Good problem to have!

[cwtebay]

A local hospital just tore out their radiology department and recalled me taking their older lead vests so decided to get this to me also. I had 11,000+/- pounds of lead delivered to a place on my ranch this afternoon. It's mostly in sheets. How would y'all go about processing this must Pb?

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[8mmFan]

Wow!! 7,000g/lb. /130g/bullet = 53 bullets/lb *11,000 lbs. = 592,307 130 grain bullets!! CONGRATS!!!

8mmFan

[Bazoo]

A pot full at a time. Wish I could score like that, congrats.

[kevin c]

Great score!

Ive read here of different ways of approaching the processing, some better suited than others, depending on the material, your tools, the time and money and space available.

Are the pieces clean without paint, adhesive or backing? Is it rolled or folded up, or is it in sheets?

We small timers make do with camp stoves and cast iron pots. Processing five and a half tons will go faster and easier if you can scale up. A ranch implies a workshop and maybe heavy duty gear. Do you have a hoist or other lifting gear? Got propane and burners? Chain saws, log splitters, etc? Are you going to cast 11,00 one pound ingots, or will you make or buy bigger molds. Are you going to store as is, in big ingots, as final alloy? Are you going to sell some of this?

Lots of questions. Your plans will probably steer you towards answers that suit you best.

[Land Owner]

From Arthur Brown, et al:


I am the god of **** fire and I bring you

Fire

[RU shooter]

How do you process that much ? sounds like you need to have a rather large BBQ /smelting party at your place . I'll bring coleslaw :) I like Miller lite btw
All jokes aside take it piece by piece and smelt it into say 20 lb pig ingots . And stack it up for future plans

[rancher1913]

you dont have to turn it into ingots overnight, its not going to go bad,store it some place and process a little as you need it.

[dale2242]

It sounds to me like you need the burner for a turkey fryer and a propane tank cut off to smelt with.
How you get it into manageable pieces depends on the thickness of the sheets and which tools you have at hand.
BTW, how thick is it?

[Lloyd Smale]

i got a bunch from our hospital when they tore it down too. What i did with the sheats is roll them up as tightly as i could then used an old chain saw to cut it like firewood into peices that fit in my smelter. The stuff that was sandwiched between wall board and dry wall i just let sit out all winter in the elements and by summer it just seperated and was easy to again roll up and melt. If you dont have an old chain saw or a crap chain to sacrifice you can cut it with a sawzall too. I didnt have near what you got though. I think in total i came away with about 1500 lbs of it. I screwed up and waited to long to ask and alot of it had been hauled away already.

[SweetMk]

Rather than the chain saw,, I would use a wood splitter to cut the rolled lead logs.

My wood splitter will cross cut a 8" oak branch,, I would bet the oak is 10X stronger than the lead.

So, simply roll the lead "logs" a couple inches smaller than the splitter wedge.

[Rightbrained]

Congrats on the huge score. That’s a “problem” many of us would like to have!

[dverna]

Whatever you do, be careful of trapped water. The tendency is to keep 1/4 of the melt in the smelter to speed up melting of the next batch. And that is when you can have a problem.

[Targa]

Good Lord!! That is a lot of lead!!! I think you should process and sell a bunch of it at a greatly reduced rate to your fellow castboolit enthusiasts....:guntootsmiley:

[Kraschenbirn]

Many years back a friend obtained a quantity of sheet lead from the decommissioning of an industrial x-ray lab and he invited me to help hauling it away from the jobsite and melting it down in exchange for a share of his score. Sheets were about 1/2" thick and we cut off strips 6"-8" wide using a Sawzall with a coarse bi-metallic blade then rolled those to fit into pot for fluxing and casting into ingots. My buddy was a Civil War re-enactor and I was told his 'company' of volunteer infantry was still casting their minie balls from his cache of that same lead sheet when he passed away five or six years ago.

Bill

[country gent]

Make a big pot from a propane tank cut just under the top radius it will hold 350-400 lbs of lead. I made a coal burner from 3 or 4 16 1/2 truck rims. cut centers out of all but one set up on a block base fill with stoker coal up 8" or so sit pot in and fill around it. Ignite and when burning good use a shop vac for a blower. with a filled pot. This will melt the pot full in a little less than an hour once the bed of coals is going good with the blower. Once you see molten you can probably shut blower off. As you melt add coal around pot to burn down.

When working on this scale you need a lot of ingot moulds. I use 8 5 cavity angle iron moulds that make 3 1/2 lb ingots. this is enough so the first is cooled enough when the last is poured. A big ladle you want to pour at least in ingot with a dip my ladle holds just over 20 lbs. a bigger scrapper and strainer. Wear the PPE have plenty of room to work a lot of
cold water.you want good solid work surfaces. When your pouring ingots the big pot will fill a large area with ingots. when you start melting the next pot these can be stacked and stored away.

Have a dolly for moving ingots handy. a ladle that can be operated with 2 hands a 3' long handle is good. a big bucket for dross.

[lightman]

Congratulations on a nice score. I mean a Great score!

Like many of the others have said, do a little at a time. If you don't already have a nice smelting set-up now is a good time to do so.

[copdills]

Great score man , congrats

[Bull-Moose]

Nice score!

[Gunslinger1911]

Just like you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.

GREAT score !

Maybe 10 years ago, my town built a new hosp, old one torn down - didn't even think of asking about the lead. Darn it !!

[Conditor22]

There's an unwritten rule on CB: IF you get a large amount of lead you have to send 10# of lead to the first 20 people that post on the thread!!!

[jimb16]

I don't know if this works, but I was told that if you reverse the blade on a power saw, it will cut lead sheet. You don't have the problem of the teeth filling with lead or suddenly sticking in the metal and causing the saw to kick. I haven't tried it, but it makes sense to me.

[shootinfox2]

Let us know your location and I am sure you will get some help. PM of you want.

[mr surveyor]

I don't know if this works, but I was told that if you reverse the blade on a power saw, it will cut lead sheet. You don't have the problem of the teeth filling with lead or suddenly sticking in the metal and causing the saw to kick. I haven't tried it, but it makes sense to me.

when I worked a farm back in the 70's, we cut a lot of corrugated roofing metal with a "reversed blade" in a circular saw. Neat trick.

jd

[Lloyd Smale]

Rather than the chain saw,, I would use a wood splitter to cut the rolled lead logs.

My wood splitter will cross cut a 8" oak branch,, I would bet the oak is 10X stronger than the lead.

So, simply roll the lead "logs" a couple inches smaller than the splitter wedge.

that would work too

[Lloyd Smale]

I don't know if this works, but I was told that if you reverse the blade on a power saw, it will cut lead sheet. You don't have the problem of the teeth filling with lead or suddenly sticking in the metal and causing the saw to kick. I haven't tried it, but it makes sense to me.

ive dont LOTS of cutting with a skill saw with the blade on the correct way and never had it plug up.

[Lloyd Smale]

Make a big pot from a propane tank cut just under the top radius it will hold 350-400 lbs of lead. I made a coal burner from 3 or 4 16 1/2 truck rims. cut centers out of all but one set up on a block base fill with stoker coal up 8" or so sit pot in and fill around it. Ignite and when burning good use a shop vac for a blower. with a filled pot. This will melt the pot full in a little less than an hour once the bed of coals is going good with the blower. Once you see molten you can probably shut blower off. As you melt add coal around pot to burn down.

When working on this scale you need a lot of ingot moulds. I use 8 5 cavity angle iron moulds that make 3 1/2 lb ingots. this is enough so the first is cooled enough when the last is poured. A big ladle you want to pour at least in ingot with a dip my ladle holds just over 20 lbs. a bigger scrapper and strainer. Wear the PPE have plenty of room to work a lot of
cold water.you want good solid work surfaces. When your pouring ingots the big pot will fill a large area with ingots. when you start melting the next pot these can be stacked and stored away.

Have a dolly for moving ingots handy. a ladle that can be operated with 2 hands a 3' long handle is good. a big bucket for dross.

yup ingot molds were the biggest obstacle i had when i did it. Neighbor and i spent 3 days making ingot molds out of steel he had and i still didnt have enough. Kind of nice to have enough so that by the time you fill the last one the first one is cool enough to dump and refill.

[cwtebay]

Well, I am planning on a trial run. I have a friend who does cast concrete and has fence post molds and large brick molds that are made out of aluminum - we tested a small batch and they held up just fine (and cooled down quickly after). I have an old crucible from a silver mine that I can hang from an overhead hoist that should hold around 600# +/- at a time (and can be tipped to pour) I have around a ton of coal that I plan to use in conjunction with a couple of weed burners for heat. I am going to try pinching the bigger pieces down to size with the thumb on an excavator.
A couple of problems I foresee - should I preheat the lead over a big wood fire to make sure that the snow / water is all gone before putting into the crucible?
How critical is it to get rust out of the crucible prior to starting?

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[blackthorn]

"should I preheat the lead over a big wood fire to make sure that the snow / water is all gone before putting into the crucible?" ----- Having totally dry lead is only really crucial if you are planning to add raw material into molten lead. If you start each pot from empty, moisture will be gone by the time the lead starts to melt.

How critical is it to get rust out of the crucible prior to starting? ---- Not critical at all, the rust (if it detaches) will float to the top to be skimmed as dross.

[country gent]

The pre heat will allow for you to eave a small amount in the pot, 1-2" of molten left really speeds up the next pots melting. You dont have to really pre heat it a lot get it to 250* and moisture should be gone. The big problem will be keeping it from getting soft or melting into the fire. Youll want heavy tongs for moving the heated pieces.

The rust will float to the top with the first fluxing scrapping of the pot. A free swinging pot may make it harder to scrape and flux though. If you can get the pot mounted solid it will make working a lot easier. Also a ring around the pot will help hold more heat in making melting faster and quicker.

A burn ring under the hoist lower down in melt and flux while sitting solid then raise and pour as needed. One plus is 600 lbs will hold heat along time while off the fire.

[bishopgrandpa]

Many people on this site tell stories of 1000's of pounds of lead from hospitals. Over the years I have visited the 3 major hospitals in our area and every dentist I can find and every single one has said they turn it in for scrap money.I find it hard to believe any one of them would turn down 1000's of dollars from scrap. You must live a charmed life.

[cwtebay]

Many people on this site tell stories of 1000's of pounds of lead from hospitals. Over the years I have visited the 3 major hospitals in our area and every dentist I can find and every single one has said they turn it in for scrap money.I find it hard to believe any one of them would turn down 1000's of dollars from scrap. You must live a charmed life.Well, my wife and I contribute a great deal to that hospital and we are fortunate enough to be close with many people that work there. Also - I agreed to let them store a fair amount of things on a lot I own adjacent to the facility that is being remodeled.
Sounds like what we are going to do with a good chunk of this is make fishing sinkers for the 4H clubs and Boy Scouts to sell for a fund raising item this year.

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[kevin c]

Maybe what's available depends on who does the demo and hauling and how big the medical entity is. If there's no paperwork needed for dealing with "hazardous waste", and if you pay more than the scrap yard and especially if you save them the expense and manpower for hauling and maybe even demo, many small offices and small contractors' on site managers would at least consider your proposition. If you have to deal with the contractor's higher ups or a hospital administration you'd like get "no's" across the board because they may have regulations and contractual agreements they need to follow.

[WRideout]

I would probably just use an ax for the size-reduction step of processing. Congrats!

Wayne

[jdowney]

If I had had the time a few years ago, I could have scored a similar haul. Lead counterweight on a research telescope's bull gear. Too heavy to lift easily by the recycler, cast in place onto the steel gear I gather. Eventually they got a bigger crane and a semi up for it, last time I was at that site in 2017 it was long gone. The mechanic did save me some of the 25 lb lead bricks though, he prefers steel counter weighting (and also felt that casting boolits was a reasonable activity :D ).

[Half Dog]

An old wise man said that if you send some to the person who creates post #35, you will receive good luck for years to come. That wise man has always been correct.

[GoldieMI]

Just happy to hear it's being recycled for casting and not simply scraped.

[Ural Driver]

Good find for you and your local Scout Troop. Merry Christmas