Melted down 740 pounds yesterday

[CountryBoy19]

The buckets of wheel weights were starting to clog up my shed so it was time... 7 hrs, 740 pounds of final ingots out of ~810 lbs of wheel weights. Tinsel fairy only visited once (truck wheel weights are typically caked in grease and tend to bubble and pop a bit when the grease hits the hot lead).

That gets me closer to my stash goal... but still quite a ways off...

Also of note, if you're smelting on a turkey fryer outdoors USE A HEAT SHIELD around your pot.

I melted~650 pounds earlier this spring and consumed 3 full tanks of LP doing it without a heat shield. I made a very simple heat-shield from old license plates for yesterday's session and melted all 740 lbs on a single, partial LP tank (was partially used before I started and I ended the session with LP left in the tank).

I thought people we crazy when they said how much lead they were melting with a single tank of LP. I couldn't see how a heat-shield made the process that much more efficient. It does, take my word for it...

[zomby woof]

Nice job. How's you back?

[dragon813gt]

Pics or it didn't happen ;)

[dragonrider]

740 out of 810, you did good. That's a lotta work, well done

[Lefty SRH]

Nice job, it is a lot of work. My last smelt session was 2 days and 900 lbs total. 1st day was COWW and 2nd day was tape weights.

[Lefty SRH]

I won't smelt again til next spring. In the mean tme I have 8 five gallon buckets to sort first.

[GlocksareGood]

I plan to have 10 buckets of cowws and 5 buckets of soww to do in November. Guess I better plan on that taking 3 days!

[Gtek]

You with your buckets of lead, enjoy your blessings while they last. It won't be long before the EPA will be visiting a town near you. Here in FL we are trying so hard to be like those idiots on the left coast. My buddy with a repair facility says now you can still buy leads for way to much all you want and still install, BUT- once you remove them they are to be treated as haz-mat and recorded volume and he has had visits from the state in regard to. Get while the gettin's good fellows, may the force be with you! Gtek

[CountryBoy19]

Nice job. How's you back? Not too bad actually... slightly sore but not unusual... I'm a young guy


Pics or it didn't happen ;)Awe man, I hate messing with pics... You want pics of my entire lead stash or just Tuesdays work?


740 out of 810, you did good. That's a lotta work, well doneThe weights were already pre-sorted. I sorted the zinc/steel/trash out long ago so the 70 lbs waste was clips & gunk. 140 lbs of it was SOWW that I've been collecting up until I had enough to do a run on so very little waste there.


You with your buckets of lead...

I hear you there. I just got into casting earlier this year despite intentions to do it for several years now... I'm behind the curve and already starting to see the zinc/steel levels jump up. My goal is to have enough lead by the end of 2015 to last me the rest of my life, including enough for my kids to shoot freely and learn to cast with. I've estimated that amount to be 5-10 tons of lead. I'm almost up to a ton of ingots now and I've been collecting on and off for 2 years but only seriously collecting wheel-weights for about 8 months now. I have 2 big sources. One source I can pay market rate for scrap wheel-weights but I get to pre-sort the junk out before I take it so I'm getting all lead weights and not paying for steel/zinc. They have a huge bin full of weights, must be over a ton. I've tried to buy the whole thing but they won't sell it; they only let me buy one or 2 buckets at a time. The other source is free other than the occasional box of .22 ammo to keep the foreman happy. That's been a big hit lately and I have the stash to support the shop foreman's desires for .22 ammo. That source is from a commercial truck shop and the weights are always really nasty, gunky ****, but a side benefit is that they throw all the valve-stems in with the weights. They are all brass (haven't found a single non-brass stem yet) and they're free, so after I save up a bucket I should be able to turn around and get a decent pay-check out of that.

[MrWolf]

Very nice. I just started collecting WWs and have managed about 500lbs not sorted in last few weeks for a total cost of $50 from various places. Got so now if I ride past a place I pull in and ask - keep spare buckets and gloves with me at all times now. Supposed to have another bucket and 200lbs roofing lead but until I have my hands on them, they don't count.