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[Handloader109]

I sure thought that I was developing a really cheap, read free source of lead for my casting. An aside, up till this week, I have been purchasing lead from the members here at random times, building up a good quantity. Probably 400 or so pounds sitting in the casting room, oops garage.....
So, my wife has been making stained glass pieces as a hobby for a number of years. Not a lot recently, but one here and there. There is a good shop local that she frequents for supplies and a place to work. Since starting this casting fun, I thought about their scrap lead for a source. So fast forward to this past weekend. I got all my scrap together that I had generated, the 35 pounds of stained glass came scrap some Linotype to harden it up and a isotope core to come up to about 50 pounds. Started to melt and it went slowly. Ued my beer brewing burner, not hot enough going forward, after a long while, it just seemed to get to point and stop melting. Stirred around and boy there was a heap of trash. Scooping out,I determined that about half my came scrap wasn't melting! Dang lot of little pieces in there floating. Oh heck! Zinc! Good thing my heat was below optimal or I would have melted it. So I ended up skimming off 15 pounds of trash and zinc. Rest ended up nice and hard, will end up using the small ingots to help harden up my range lead. Lesson learned, free is not always easy nor worth it.

[MrWolf]

Free usually means a lot of your time. I still grab ww's, etc whenever I can but stopped running around trying to find more once my stash got over 1,000 lbs. I also test each piece with side cutters to help prevent an oops with the temp.

[bangerjim]

Learned that olde proverb long ago......free is not always necessarily free.

Glass leading came can be several things. Most I have been fortunate to find/buy was pure Pb or darn near it. Some has a jacket over it like Zn. I ran across about 150# of BRASS layered lead came recently. Nice stuff for my antique reproduction/repair needs. Older came can have putty and lead paint inside it, so beware of re-melting that stuff.

Better luck next time. I remember back during my pre-ton lead stash searching, I scrounged everywhere and anywhere. Keep looking!

bangerjim

[RogerDat]

Some of the sweetest pure I have found was came but as you found (and thoughtfully shared) it can have a zinc "stiffener" in it. Still working as you should below the melt point of zinc you were able to recover the lead that was there, and any tin from solder so it sounds pretty good.

A free puppy is not really free, but can be a darn good dog for many years is certainly a truth. So to is it true that steady progress can cover a lot of ground. A little lead here, a little there, regularly adding more than you use and pretty soon you have a significant stash. Then you work on enough to bug the kids to move when you die, after that... well I guess you try and compete with bangerjim and other long time collectors for who can make the garage floor settle the most from the weight of lead stored there. Nothing wrong with having people think it is an indoor swimming pool ;-)