First ingots....

[keeber]

I guess I have the casting bug as I just made my first ingots from wheel weights today, and I am hooked. Nothing elaborate, just a single eye electric hotplate, an old stainless steel pot, and some small Goodwill found stainless bowls to use as ingot molds. Dollar store ladle and slotted spoon rounded out the equipment, and of course good thick gloves, safety goggles and a good box fan. not the prettiest ingots, but they'll fit in a Lee pot when I get one, for the meantime, I'm content to convert these buckets of lead into manageable and cleaner chunks.

[fishhawk]

got hooked quick didn't ya ?! steve k

[keeber]

Ive been accumulating lead since this time last year, 400+ #s sitting in cat litter tubs in the corner of the basement. Guess it was just a wild hair that finally got me going today, but I'm definitely hooked on the silver stream now. All I need now are some good single drop molds and get started casting some boolits for later. I think I might even try to put together a shot dripper too.

[Leadforbrains]

Welcome to the madness...... I mean brotherhood. I got hooked too. I'll never be able to just drive by a tire store without stopping ever again.

[Chunky Monkey]

I know what you mean. I thought reloading was addicting. I just came up from the basement where I was wiring in my new bathroom fan. My casting bench will sit directly underneath. Hope to hook up the duct work this weekend.

I went from brass ***** to wheel weight ***** literally overnight!!

[keeber]

I work in the autoparts industry so I have access to new wheel weights. Even with the employee discount they are prohibitively expensive to cast. However, they do make nice trades for used weights. I can quite often get "ore" from new places just by offering them some new weights in exchange for a good quantity of used ones. I even have one shop that will give me all their weights as long as I make them enough weights for their fishing purposes this spring. Time to get sinker molds too.