Old car battery?

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

I just moved to a place out in the boondocks and in the junk pile are several old car batterys that the housings are all broken off. All the acid is long gone and there dry. Can I melt them and burn off the remaining plastic without too much danger?
Thanks, Steve

[Grendl]

Don't do it. Danger Will Robison Danger. Many many posts and discussions on this have noted the dangers search battery lead

[Grendl]

Haul them to scrap dealer and trade for lead or wheel weights

[tryNto]

^^^^ What he said.

Read http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous

[sqlbullet]

Can I melt them and burn off the remaining plastic without too much danger?
Thanks, Steve

No sir.

[JSnover]

Even if it was safe (it is not!) the lead plates are so thin, you would be disappointed with the amount of reclamable lead per battery. Let the scrap dealer take care of them.

[gtgeorge]

After watching a show on the History channel "How things are made" a good while back I learned that modern car batteries are indeed not suitable for normal reclaimed lead. Others have given good advice to stay away from trying to melt them down. Scrap yards pay good money for them too.

You can however remove the posts and use those :wink:

[bangerjim]

Never.......EVER........EVER.......EVER!

Did I say do not do it????????????????????????

Do a search on here for this subject cussed and discussed MANY MANY times.

It is NOT the plastic you are worried about. Or the acid.

There things in that metal (what YOU think is lead) that can kill you.

Take them to a scrap yard and get the money for them and buy good clean from the good folks on the S&S section of the forum.

bangerjim

[GhostHawk]

I did it once, had 2 battery's, I'd drained them, knocked the plastic off. Built a good pile of coals in a ring, dropped the 2 battery's on top and came back the next day and dug the lead out of the ashes.

There was surprisingly little. Posts and connecting links are really all you get. The Plates crumble into toxic ash, best as said above, turn them in for the 20$ core charge and buy 40$ worth of lead. You'll be at least 10x better off.

[RogerDat]

The chemical soup you will release is not good, unless I'm named beneficiary for your life insurance. Then by all mean go ahead. Really the scrap yard will give you a few bucks for them so go there and make a swap for some lead or WW's as suggested. You will be way ahead.

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

Not worth the risk, I'll junk them out. Thanks to all for the decision, Steve

[scottfire1957]

Sigh. Too bad there is not a sticky about the dangers of batteries.

Edit: Especially for a 4 year member, with more than 300 posts. Not a newbee at all.

[Handloader109]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous

Just to help someone "new" to find it:-)

I've a couple sitting around and I thought of using them when I first started casting. Found the sticky and won't be casting them up.

[BACKTOSHOOTING]

Sigh. Too bad there is not a sticky about the dangers of batteries.

Edit: Especially for a 4 year member, with more than 300 posts. Not a newbee at all.

I'm well aware of the dangers of batteries, just wanted to know about the old broken one's. Steve

[merlin101]

I'm well aware of the dangers of batteries, just wanted to know about the old broken one's. Steve
Before you scrap them make sure you hacksaw the post off. enjoy your new found free money!

[wmitty]

Tried this 35 years ago and the evil looking fume which resulted made me stay well away from the burning battery plates. Not enough residual lead to make it worthwhile at all... not counting the fact that the fume is extremely toxic.

[6bg6ga]

I wonder how many threads there are right now on this forum that ask about melting car batteries down. The answer is still no.

[zuke]

I did it twice. First time was in a bed of coal's when I was 17, and there wasn't much.Second time was about 10-12 year's ago. Took 2-3 hour's to melt one down. Coulda done a lotta wheel weight's in that time.

[GoodOlBoy]

Actually I can respect the OP asking this this time. He had a different situation than just "can I melt a car battery" like most do. He had old batteries, busted with the chemicals long gone. It's a valid question. The answer, as many said, is still heck no. The posts, and any old heavy duty battery cable connectors are more lead than anything you would get out of the inside, UNLESS these were OLD glass cased batteries. With glass cased, not plastic, there was actually a bit of lead inside. It wasn't ONE BIT safer to melt down, but there was more of it.

And since multiple people all pointed at the same link, and the OP already said he would sell them, I don't see why folks see the need to keep harping and grinding about other posts and links. It wasn't the EXACT same question as before, just CLOSE to the same question.

My 2 cents.

GoodOlBoy

[Defcon-One]

GoodOlBoy:

Easy answer. People are getting tired of the same question over and over. "Can I use lead from car batteries safely?"

And YES, that IS what he asked!

The OP could have ready the pinned post, "Why Car Batteries Are Dangerous (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous)" at the top of the page and gotten everything he needed.

This shows me they'd rather ask then do a bit of research on the site. Why have pinned posts if nobody even reads them first, BEFORE asking questions.

We all know that smelting battery plates is dangerous, perhaps even deadly, but it is right there for anyone to see, read and learn if they would just look a bit or do a search before asking!

DC-1

[GoodOlBoy]

BUT even though people are getting tired of the same questions the OP thought that perhaps he had a unique situation because all of the liquids were long since gone.

GoodOlBoy

[scottfire1957]

A car battery dry is/should be treated as a car battery wet. Search the sticky for "entrained."

Everything a person not in the battery recycling business needs to know about reclaiming batteries is in that sticky. Wet, dry, old, new; Don't do it. No.

It really is there.

Edit to make it easy: ANY (wet/dry, intact, broken or in pieces) car/auto/bus/truck/motorcycle lead battery= DO NOT smelt, melt, render, harvest or in any other way using heat try to save/salvage/cast.

That sums up what I learned from the sticky. Take that thing to a recycler.

[RogerDat]

The only stupid question is the one you don't ask.... but should have.

Yes it would be nice if folks read all the stickies, and then followed the links in some of those to read much useful information they contain, or did searches and read those results to reach their own conclusions BUT (ever notice how that word sort of negates everything before it?) No one is forced to answer and it is vastly preferable when it comes to safety that people ask for clarification. Those that want to answer will, those that find it somewhat annoying will post a link to the appropriate sticky or previous post, might even suggest the search terms they used to find it (teaching to fish and all that) those that find these questions intolerable I guess just read a different post or can throw themselves off a high bridge depending on how intolerable they find it.

What is more the OP took the good advice offered and thanked people for it. So I just don't see a problem. The OP does however owe me a cold beer for agreeing with the previous posts answer the question. ;-)

[rondog]

The OP could have ready the pinned post, "Why Car Batteries Are Dangerous (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous)" at the top of the page and gotten everything he needed.


Stickies are only useful if a person goes to that specific forum/subforum, and looks for a sticky of the particular subject he's interested in. I doubt most people do that. I'd wager most readers just click the "New Posts" button to see what discussions are new. I never go directly to any specific subject forum/subforum, here or at any of the many other forum sites I visit.

[Dusty Bannister]

Usually, I will only visit a few of the forum or subforums. Some I just am not interested in. I do use the search feature quite often because it saves so much time and gets the information quicker. Why scroll through forums when all you need to do is search, and then look through that listing? It seems such a waste of a good resource when some threads will just not die. At some point, that dead horse should just be left alone and the thread locked. Move on to something else. Two pages of "No do not do it?"

[brassrat]

I recently tried searching for a discussion on OAL for the Lee swc boolets. I got 0 lists, until google, then found thread in seconds.

[Dusty Bannister]

Odd, I used the search box in the upper right corner of the page, entered "lee swc bullets" and it resulted in a list of over 7,000 threads with links directly to the threads. Why would anyone feel the need to use any other search feature?

[GoodOlBoy]

mainly because he was specifically looking for OAL not just every thread that ever mentioned a lee swc. The search feature doesn't always get you there, and the reason folks tend no to read completely through all the stickies is because SOME of the stickies have so much extra baloney in them that even those of us who have read them before get tried of tryin to look through them for information. A 500+ post sticky that you need to verify a single line out of before doing something is just a chore and a half to re-read.

GoodOlBoy

[brassrat]

I put in Lee 200, Lee and other things but got 0 results, was strange

[Lead Fred]

Before you chuck them batteries out, rip the terminals off, they are pure lead