My little casting pot.

[Silverboolit]

I read somewhere that rubber floats on a salt brine solution.

[Sweetpea]

Have you tried spreading it out and using a leaf blower to remove most of the rubber?

[Bad Water Bill]

And I bet it works great for your ANNUAL bathtub usage.

[mold maker]

It would take a couple years to save enough lead to fill that pot.
That is what you call serious production equipment.
Congrats on a job well done.

[Lead Bandit]

Do you sell the copper jackets when done? I have over 1000 lbs of cleaned copper jackets and all the scrap yards by me are lowballing the hell out of me. They offer me scrap lead price when its almost 95% pure copper. If you figure out how to clean that rubber besides hand sorting you will be a millionaire. lol

[DeputyDog25]

Wow, I am so impressed! I am new to this hobby and that is just one awesome setup right there. I bet it eats propane like a monster, but I bet it can put out some ingots. Great Job!

[justingrosche]

Jackets are a tough sell. They have low balled us as well, but admittedly we have not been too cautious about what goes in the copper bin. There has been a lot of encapsulated lead in our mix. Scrappers don't want to pay copper prices for lead anymore than we want to get lead price for our copper.
There is just far too much material to nip or smash every encapsulated TMJ.

[swheeler]

Awsome! Some other members here had MOAS-mother of all smelters years ago. Think Sundog may be the owner

[Bad Water Bill]

iirc His smelter was big enough to smelt the keel of a BB.

He also had a great assistant.

I hope someone here has the skill to retrieve those pictures and re post them for posterity.

[swheeler]

Felix is missed and will be remembered!

[Bad Water Bill]

I remember those photos as if they were yesterday.

Happier times then.

Both looked like kids turned loose in a candy FACTORY.

I feel those photos should be kept as another part of Felix's legacy on this site.

With family permission of course.

[Bad Water Bill]

How much salt went into the 5 gal bucket to make the solution?

As big as that tub looks you might need a ton of salt to reach saturation level.

But it is still a great way of saving a now "precious metal".

[shootinfox2]

Use salt water instead of fresh water!!!!

[Bad Water Bill]

05-27-2007, 12:46 PM

That was the date that the salt bath was last discussed.

Not sure how many of those members are still around OR if they still have any paperwork or memory on that mix.

Yes that is a large smelter but would you want to load it with SALT WATER.

Instant rusting could result and a replacement could be very expensive.

[justingrosche]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I will not be using any floating techniques to remove the rubber. There is simply too much material to process. One member suggested using a shop vacuum with an adjustable snout to pick up the rubber, leaving the heavier, more dense lead on the table. I'll likely try that.