Lead mine

[odinohi]

I may have access to an old abandon lead mine. Of I got the ore out of there, what would I need to do to make it usable lead?

[Boolit_Head]

After a quick search I found this.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?84857-Galena-LEAD-ORE

[sqlbullet]

A bunch of start up capital and permits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_smelting

It is not a trivial process.

[dragon813gt]

Doe Run shut down due to regulations. I know it was because of how outdated their smelter was. But starting up a new one is not going to be a cheap or easy proposition.

[Beagle333]

Geepers, that Wikipedia article sounds like a LOT of processing to get some lead. I wonder how the ancients did it?

[bangerjim]

Smelting lead ore (the REAL USE of SMELTING, not what we do in CI pots with COWW's!!!!) is an intricate process and is not for the casual observer!

Not something I would consider the costs and labor involved to obtain something that is already very available anyway. There is MANY MANY TONS of lead on the market, even without Doe.

And working in a mine in the earth for ANY metal ore is extremely dangerous.

I would sure pass on that one!

[62chevy]

https://youtu.be/AhrwF-uwAE4

It's silver recovery from raw lead drop a few steps and you will have lead ingots. The real question is is it worth it.

Oh ya the guy is a bit dorky.

[scottfire1957]

Geepers, that Wikipedia article sounds like a LOT of processing to get some lead. I wonder how the ancients did it?

Heat, and a few pots. But not the EPA.

[johnho]

Simple answer is you can't do it. You can't get the permits and the cost per lb would be horrendous even if you tried it without permits and risked going to jail. There is a reason we have no lead smelters left in the US. Like the man says "Don't even think it". :)

[odinohi]

Guess I'll just keep getting it like I have been. Must be doing something right. Never paid more then .50 per pound, but usually .20-.35. I drown lots of fishes. Takes lots of lead;)

[omgb]

a stamping mill and then a huge smelter.

[RogerDat]

Around page 96 they start setting up a stone walled smelting furnace. In a nut shell lots of wood surrounded by rock walls, wind tunnels to feed prevailing wind into furnace and hazelnut size pieces of lead ore. Romans would have used clay to seal stone, and bellows to feed air (oxygen) for smelting reaction and to increase temperature rather than depending on prevailing wind being directed in through stone funnels.

http://www.academia.edu/2470418/An_early_medieval_lead-smelting_bole_from_Banc_Tynddol_Cwmystwyth_Ceredig ion_Anguilano_et_al_2010_HistMet_44_

This attempt at setting up and running a stone smelting bole ended before the ore was completely smelted. Which allowed the researchers to catch the smelting in mid-process. Enough runnels of lead to show it was working. Needed to be taller/larger and have more fuel to complete smelt. Of course the toxic crud coming off the top as smoke and as slag and dust/ash might make your back yard or back 20 acres very unpopular with the neighbors, and very popular with the EPA as a training site.

[Bigslug]

Ever stop to think why mines get abandoned? It's usually because there's nuffin worthwhile left in 'em.

[bangerjim]

Here is an interesting video from 1948 about how they produced lead COMMERCIALLY.

Very interesting:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6HhdkkdsvTM

This is why we DO NOT mine our own lead!

bangerjim

[MaryB]

Isn't that town in the youtube video now abandoned? Or am I thinking of a different one?

[bigjake]

Not one item of protective equipment for the miners and smelters so they don't breath or ingest that lead dust or super heated lead fumes.

[bangerjim]

Not one item of protective equipment for the miners and smelters so they don't breath or ingest that lead dust or super heated lead fumes.

Remember......as stated.....this was a film from 1948. Loooooooong before OSHA and all the stupid safety garbage of today. Workers counted their working career years by the number of fingers they were missing!

Most towns associate with lead mines and smelters are gone or tying Herculenium, MO was the last one and I do not know if it is still alive after the shutdown.

All the Cu smelters here in AZ are now gone due to greenies. All copper production is now done with chemical extraction and electro-deposition. No big tall stacks belching black smoke. Even the melting furnaces are now all electric. HUGE carbon electrodes plunged into lakes of molten Cu. An amazing sight!

This documentary film shows lead production in the hay-day right after the industrial boom of post WWII. Great times for American workers and the economy. Unlike Obamanomics of today.

[MaryB]

EPA rules are strangling American industry. Yes we need clean water and air, but it has to be doe in an economically sound method a step at a time instead of Obama's edicts to cut it now.

[BAGTIC]

The post WW 2 'boom' existed because it was post-WW 2. There was a lot of pent up demand and millions of young returning soldiers were eager for jobs and families. The average age was much younger than today. Much of the economic differences was due largely to demographics. Also safety attitudes were different. I recall in the early 50's we travelled a thousand miles to Lake Moses, Washington because my dad was looking for construction work on the dam. We he found out how many injuries and fatalities were occurring he said his life and family were more important to him than a couple extra dollars per day. I know he ended up deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other from working on a wagon drill blasting through Sierra Nevada granite, all due to lack of safety rules.

We are all still paying for the long term effects of asbestos and other bad work practices in the past.

[johnho]

There's plenty of lead left in the old mines, and recently closed ones too. And large deposits of it all over the country that haven't even been touched. Problem is there is no place to smelt it now with all the EPA regs. Just not worth it anymore. But we can still get all we want from China and Russia. I was in the lead and zinc mining business and saw the smelters closing one after the other along with the mines. Try to even get a mining permit today-ha.

[4719dave]

That movie is something else wow

[bangerjim]

That movie is something else wow


Amazing what GOOD things one can find on there!

someone on here posted that link a year or so ago and I saved it because I thought is was so interesting to see how it WAS done B4 all the EPA and OSHA carp.

banger

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I recently visited the Scottish lead museum at Wanlochhead, an extremely bleak location high in the hills, where environmental impact was surely minimal. But health problems amount the workers were extreme. The smelting of lead ore is definitely not an operation for the amateur or small businessman, and the EPA legislation, which America can well afford, recognizes this.

Among the valuable qualities of lead, it lasts, its cash value stacks up quite high against processing and transport costs, and it is readily recyclable. Scrap lead, from days when so much more of it was used, must provide a fair proportion of what is needed in a country with so many synthetic substitutes nowadays.

[mrbillbus]

If safety rules and regulations are a bad thing why do our gun clubs have so many?

[bangerjim]

if safety rules and regulations are a bad thing why do our gun clubs have so many?

lawyers.

[62chevy]

lawyers.

Sad but true.

[omgb]

Not that I'm defending lawyers but behind every lawsuit is a plaintive who things he is entitled to something. The problem begins with our own greed and gets exacerbated by juries that feel sorry for folks without regard to where the award is coming from or what the consequences for all of us will be.

[Handloader109]

Looks like today's China and India and other third world countries. No regulations and who cares who is hurt or killed. I'm totally against over regulations, but a lot are really good for everyone involved. Just almost impossible to get the feds to reach a stopping point where enough is enough. That is the problem.

[MaryB]

Our government regulation system is out of control and broken. I looked at what I am supposed to be doing with my laser engraver and it is insane. Fume collector and scrubber, the cooling water is listed as hazardous waste(?no clue why, it is pure), special glassed in enclosure with glass that would cost more than the laser(it is contained in a cabinet with a laser proof acrylic window already...) it is nuts. I fly under the radar as a hobby that makes a little cash and ignore them. Tiny bit of fumes I emit from it would not be an issue if I ran it 24/7/365!

[mrbillbus]

Three different work place fatalities in the Western Michigan area so far this year. All because someone didn't follow OSHA lockout procedures. I am thankful that my company has stricter regs than even OSHA.

Now someone will point out that the rules didn't prevent the accidents because rules can't prevent stupidity. While that is true, rules can prevent ignorance. Often these types of incidents aren't because the individual ignored common sense but that they weren't properly trained/informed of the dangers of the equipment they were working with. Employers who are willing to cut corners on safety are employers who are willing to sacrifice you to their bottom line.

Yes, I did play with mercury when I was a kid. Even so I am glad that they keep it out of my drinking water.

[odinohi]

Three different work place fatalities in the Western Michigan area so far this year. All because someone didn't follow OSHA lockout procedures. I am thankful that my company has stricter regs than even OSHA.

Now someone will point out that the rules didn't prevent the accidents because rules can't prevent stupidity. While that is true, rules can prevent ignorance. Often these types of incidents aren't because the individual ignored common sense but that they weren't properly trained/informed of the dangers of the equipment they were working with. Employers who are willing to cut corners on safety are employers who are willing to sacrifice you to their bottom line.

Yes, I did play with mercury when I was a kid. Even so I am glad that they keep it out of my drinking water.

I take it you are referring to Ventra. They took over the Ford plant in Sandusky Ohio. Safety or the environment is not there big concern. Henry Ford would be rolling in his grave.

[mrbillbus]

I take it you are referring to Ventra. They took over the Ford plant in Sandusky Ohio. Safety or the environment is not their big concern. Henry Ford would be rolling in his grave.


That is one of them. Plastics plant on the south side of GR crushed a guy in a press a month or so ago.

The bolded part of your post is one answer to the question of why we have OSHA regulations.

[odinohi]

I agree

[johnho]

Three different work place fatalities in the Western Michigan area so far this year. All because someone didn't follow OSHA lockout procedures. I am thankful that my company has stricter regs than even OSHA.

Now someone will point out that the rules didn't prevent the accidents because rules can't prevent stupidity. While that is true, rules can prevent ignorance. Often these types of incidents aren't because the individual ignored common sense but that they weren't properly trained/informed of the dangers of the equipment they were working with. Employers who are willing to cut corners on safety are employers who are willing to sacrifice you to their bottom line.

Yes, I did play with mercury when I was a kid. Even so I am glad that they keep it out of my drinking water.

"weren't properly trained"? I hardly believe that today. any decent size company today has safety departments that either require detailed training by trained safety experts or bring someone in to do the training. In my experience as a manager I found that the employee WAS fully trained but violated the rule or procedure in spite of the training. The laws hold the employer responsible with almost NO responsibility by the employee. Our only recourse was to contest the Workmans Comp claim on a violation of safety rules and then it only decreased or eliminated the weekly benefits allowed and, if lucky on our part, reduced the award after the accident for "partial disability". But the company was always cited and fined because that is the way the law is written. If the employee had some responsibility then the accidents would be reduced further. Don't blame the companies for lack of training with such a broad stroke, it's not the case.

[odinohi]

Company guy? I work for this outfit. Not saying it was the company's fault. Am saying they could care less. There money goes back to Pakistan and who knows where from there.

[johnho]

I don't care if the money goes to the moon. They still have to comply with our laws. Was I a "company guy"? Yes, from front line supervisor to corporate level. I was responsible to make sure training was done and conducted training classes myself at times. I know first hand that employees do not always follow the training they are given. And if they did get hurt the first thing they did was claim they weren't trained. We got the point that every training session was reduced to the points covered and every employee signed it before they left the session. Those "I wasn't trained" stories soon stopped as we won more and more cases.

I'm glad you have such high impressions of Henry Ford. you do know he supported Hitler in WWII and was not wanting to produce any war needed equipment. He finally did but he didn't want to. Good man old Henry, as a efficient manufacturing line creator, bad human being in ways.

[odinohi]

When I first got hired in, Ford still owned this place and you had to pass a 7 hour test to be hired. As soon as Ventra took over the testing ended. Now they hire pure idiots off the street. You just can't make stupid people understand the dangers. Don't know about the management at your place, but here management is part of the problem. As far as Henry and Adolph, don't know and don't care

[johnho]

Can't argue that point. You can not train or educate stupid. I retired. Last two years were not in management anymore and was sure glad to be out of it. I ended up beating my head against the wall the way things were going. Company I worked for, all of them, were extremely safety conscious. Now I sleep well. Glad to be out of the workforce and responsible for people's safety. Now to get ready to go shooting tomorrow and golf the next day. Good luck on that job, it would drive me nuts now.

[odinohi]

Back at ya johno. Enjoy your retirement!

[RogerDat]

Laws and regulations only exist because some folks want to do something in a manner or of a nature that other think is bad or unsafe. We only make it illegal because someone (somewhere and at least once) wanted to do it. Taking a whiz on the electric fence is still legal because folks generally don't want to do it anyway. Stealing stuff still illegal because some folks want to do this and others don't think they should. Range rules and punishments exist because not everyone wants to or is willing to do it in a way that is acceptable to the rest of the community.

I don't think it is very easy to make general statements about the actions of individual entities, be they workers or a businesses. Some folks pay more attention to safety or doing the job right, others not so much. Some companies consider safety and quality work #1 others safety first is a faded peeling poster in the break room. Right next to the dusty & empty emergency first aid kit. Mining companies knew much of what they were doing was unsafe for the workers, workers knew the job was bloody dangerous but needed to make a living.

In Canada they still mine asbestos but under strict safety guidelines, they then ship it to India where guys with a rag over their faces blow it into attics and ceiling spaces as insulation. One has health and safety rules one does not. Which would you rather work for a living in? If mining & smelting lead in China can be done at lower cost, partly due to less worker safety and pollution regulation then it just makes sense to invest ones capital in for lead production in China. Now the long term health and environmental consequences may eventually lead to push back from workers or public, costs might eventually increase but today developing world is the better investment. Morally it might be awful but that is not generally a powerful driving force in the movement of capital. Or prostitution and drug dealing would not have so much money invested in them.

I also think the "easy" metals have been to a large extent discovered. The Romans and Egyptians were going after veins of often nearly pure metal. Michigan had copper mining areas like that back in the day. Now the minerals are in the less accessible locations or in less rich form, and only our technology makes it practical to extract and process. Most fracking fields would have been ignored 40 years ago in favor of much easier and more productive sources.

The point(s) made about lawyers and lawsuits miss one central element. We mostly judge the nature of the lawsuits from brief, half baked, inaccurate and often biased news stories which hardly qualifies us to pass judgment on the wisdom or intelligence of the jury or judge that heard days, weeks, or sometimes months of testimony on the case.