robert

[ColColt]

Mike-I forgot about this thread or I would have added it here instead. Take heed, bricks are heavy.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=116052

[gunslinger20]

Use the1000w hotplate in conjunction with a propane torch, once the lead melts if there is too much take it out very carefully with welding gloves. A brick that size has too much volum density and heat transfer to the air for the hot plate to melt by its self, once itis molten cast ingots then put the brick back in the smelting pot and repeat the process.

[MikeS]

I was able to melt it with my turkey fryer. I'm not really worried about temp being too hot, as I'm not worried about finding zinc in it, like when melting wheel weights!

These bricks might be the same as the ones to protect from X-rays, but these are at a company that builds Yachts, they were using them for ballast. If I can't manage to talk the guy into a deal where I can sell them here and make a few bucks, I'll just post his info here, so folks can buy them directly from him (at the same, or higher price than I would be selling them). I will be calling him tomorrow if he's in (last week he was out for a few days!)

It's really nice working with 'virgin' metals, rather than wheel weights, it's easy to know what alloy you have exactly. Well, almost exactly, I've been mixing this stuff with linotype, and I suppose there is a chance the linotype could be of a different alloy than usual.

I just bought a 30# piece of what the seller called linotype, but after looking at his picture, I'm pretty sure it's actually stereotype, as it was one large half round plate which I believe is how stereotype was usually cast, whereas linotype was usually cast into individual letters. I'll have to lookup and see what the alloy of stereotype is, and adjust my percentages accordingly.

[perimedik]

Wow, good deal.
I may have to take a trip down to the harbor in my area and see if I can score some ballasts. It's amazing to me when you guys find stuff...
Good luck with it. and pics pics pics....

[bowfin]

I am sure there would be plenty of "volunteers" in the forum to help you buy the whole stash.

You might also be able to trade some of the pure lead for some linotype.

Check here to see if there is any linotype still available for sale:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=109259

[Armorer]

I am sure there would be plenty of "volunteers" in the forum to help you buy the whole stash.

You might also be able to trade some of the pure lead for some linotype.

Check here to see if there is any linotype still available for sale:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=109259

That is exactly what I was thinking. Although most of what I have is monotype, I would love to trade for some bricks of soft lead for alloying. I'm anxious to see where this thread leads.
:castmine:

Armorer

[MikeS]

Just a short update. I still haven't been able to get in touch with the guy that has the bricks to see if I can make a deal with him. I'll let y'all know what happens after I talk with him.

And yes, I like the idea of swapping some lino for some bricks, keeps everyone happy :)

[MikeS]

Ok, I made a deal with the guy, and have posted in the swap&sell forum. Here's the link to it:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=118367

And I guess I should mention that while I am making a few dollars on this deal, not nearly enough considering all the effort of collecting the money, then collecting the bricks, packaging them up, carrying them to the PO (how many 55lb packages can one disabled person carry?), etc. Basically I'll be making just enough to get a few of these bricks for myself.