Smelting a TON (literally) of wheel weights - respirator?

I have well over a ton of wheel weights to smelt. These are probably 20+ years old and back in the day I had a friend sell his tire shop and give me all I wanted for FREE!
I think I took way more than a ton....
I have been picking at the buckets here and there for a while now, but am going to sort and smelt as much of this as I can into ingots over the summer.
I would prefer not NOT inhale the fumes, no matter how hard I try not to. Like campfire smoke, no matter what way you turn the smoke is always in your face. :)
Any suggestions for respirators that will keep all the bad stuff out of my lungs?

Place a good fan to where it is sucking fumes from the pot and pointed away from you. Or get an old kitchen exhaust fan and rig it up with some ducting and shoot it 4' or 5' above where you are working. You should be able to scrounge all the parts off of CL and not spend too much money. Wearing a respirator in AZ. (or anywhere) in the heat of the summer for any length of time would suck.

I would be willing to help you out by taking a couple hundred pounds of that nasty stuff off your hands. I know, I AM a GIVER!

I wish I had your problem. I can’t offer a resolution but I know, from past experiences, smoke follows greatness.

Stay upwind as much as possible.
Any of the cartridge type paint spraying respirators should be fine.
The ones that look like a large, glorified dust mask--- not so much.

Several years back I cut one end out of two 55 gallon steel oil drums and tacked welded the two open ends together, then stood them up and added a flue with a 12" pipe approx. 6' high, cut an opening in the side and put my gas ring and cast iron camp oven in there, its very efficient and drawing all the nasty smoke etc up and away from me and have smelted several tons of all sorts of raw lead scrap in there Ill take a pic and see if I can attach it later on today

Cheers
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Originally Posted by Leadmad

Several years back I cut one end out of two 55 gallon steel oil drums and tacked welded the two open ends together, then stood them up and added a flue with a 12" pipe approx. 6' high, cut an opening in the side and put my gas ring and cast iron camp oven in there, its very efficient and drawing all the nasty smoke etc up and away from me and have smelted several tons of all sorts of raw lead scrap in there Ill take a pic and see if I can attach it later on today

Cheers
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That’s awesome for fumes.

I got the asthma so I can't handle the paint and petroleum that burns off while smelting. No matter which side I'm on I'm a smoke magnet. I got a 3M 6200 respirator in the paint department at Lowes or Home Depot. I got the 6001 activated charcoal particulate/vapor filter which comes with the fiber filter that goes on the outside. End result is there is the slightest hint of smoke and no asthma attack. Home Depot also sells the 2097 particulate filter that does a good job too especially when dealing with mold. Not to high a price and it's local pickup. I've had mine at least 15 years. Mine has been through the tonnage thing.

Years ago I was driving around the area and saw someone selling two house size evacuation fans. I bought the largest of the two and mounted it on wheels to use in my garage (I do woodwork) to cool and to remove some of the sawdust. If you can find one it would work well.

As a warning, the concern about stuff during smelting is real.

Do not forget about the risk associated with dust while handling WW. WW gathered from tire shops is usually very dirty. Much of that "dirt" may be nasty stuff like lead compounds and asbestos (possibly depending on age of when they were collected). All of the stuff in that "dirt" is better off to be collected in a mask on your face than in your lungs.

How about a chicken house fan?they are about 4 feet in diameter and move a lot of air

Full face respirator is my suggestion.

The smell of melting wheel weights is nauseating for me. I found that using lid on my cast iron pot really helps to contain it. When I lift the lid the vapors ignite and it doesn't smell as bad. Also if you have access to cheap / free beeswax, it smells actually great when flaxing, everything else not so much.

I second a M3 respirator from Amazon / local hardware store with the proper filter you can't smell smoke at all!

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Cartridge respirator works for me when I have really dirty lead. Impressive how the air goes from stinky and smoky to almost fresh smelling.

If you use a fan you'll probably need to use a wind shield to keep the heat around your pot.

Once you get the pot melted, cover the melt with kitty litter. It gathers up a lot of the smoke and impurities

Sorry, no advice on a respirator, but it sure is a wise idea, if you are gonna do this as a large scale project (2k lbs) over several days during the summer....it's gonna be almost like a job...several days exposure is no joke.

I've only schmelted scrap Lead on a specifically chosen breezy day, and I do this once a year, maybe once in two years.

Another thing to look at to lower exposure is to make your scraper, ladle, and such 4'-5' long to keep you back away from the heat and fumes. A lot of the bad stuff will drop away with some distance. When doing the large batches I preferred the long 2 handed tools not only for the above but the added stability and ease of handling. I had a 5' handled ladle the held just over 6 lbs made up it would pour 3 of my ingots. Do everything from a distance as much as you can

I’ve done all my melting at the front of a “shed” that has a squirrel cage fan in the back sucking the air out.

I really like the 55 gal drum vent stack idea.

Spray painter's mask should work but what about the eyes? Googles too.