lead roofing boots

[oley55]

I have a several hundred pounds of COWW and ISO lead, but wanted some soft lead for 50/50. Last week I drove past a house getting a new roof and stopped to ask the crew if they saved and sold the lead boots. That didn’t go well at first as no one spoke English. One of the guys dialed up his brother on another job who spoke some. Long story short, he called this rainy morning and I agreed to $0.75 a pound delivered. I said I’d try 200 pounds, but what he brought to the house turned out to be 431 pounds. The stuff was cleaner than I expected with very little trash attached.

I am hoping I didn’t rip myself off, but delivered and not running around, it seemed fair. Depending on how difficult rendering this stuff down is I may get more. He guesses he has another 1,000 plus pounds.

My rendering thoughts are to use some tongs and a propane weed burner and melt them into my #7, 10.5” dutch oven. Although I am concerned about trapped moisture.

[imashooter2]

75 cents a pound for soft lead carried to your door is a fine price.

You have to get water under the surface of the melt to have a steam explosion. That can’t happen using the method you have planned. If it were me, I’d crush as many of the boots as I could fit into the pot, start the fire under them and then melt more from the top as you have described. By the time the lead in the pot comes to melt temperature, any trapped water would be gone.

[Cast_outlaw]

Cut out the weld it’s got tin in it but your weed burner should do great for fast melt

[Plate plinker]

You need a bigger pot!

[Winger Ed.]

That's a very fair price in our modern and enlightened times.
Especially if it's delivered.

Going over it with the weed burner raising the temp. evenly will be fine.
Steam explosions happen when water is trapped under molten Lead.
Then it tries to expand instantly at about a 1,000 to 1 ratio by volume.
Giving any moisture a place to go as it comes up & over its boiling point is safe.

[JimB..]

If you paid for 431 lbs you got a very good deal, if you paid for 200 lbs you got a heck of a bargain!

[oley55]

Cut out the weld it’s got tin in it but your weed burner should do great for fast melt

Hard to imagine there being enough tin in those machine welded joints to bother with.

You need a bigger pot!

yea don't I know it. But one must pick 'n choose where those nickels and dimes are spent.

[oley55]

If you paid for 431 lbs you got a very good deal, if you paid for 200 lbs you got a heck of a bargain!

$323 for the 431#

[Winger Ed.]

You need a bigger pot!

Oh no,,,,,, small pots let you spend more quality time in the man cave, and less time doing 'Honey do-s'.

[JoeJames]

At my age few things in life are more deeply satisfying than a growing stack of lead ingots.

[jonp]

Your in Jax. I'd put them out in the sun and let that do the work for you. That price delivered is a good price I'd take any day

[jsizemore]

Around here if they carried them to the scrapyard they'd get 10cents/lb. Delivered. They did good selling to you.

[oley55]

Your in Jax. I'd put them out in the sun and let that do the work for you. That price delivered is a good price I'd take any day

I was thinking the same. That's how I dry my wet pin cleaned brass (spread out on a dark colored towel in the direct sunlight are absolutely bone dry in 45 minutes).

My thoughts on the weed burner/torch was more about quickly melting off enough of the edges of over sized items to fit into the pot.

Thanks to all for the suggestions and for affirming my purchase decision.

Oley in JAX

[MOA]

You did great. Enjoy your stash of pure lead. Now you have a sizeable base to make any alloy content you want. I just got done melting 600 pounds of boots.


Here's a thought. I did build a bigger smelter just cause boots are much easier to smelt with a large pot. Made mine out of a propane tank from the grill.

Here's a link to give you an idea of what I did for roofing boot smelting.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...d-smelting-pot

[lightman]

You got a good price and made a good connection too! Whats not to like?

[KMac]

I have a hunting buddy that has a roofing company. I keep asking him what he does with the lead boot's and he keeps saying he will keep them for me but he always forgets. The other day he bought his first BP Revolver. He asked me where he could buy RB's and I reminded him that I have the molds, he just needs to get me some lead. Maybe he is motivated now to keep them for me. I still bought a box of soft lead today but hopefully he will come through, and I won't need to again.

[oley55]

Note to my dumb self: do not flatten wet or damp boots to save space!!!

when I got these and was transferring them into a couple pvc barrels for weighing I had the not so brilliant idea of stomping them flat. Well that pretty much traps the moisture an wet leaves so that it is nigh impossible to dry them out in advance. So here I am today wearing mask n gloves while seriously pizzing off my thumb arthritis and carpel tunnel while opening them up enough to dry.

Sometimes you just can’t fix stupid I guess. I can only hope my stupid helps someone else avoid the same fun.

[imashooter2]

You simply can’t depend on scrap like this to be dry, no matter how long you leave them out. Pile the flattened boots into a cold pot and melt them. The water evaporates off while they heat. Same with melting from the top with a weed burner.

Whatever you decide as your path forward, don’t throw any of those boots into a pot of molten lead.

[oley55]

I opened all of the boots and eliminated any closed crimps. Sun dried for a few hours with a large fan moving across them.

I processed about 60 pounds last night, but the weed burner is just too aggressive for the purpose of drying them. So I dipped the boots stack first and allowed the boot to melt down to the flange. I let it cook over the melt for a couple minutes and gently pushed it down enough for the melt to take over. That seems to work so far without any hints of hissing or boiling.

[oley55]

processed all today. netted 395 pounds with 16 pounds of dross and 20 pounds evaporated (LOL) or more likely I screwed up when I was weighing the unprocessed boots.

Glad that’s done, the ole bones have been vocal.



edited/corrected my numbers.