Melting Large Chunks of Lead

[CajunRebel]

Friend found some some lead but supposedly they're huge 20-40lbs chunks. Any idea how we can melt that down so it can then go into a typical 10-20lb furnace? All I have is a little Lyman Mag20. Taking an axe to break it up into a managable size doesn't seem a good idea. I thought about getting a propane burner at Harbor Freight but don't know what to use for the pot(?).:?:

[Philngruvy]

20 - 40 lb chunks of lead dont seem that large. What are the physical dimensions of the chunks? Find a cast iron pot or skillet that the chunk will fit into, put it onto your turkey fryer and melt 'er down!

[stumpjumper]

harbor freight has dutch ovens for 20.00 i think, that is what i use with a turkey fryer. good luck

[sqlbullet]

Dutch oven is the way to go. If it is sheet lead, you may have to bend it or roll it to get it to fit. If you don't have a turkey fryer, try a camp stove. That is what I started with.

[largecaliberman]

Friend found some some lead but supposedly they're huge 20-40lbs chunks. Any idea how we can melt that down so it can then go into a typical 10-20lb furnace? All I have is a little Lyman Mag20. Taking an axe to break it up into a managable size doesn't seem a good idea. I thought about getting a propane burner at Harbor Freight but don't know what to use for the pot(?).:?:

Take two or three rebars and place them across the a turkey fryer pot (or similar) then place the chunk on top of the rebars and with a torch (like the ones used to burn weeds or like the ones roofers use) and melt the chunk into the pot. After the chunk is reduced to a manageable size, remove the rebars and let it settle into the melt. CAREFULLY!! Then the rest is easy after fluxing etc, pour the melt into manageable sizes like using a muffin mold.

[fredj338]

Even a 40# chunk isn't very big & should fit into a 3qt cast iron dutch oven. If HF doesn't have them, you can get them cheap from Sportsman's. Throw that on a turkey fryer burner & go at it. until melted. Get a 4oz ss soup ladle & scoop into ingots. Small bread loaf pans or muffin tins or just buy the ingot molds. If you are handy or no someone that welds, 3" channel iron w/ flat plate welded on the ends of 4"-5" pieces make great ingot molds.

[NoDakJak]

About a year ago I passed on the chance to buy a 1,600 pound chunk of lead that was supposedly a counterweight on some type of antique oil field equipment. I didn't have the fifty cents a pound that he wanted for it. I also didn't have the money to rent a crane to have it loaded nor for the truck to haul it 75 miles home. If I had managed to get it home then just what the dickens would I do with a 1,600 pound lump sitting in my driveway? Just about made me cry to pass it up though.
Neil

[rickomatic]

I melted a 30# lead pyramid anchor (looked like a humongous fishing weight). I put it in my high sided cast iron frying pan on my propane camp stove and put an aluminum foil tent over it. The foil kept the heat concentrated and it melted in about 5 minutes.

[DAFzipper]

Just chop it up with an axe.

[big boar]

I had several lead bearings, 4" in cross section and curved into a 1/2 circle about 10" across and 6" deep. Weighed about 30lbs each 1/2. I bought a cast pot for about $20 and another $20 for a propane cooking burner to hook up to my BBQ tank. Only took about 15 min to melt about 60lbs at a time. Wonder why I never did this years ago and saved myself all sorts of time trying to cut things up. By the way, you can split large pieces of lead with an axe though it takes a good number of swings. I used a splitting maul for the large pieces so it can be done.

[jtaylor1960]

A friend gave me a Dutch oven so I thought I would try it out last week.I found that it will hold over sixty pounds of alloy!Big chunks are no problem.

[Jim]

A long time ago, I melted down 25 lb. bricks of lead in a dutch oven over a bed of hot coals left over from a hardwood fire. Plenty 'nough heat.

[Dale53]

The Harbor Freight 12" cast iron dutch oven will hold well over 100 lbs of bullet metal. I think I paid $20.00 for mine (it was on sale, as I remember). I bought my turkey/fish fryer from Bass Pro on sale for $30.00. I have done 650 lbs of smelting with them in half a day.

Go to it!

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1767.jpg

That's a 92 lb ingot in there...

Here's it just sinking below the surface:

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1771.jpg

Dale53

[montana_charlie]

Taking an axe to break it up into a managable size doesn't seem a good idea.
Why not?

It sure beats that recommendation to melt it with a torch and lit it drip into a pot.

CM

[Gerry N.]

My problem with using Dutch Ovens, Fritter, and Muffin pans for lead and lead alloys is what happens in the future when the melter is no longer able to keep track of his stuff.

What if someone decides to do a stew or bake fritters or muffins in Grampa's old cookware, unaware that it was used to melt lead and unaware that scrap lead and the heavy metals in it are still in that iron? Would you want your grandkids to eat out of that Dutch Oven? Woud you cook and eat out of it? Yep, those cast iron utensils do work well, but at what cost?

Gerry N.

[-06]

Plumbers used to pour lead into joints of cast iron sewer pipes for a solid connection. I move houses and have been collecting it for a long long time. Years ago I bought a plumbers melting pot complete with burner and tank. It all mounts together. It will melt large chunks in a flat minute and then I ladle it off into ingot moulds. LOL, as a youngster my bud and I went to the beach and took the melter to cook on. Big mistake. That thing is a monster heater. Put on a can of pork 'n beans with the lid cracked-it "exploded" anyway. We learned real quickly to move things way to the side.

[ReloaderFred]

I have numerous 100 pound ingots that were reclaimed bullets from an impact berm. When I'm ready to smelt them into either bullets or smaller ingots, I just lay out a cheap blue plastic tarp and use a Skilsaw with an old carbide blade in it. It goes through the lead like a hot knife through butter, but makes lots of lead shavings, which is what the blue tarp is for. Just put a couple of boards under the ingot to keep it off the ground and to save your blade.

I always use a carbide blade, since the teeth are wider than the blade and creates a wide kerf, so the blade won't bind. I've tried just about every method mentioned above, and the Skilsaw is the easiest and fastest.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[fecmech]

second on the skill saw with a carbide blade, cuts lead just like cutting wood!

[jhrosier]

I have cut metal with a circular saw and would remind folks to wear a heavy apron, long cuffed leather gloves and a face shield when cutting metal. Those chips will go everywhere like little boolits.
Oh, have a change of clothes handy also.

Jack

[ReloaderFred]

When cutting lead with a fairly coarse carbide blade, you get long shreds of lead shavings. They're really fluffy and make a big pile on the tarp. They compress easily for melting, though.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Jim]

My problem with using Dutch Ovens, Fritter, and Muffin pans for lead and lead alloys is what happens in the future when the melter is no longer able to keep track of his stuff.

What if someone decides to do a stew or bake fritters or muffins in Grampa's old cookware, unaware that it was used to melt lead and unaware that scrap lead and the heavy metals in it are still in that iron? Would you want your grandkids to eat out of that Dutch Oven? Woud you cook and eat out of it? Yep, those cast iron utensils do work well, but at what cost?

Gerry N.

Good point, valid concern. How 'bout a metal tag key ringed to the bail:
NOT FOR FOOD

[missionary5155]

Good morning
And IF you cannot borrow an electric saw... Been using my hand saw for some years and it does not seen to dull much quicker than cutting through old oak boards. I put the LARGE ingot into my large vice and enjoy the arobic muscle workout.
BUT the electric saber saw sure is faster.
+ on the yard sale dutch oven.
after your ingots are poured mark them on a smooth side what they are. I use "L" for pure..
ww and "L" for linotype. "H" is for unknown hard.

[canebreaker]

I had a 50# pure lead ingot. With some help, I placed it in a vise. Turned the vise so it was over work bench. Using a torch, I started at the end and melted into my 1# ingot molds. When I got to the vise, I layed the lead on the ingot mold and melted the rest.

[JSnover]

I got some lead ballast sheets two years ago that were over an inch thick. Used an air chisel to chop them into smaller chunks.

[montana_charlie]

What if someone decides to do a stew or bake fritters or muffins in Grampa's old cookware, unaware that it was used to melt lead and unaware that scrap lead and the heavy metals in it are still in that iron?
You could develop the habit of always leaving some lead in each of your cast iron vessels. If you suddenly become 'unavailable' for the rest of Eternity, your heirs will be able to see for themselves how the iron pieces were used.

If they decide to melt out the lead and make some muffins...well, kids will be kids.

CM

[Shiloh]

I had a 50# pure lead ingot. With some help, I placed it in a vise. Turned the vise so it was over work bench. Using a torch, I started at the end and melted into my 1# ingot molds. When I got to the vise, I layed the lead on the ingot mold and melted the rest.

That's what I did with my chunk.

Shiloh

[canebreaker]

With some help of a friend that wanted some of a 100 lb. ingot of lead. We drilled a hole in one end and screwed in an eyebolt. Tied a rope to the eyebolt and hung it over a tree limb.
Used a torch and melted the bottom of the ingot into a pot. Let pot cool and dump out ingot.
Lowered remaining ingot and repeat til it was finished. Remelt pot size ingots and pour into 1 lb. ingots.

[Dale53]

Here's how I melted down and put into usable ingot sizes large ingots (that's a 92 lb ingot in the pictures). I just used my turkey/fish fryer with a Harbor Freight 12" cast iron dutch oven (it holds well over 100 lbs of lead). The first ingot took a while to melt as only the corners of the ingot touched the bottom of the pot (heat transfer is much compromised). However, after the first one was melted, it was a piece of cake to leave about 1" melted lead alloy in the bottom - heat transfer was MUCH improved from then on. My brother and I did 650 lbs in one afternoon (about four hours). Then, I laid down and took a nap:mrgreen::

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1767-1.jpg

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj80/Dale53/QWinter2009andleadsmelting-1771.jpg

FWIW
Dale53

[SharpsShooter]

I have the same setup as Dale53. I have found that leaving about an inch in the bottom helps get things going when working with the big pieces. I have two pots, one for WW and range scrap and another for pure only

SS

[fredj338]

My problem with using Dutch Ovens, Fritter, and Muffin pans for lead and lead alloys is what happens in the future when the melter is no longer able to keep track of his stuff.

What if someone decides to do a stew or bake fritters or muffins in Grampa's old cookware, unaware that it was used to melt lead and unaware that scrap lead and the heavy metals in it are still in that iron? Would you want your grandkids to eat out of that Dutch Oven? Woud you cook and eat out of it? Yep, those cast iron utensils do work well, but at what cost?

Gerry N.
I'm not sure I see the problem. My lead smelting stuff is in the garage, my cooking stuff is in the house. My smelting cast iron has lead in it. Anyone that thinks they can melt the lead out & then cook in it is a Darwin project anyway.:veryconfu

[sqlbullet]

My lead smelting stuff is in the garage, my cooking stuff is in the house.

Not to mention how a cast iron pot looks after melting a couple hundred pounds of lead. Anyone who looks at my pot and thinks they wanna cook stew in it clearly ate lead as a child.

[Kskybroom]

Every buddy should have a turkey fryer and a dutch oven... Later Buy a new 20 lb propane tank cut 1/4 off the top.. I had to go bigger. Plummers pot an a 100 lb tank cut just under 1/2...To big no such thing. Make 100 ingots soft, med, hard, lino, ww, Then mix into 300lb batch soft med hard, Then 2inX6in angle iron makes a 3lb ingot, Then Mark Your Ingots With A Metal Stamp and RIGHT IT DOWN IN A LOG... This should make 2 or 3 hundred BOOLITS..Tis mitt knot been rite ben etin from me ducht uven... (WHAT)

[cbrick]

Not to mention how a cast iron pot looks after melting a couple hundred pounds of lead. Anyone who looks at my pot and thinks they wanna cook stew in it clearly ate lead as a child.

No kiddin . . . Not to mention hit in the head a few too many times as a kid and if such a person were to use my dutch oven for food I can't see where they would be any further effected or worse off than they already are.

Rick

[357maximum]

My smelting pot holds 450 lbs and I have still had to resort to the hydraulic logslpitter twice. Both times it was counterweights from old fork trucks. Tested just like ww by the way.

[testhop]

i got a gatget from HARBOR FREIGHT called a weed burner it is a flame thrower.
i use it to speed up melting big chunks.
you can even burn weeds with it .
i dont know the btus but must be 100000 as i was given a hudgeit throws a flame 3 or 4 ft .
i was given a hudge chunks of ww that was in a fire 4 5 gal buckets the buckets and lead fused all together the weed burner handle it fine lots of smoke though .
i just melted it into chunks i could handle .

[Lloyd Smale]

I use the same

QUOTE=testhop;762350]i got a gatget from HARBOR FREIGHT called a weed burner it is a flame thrower.
i use it to speed up melting big chunks.
you can even burn weeds with it .
i dont know the btus but must be 100000 as i was given a hudgeit throws a flame 3 or 4 ft .
i was given a hudge chunks of ww that was in a fire 4 5 gal buckets the buckets and lead fused all together the weed burner handle it fine lots of smoke though .
i just melted it into chunks i could handle .[/QUOTE]

[WHITETAIL]

:roll:I have used the same method as canebreaker.
The only thing diferant was I used a C clamp
on the end.
Then I put a piece of rope to the C clamp
and hoisted it over the pot.
Then used a torch + the fryer.
And away we go!:holysheep