Free 5 gallon pail of rad dripping's!!

[zuke]

So i managed to get a 5 gallon bucket of rad dripping's, FREE!! But that's where the fun stopped. The lead was dripped into the bucket hot, so it was melted right into the plastic!
This morning I was up really early and decided to tackle it when the neighbour's were still sleeping. I cut off as much of the bucket as I could but had to use a propane torch to melt/burn enough to get it into the melt pot.
That's when the work started! When i finally had it into the pot there was at least 6 rag's in there! and cardboard,and plastic and a couple rad cap's and rubber hose chunk's (did I mention it was dark and early?) I ended up using 1 1/2 liter's of oil to burn off as much as i could (it was VERY early) and burn it did! I used a pry bar as a stirr stick and gasoline to keep restarting it. Flux? i started with 1/2 inch sections of candle but ended up tossing the whole thing in to keep it burning. Did I mention rubber hose chunk's? They burned too,once it was hot enough.
So for 4 hour's work I ended up with about 30lb's of 70/30 solder
I don't even use solder when I cast boolit's, but it was free, and now I have some for sale/trade.
Did I mention it started to snow when it came time to pour the ingot's?
Yep, I'll remember this smelting day,
But it was still better then a good day at work!

[scottfire1957]

I'd never have thought of a radiator shop as a source of tin. I just might check shops out!

[high standard 40]

Most of the available tin I have came from a radiator shop. As far as the content of my particular radiator shop drippings, here is my take. I can hardly consider it as a certain 70/30 or 60/40. The shop it comes from can tell me the composition of the solder they use in their shop but that does not take into account the composition of the solder that was used to assemble the radiators that they take in for repair. In reality, radiator shop drippings are an amalgamation of solder from many unknown sources. Included in this mass will be sand, dirt, iron oxide, aluminum oxide, etc, etc, etc. Add to that the loss of tin to oxidation from the high heat needed to melt that mass because of the insulating qualities of the impurities. After all is said and done, no true guess can be made as to composition of the rendered solder without testing. I have tried the SWAG method by comparing the as cast weight of a sampling of bullets cast from this "solder" to bullets cast from the same mold with what I can only assume was "pure" lead that I had on hand. My best guess (and it is only a guess) is that my particular "solder" is at best 50/50. Of course your batch may be quite different. But your description of your process sounds very familiar to me. I processed four 5 gallon buckets myself. My yield varied between buckets from as low as 25 pounds of ingots to as much as 55 pounds.

[zuke]

There's a local scrap yard with a lazer. I'll bring a brick by and get it analized

[Scooby]

I had a guy offer me a deal once. He had multiple 5 gal buckets of these tin blobs on the end of melted plastic caps kind of like tooth paste tubes. He wanted me to melt the contents down and split it 50/50 with him. He said when he did it he used motor oil and kitchen grease to get the plastic on fire then he poured it. I agreed to do it but never got to it.

[high standard 40]

There's a local scrap yard with a lazer. I'll bring a brick by and get it analized

Please post what you find out.

[zuke]

I had a guy offer me a deal once. He had multiple 5 gal buckets of these tin blobs on the end of melted plastic caps kind of like tooth paste tubes. He wanted me to melt the contents down and split it 50/50 with him. He said when he did it he used motor oil and kitchen grease to get the plastic on fire then he poured it. I agreed to do it but never got to it.

I used oil to keep it burning then thru in the empty oil bottle as well as what was left of the 5 gallon pail.There was at least 2 inch's of dust when I started skimming.

[zuke]

Please post what you find out.

Will do!

[Reg]

Not sure if there is anything to it or not but my old neighbor ran a radiator shop and when I approached him to see about buying the drippings out of the tank he warned me that due to EPA regulations a number of years ago that the content of the "solder" they used had been changed so as to actually remove most of the lead and was replaced with what he thought was a zink based alloy. He offered to just give me all that I wanted if I would help him clean the tank from time to time and I did take a small sample . When I tried to melt it even though it did melt it just didn't seem right, took more heat to get things done. and seemed kind of lumpy before it went liquid.
I had plenty of other sources of lead so decided to pass.
Anyone know anything about this or is it just another "scare" urban legend.

[Digger]

The most messy and stinky smelting I have ever done ... but came out with about 30 lbs of the same more or less of the 60/40 .

[jmar254]

Solder %'s are listed Tin first 30/70. Not a big deal until you're asked to pony up the cash for 70% Tin.

[Hickory]

You get 3-400 dollars worth of :violin:free tin and you whine like a begger.:bigsmyl2:

It could have been worst, he might have charged you a $1 for all of it.:veryconfu

[zuke]

There's a second pail there, but I know of a garage where the guy say's he use's only lead WW, and he's asking for $40 a 5 gallon pail.
I have plenty of solder, because I don't use any in my casting. I also have 27, 4lb bar's of this alloy



http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/alloy_rotonickel_babbitt.htm

It's the bottom bar

http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy356/zuke_bucket/lead_zps492d37aa.jpg