Storing lead

[tlawler]

Hi folks. I’m brand new here after some of my buds over at the S&W forum suggested I join. I just bought a rather large lot of new and used equipment that included ingoted lead. I’m still getting everything set up before I start casting, but I need to consolidate the ingots to maximize space. I’m planning on storing them on a wood shelf in a garage , so 90degrees at 90% hum is standard. I’m just going to stack the ingots on the shelf to about 10 high. Shelf is lowest to floor, so weight won’t be a problem. My question is: should I line the shelf with something and do I need to keep the lead covered? It will be at the opposite corner from my house a/c system.

[bangerjim]

I store my tons of lead in the open outside ( not much rain in AZ), in 5 gallon plastic buckets, under the bench, in coffee cans, small Sn ingots in Tupperware-like containers for ease of access - - - just about anywhere I have space that is convenient.

It's NOT gonna spoil so covering it is not needed. Try to protect it from lots of moisture because PbO2 will form (that white powder on the surface) and that stuff is the hazardous materials everybody is concerned about.

If that is 3/4" plywood, you should be OK for 10-12 inches. It is amazing just how much a few dozen ingots of Pb can weigh! I hauled home 100 2# ingots given to me in the back of the SUV.....had to unload in 3 separate plastic buckets! That's over 200# in that small area.

[Dusty Bannister]

Unless those ingots are unusually uniform in size, you might want to rethink it a bit. 10 high is not going to be very stable and once it tips, you may regret that plan. If you are not going to alternate the direction of each layer so they interlock, I would suggest you go perhaps 4-5 high, then a sheet of plywood or 1x wood and then start a fresh layer from a firm level surface. I would also suggest that you make your stacks wide side to side and deep front to back. This will spread out the weight so you do not crack a slab of concrete, and have a stable stack that will be less likely to fall over. Use care to spread out the PSI to avoid problems.

[Winger Ed.]

I have several 5 gal. buckets about 1/2 full and they're pushed up against the wall under my workbench.
As long as the concentrated weight isn't a problem, and they stay dry-- anything will work.

As far as liners & covers:
It's reminds me when a guy told me one time as I was taking too long moving some rocks more gently than I needed to.
He told me, "They're already dead, you ain't going to hurt 'em".

[cwlongshot]

I also use buckets but my wife gets me small ones as a 5gal pail of lead ingots might as well be a ton cause aint no one gonna move it!!

So she gets me 1 & 2.5 gal buckets. (She is a baker so many fillings and such come in them. Meaning ALL smell delicious too. I clear space and store them under my casting bench. Then I have also installed bracing between the studs of the garage wall behind my bench tor more ingots eaisly reachable without bending over or reaching. These braces become little shelves for maybe 10-15 ingots. Labeled for the alloy, it works well For me.

CW

[tlawler]

Yes, it is 3/4 and there is a middle brace that runs down the middle the full length of shelving. It’s good and dry in that spot and slightly elevated in case of minor flooding.

Ingots are all Lee of the same size and shape, except six muffin tin ingots.

With the lining, I was worried about the bottom layer getting stuck to the wood. I didn’t want to have to pry them off with bits of shelf stuck to them when I reached the bottom layer. And something that wouldn’t stick to the lead. I’ve got a piece of plexiglas that I was thinking of using.

[Paper Puncher]

I have never seen lead stick to wood so I wouldn't worry about it. I had ingots sitting in the garage on the sill plate between the studs for at least 15 years. Moved them all last year and no problems. If you stack them one up one down so they interlock you can stack them pretty high. A slight pyramid shape to the stack helps also.

When you start making casting alloys you will want to mark and separate them. I have separate stacks for wheel weight (ww), pure lead (PB), Range scrap (RS), 50/50+2 (ww, PB, and 2% tin) and a few more. The abbreviations are how I mark the ingots.

Don't over think this. A lot of things work, so there isn't always just one correct answer. Most important is have fun.

PS if you haven't read this it's a good read.

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_textonly2.pdf

[CastingFool]

I store my lead ingots in used paint cans. The sealed lids help prevent oxidation and the cans only hold about 45 lbs, so they're easy to move, when needed.

[Conditor22]

you will need to separate the lead by hardness using pencils is the easiest/most economical way https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?378866-Lead-hardness-pencil-testing-trick, permanently marking the ingots. ( we use felt marker and number stamps taped together to more the lead.

[AlHunt]

Worry about the weight. The environment isn't an issue.

I wouldn't store them under water (though you could) but exposure to the elements isn't going to bother them. You've never seen a rusty sinker, right?

[John Boy]

In garage … on the floor … up against a wall … by Magic marked Bhn alloy …. won’t go anywhere and out of the way

[barnabus]

i store my muffin ingots in a small metal trash cans,PL,RL AND ww

[MostlyLeverGuns]

I store lead on a concrete floor of a large metal building where it stays cleaner than outside. Worry more about lead falling on your foot, weather doesn't bother it, used in plumbing for hundreds of years.

[gbrown]

I have 2 milk crates, 1pure, 1 coww. In a dry storage space. Have other, pure, flattened pipe or old ingot my Dad cast. It's all good.

[bruce381]

5 gallon pail half full on garage floor out of the way easy mark the pails with what alloy.

[Cowhide]

I store my ingots on the cement floor but I turn the first set of ingots up side down and then lattice stack them correct side up. That way I can get the last ingots off the floor easier. If storing alloy our side or in a garage remember those ingots will be colder then ingots stored in 76 deg room and wont behave the same when added to a hot pot of alloy.
Happy casting.

[MrWolf]

Bit of advice. Those lead ingots get heavier over time. Just saying be ready when you have to move them again :Fire:

[LenH]

I store mine in bolt barrels. I say barrels but they are bit bigger than a 5 gallon bucket and are 6 or 7 inches taller with a metal clamp band to seal.
I have 3 of these bolt 'kegs' and they are packed as full as I can get them. I have certain alloys in .50 cal ammo cans. I use whatever I can find to keep the rain out.
I store mine outside.

[Rich/WIS]

Store mine in the garage and some in my reloading room in plastic coffee cans. Almost all are muffin tin ingots and a coffee can will hold 30# +. For what I cast now that is a bit over 1K bullets per can, and usually run through a full can in a casting session. Don't stack more than two high as I am not sure how much weight the lowest can will tolerate. Do have a stash of corn mold ingots in SFRB's, the boxes are holding up well stacked 5 high.

[oldcanadice]

Bit of advice. Those lead ingots get heavier over time. Just saying be ready when you have to move them again :Fire:

Absolutely true. I'm 84 now and can hardly move an ammo can full.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

you may as well plan that you'll be moving the ingots, even if you don't think you will. I have 50 to 60 lbs of ingots on a pallet type thing, then I stack the pallets 3 or 4 high. I used USPS Med flat rate boxes cut so they are 2" tall, then cut a piece of scrap 1/4" plywood in the bottom for support...works slick.

[Jim22]

If the ingots came from a commercial ingot mould - you mentioned a Lee mould - try this: Stack them one face up and next face down. They use up less room that way. The angled sides fit together. Start each layer opposite the one below so wide sidess go to wide sides and barrow to naarrow. You will fit more in less space and the stack seems to be more stable. If you can turn every other layer 90 degrees as you would do bricks. That will add even more stability.

[Sasquatch-1]

I have some wooden crates that my daughter brought home from the casino she use to work at. They are the boxes the the poker chips came in and are made out of 3/4" plywood. They are about 2 feet long by about 12 to 14 inches tall and the same deep. They hold three rows deep (long wise) with a fourth row set side ways of "Twinkie" size ingots. The boxes hold between 400 and 450 pounds of ingots each. I got tired of having to empty them when something important fell behind them. So I got several of the small four wheel dollies from Harbor Freight and the boxes fit almost perfectly on them. They can be rolled around but I still have a slight problem getting them started when the wheels are pointing the wrong way.

[Geezer in NH]

Do not try and move a plastic milk crate of ingots. I asked my son to move one to the cellar from the garage, he who smells strong and is strong promptly tried to lift it. The milk crate sheared off at the floor level asap.

Milk crates "may" keep them from falling over but that is all they will do.

[shootinfox2]

286755PHD
Piled higher and deeper. Do. Ot go above 18 inches tall and you will
not exceed the floor loading in most garages. Your bench may not hold that much. The avg person exerts 40 psi on a floor. 40 x 144 square inches is a lot of weight per square foot, static load. Do the math.

[fiberoptik]

286755PHD
Piled higher and deeper. Do. Ot go above 18 inches tall and you will
not exceed the floor loading in most garages. Your bench may not hold that much. The avg person exerts 40 psi on a floor. 40 x 144 square inches is a lot of weight per square foot, static load. Do the math.

So how do you get your lead to hang up in mid-air like that....diet lead???[emoji41]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jsizemore]

5 gal plastic buckets ended up cracking from the weight of the ingots inside of mine. 55 gallon steel drums took care of that. Clamping band on lid toof care of lead oxidation. 55 gallon drum holds about a ton of cupcake size ingots.

[white eagle]

no need to worry about storage not much can happen to lead in the garage
weight may be a concern but only if you have to lift it

[fredj338]

5gal buckets are fine but more than 80# & the handles pull off. HD has 1/2 size milk crates which work pretty nicely, holds 100# easy & move & stack well too. In the garage on the floor.

[gwpercle]

Bit of advice. Those lead ingots get heavier over time. Just saying be ready when you have to move them again :Fire:

OH ...I forgot about that ... I have half a 5 gallon bucket of COWW squirreled away out in the garage ... I better go get them and move them into reloading / casting room ... they must be twice as heavy as when I put them in the garage and they probably gaining more weight every day ... pretty soon I'm not going to be able to pick that bucket up .
Thanks for reminding me .
Gary

[shootinfox2]

So how do you get your lead to hang up in mid-air like that....diet lead???[emoji41]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
PFM and not enough computer skill to rotate the pic.

[Rickf1985]

10 inches high huh? I will bet that the bottom of that unit will blow out of there before you get that high. You are looking at probably a ton of lead in a small elevated wood area. just to give you an idea of how much these add up, a 50 cal. ammo can not completely full is 100 lbs! That is 6" wide by 7" high by 11" long and not full to the top. Looks like you could get quite a few of those cans on that shelf.

[farmbif]

swfl, if in garage most likely putting that bench against a wall will probably have the strongest part of concrete floor where the footing is. the thing ive found very important when storing alloys is knowing what's in the ingots and storing like materials together. since you bought pre cast ingots you probably have a lot of hardness testing to do unless you know for sure what the alloy is you bought. I leave my raw materials in half filled 5 gal buckets and make ingots out of 1/2 gallon pot at a time fluxing/cleaning well then pour into Lyman and lee ingot molds. put those ingots into fairly small sturdy cardboard boxes to keep them free of dust and debris and mark clearly on box and ingot what the alloy is so when I go to casting bullets I put them in the lee bottom pour and I've got good clean alloy that I know the composition of. I don't think that 1000 or 2000 pounds spread out over bottom of your 6'-8'x2' bench bottom shelf will hurt your concrete floor as long as bench is right up against outside wall footer. code there is at least 4" floor with at least a 12"x12" steel reinforced footer under the outside wall of a swfla house. the floor in my garage of my cape coral house got cracks in it over the years but not against the walls. ands I had a Bridgeport mill, a 2 ton lathe and lots of steel stock and cases of tooling against one wall

[kevin c]

286990

This is part of what I have in my basement area. That's a grade beam behind the stacks of CB bars, most of which (~1000#) are on the unfinished ground with just concrete pavers over a gravel and sand base. I figured I'd save loading too much onto the beam itself, though there's maybe four hundred pounds sitting over an eight foot stretch of it, along with another half ton on more pavers out of sight.

It's about 40 square feet of paved area that is big enough for alloy, bulk cast boolit and casting equipment storage that's both out of the way and out of the weather and also manages to be dry and convenient enough.

[remy3424]

286755PHD
Piled higher and deeper. Do. Ot go above 18 inches tall and you will
not exceed the floor loading in most garages. Your bench may not hold that much. The avg person exerts 40 psi on a floor. 40 x 144 square inches is a lot of weight per square foot, static load. Do the math.

Trick photo...2 sided tape.

[remy3424]

"In the basement"...the lowest point you can find. Your family will laugh about that some day as the grand kids carry it out. I will get the same treatment and mine is ground-level in the garage, boxed and labeled....maybe with less laughing/cursing.

[kevin c]

That photo shows 1300# of ready to cast alloy. There's about 1700# of lead, pewter and boolits out of sight. My "basement" is above grade, since it's actually the crawl space of my hillside house which is on stilts 62 steps (about four stories) up from road level. I carried ALL of it up myself, and I'm in my sixties.

I intend to cast and shoot all of it in just the next five years (high volume action pistol shooter) and will bring up more from my main storage off site as needed. If there's lead left at home when I'm gone, it's literally all downhill hauling for those who'll take it, and the main supply is even more accessible to my casting friends.

[Buzzard II]

Where ever you can find the room. I would not pile any in the attic though, too much weight. Garage, basement near wherever you do your casting, garden shed. I have a full blue barrel and several garbage cans full of free range lead, buckets of ingots in the garden shed, ingots in the basement and garage, also in many nooks and crannies here and there. Label it if you have different alloys. Remember, a little is good, a lot is better and too much is just enough.

[BamaNapper]

I found a pile of old ammo cans outside an Army surplus store at about $5 each. I cleaned them up, sprayed with some cheap rattle can paint, then mount two of them on a piece of 3/4" plywood with casters. When the ammo cans are half full there's maybe 300 lbs between the two cans, but the casters let me move them around as needed. Multiple ammo cans also let me sort my lead. Pure lead in one can, range scrap ingots in others, wheel weight ingots in others. I also use the Lee ingot molds and storing in ammo cans means I don't have to worry about knocking over stacks of them.

[rondog]

I poured all my lead and wheelweights into 1lb Lyman ingot molds, made up hundreds of those little bars. Storing - I keep them in .30 cal USGI ammo cans. I can get 65 in a can, that makes each can roughly 67lbs. Heavy, but portable, stackable, clean, and dry. And no spiders. And if I really need extra traction in the winter, I can put 10 cans on the backseat floor of my truck - that's about 650-670lbs of added weight. But I avoid that, moving those things is hard on a crippled old man.

[oley55]

I guess I need to get way more busy scrounging. As is I don't have near enough to even wonder about storage. Just saying, I wish I had that problem.

[lightman]

I cast mine into the Lyman type ingots and store them in milk crates in the corner of my shop. Their not perfect but serve to keep them together. A full crate with the ingots stacked neatly weighs about 700#, which is way to heavy to move.

[Wis Tom]

I learned fast, that you don't stack lead very high, before it gets very heavy, as I started a very nice stack in the back corner of my shop, and before I knew it, a nice crack appeared about 4 foot back all the way across, in the cement. When moving it, I got out my refrigerator scale to add up each wood crate I had packed, and knew I had went overboard when just over half done, I had already hit 900 lbs. I can't remember where I got these wood crates, but each are only about a foot by foot and about 7 inches high, and they stack really nice. I also use the old heavy duty milk crates for the muffin shaped lead, but the new crates are not dependable for that much weight, as are built very light weight compared to the old one. Happy casting.

[lightman]

I cast mine into the Lyman type ingots and store them in milk crates in the corner of my shop. Their not perfect but serve to keep them together. A full crate with the ingots stacked neatly weighs about 700#, which is way to heavy to move.

Quoting ones self seems like it should be funny! :-P

But I have been helping a buddy that retired from farming move all of his equipment and "stuff" from his old shop. Yesterday I spotted a heavy duty side mount truck tool box that he gave me. This winter I plan to move my stash from the milk crates to the tool box. If they will all fit! I'll stamp the unstamped ones as I move. I'll either have "tennis elbow" or my right arm will be like Popeye's!

[Soundguy]

I made short, low shelves. works great. lots of sub divisions for different alloy.

[Jtarm]

I bought several of the Cast Boolits ingots from LakeHouse2012.

They fit neatly into .50-cal ammo cans.

[FISH4BUGS]

I store my lead mostly in 5 gallon buckets with lids. A sub shop locally gets their pickles in them and when empty sells them for a buck a piece.
If you don't mind them smelling like pickles for a couple of years, they are great.
I store a lot of wheel weights. I am the luckiest guy on the planet because a good friend sold his tire shop a number of years back, and he told me to come and take as many wheel weights as I wanted before they closed on the sale. I took well over a ton.
After sorting, I smelt them in major production runs. I might smelt for an entire day or weekend and make a big batch of ingots. Those get stored in the 5 gallon buckets sealed until I break into one. The linotype is done the same way except those are from 25 lb pigs.
I might keep 20 lbs or so in the reloading room, but usually will bring in 50 lbs for a big casting session.
All in all, the buckets have worked out well. They are out of the way in the basement and the barn.
I am very grateful to have enough lead for my lifetime.

[Hossfly]

IIRC a cubic foot of lead weights about a little over 700#.

[kevin c]

706# and some odd ounces for pure lead, but the dead air space between even closely stacked ingots cuts that by a good amount.

I use Lakehouse's CB ingots too, but even with the airspace, I'm not gonna even try to lift a fifty cal ammo can full. I just take a few bars off the top of my stacks of alloy to carry to the pot as needed.