Boat keel

[Bryan Austin]

What temp did your sailboat alloy go liquid?

I just cut up a Capri CP-22 with a 650lb keel. They have good quality lead, or at least mine did. Took a while to get the keel cut up but once I was done, I cast 635lbs of lead bars. I cast all of the bars at 700 degrees. A bit cool, but only the good stuff is melted while the bad stuff floats to the top and gets fluxed out.

It is a ton of work, but well worth it if you get good lead out of it.

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You missed it....oh my bad, I think you asked what temp did it melt vs what temp did I use?

If so, it liquified about 630ish

[Bryan Austin]

For comparison, I use a mold cut to drop a bullet at 214gr using wheel weights. The sailboat lead dropped at 219gr....and when lubed, exactly 220gr!

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[jsizemore]

You missed it....oh my bad, I think you asked what temp did it melt vs what temp did I use?

If so, it liquified about 630ish

Since the melting temp of lead is 621.5 that's a good indication of all lead. Ingots aren't required to be fully filled out so the temp you cast them at isn't all that important. That's a good find.

[lightman]

Another problem with sailboat keels and any other heavy counterweight is having a way to handle it and most don't. Since I moved 3 years ago I don't have a way either. Before that I would have loaded and unloaded it with my tractor. Then I would have hung it over my smelting pot with the hoist in my shop and melted it with a weed burner, catching the drips.

[poppy42]

Another problem with sailboat keels and any other heavy counterweight is having a way to handle it and most don't. Since I moved 3 years ago I don't have a way either. Before that I would have loaded and unloaded it with my tractor. Then I would have hung it over my smelting pot with the hoist in my shop and melted it with a weed burner, catching the drips.

They’re pretty easy to cut up. Chainsaw works about the best because you can get a longer deeper cut with it. I’ve also seen guys split chunks off using a wedge and a sledgehammer like you were splitting logs. I’ve also seen guys use a torch. Melt off small portions until it’s small enough to manage. Also, any handsaw will work, but you really don’t want one that’s made for cutting wood with small teeth. They get clogged too fast a limb saw or pruning salt works my point being there plenty of ways to move Akeel if you have to.

[Bryan Austin]

Since the melting temp of lead is 621.5 that's a good indication of all lead. Ingots aren't required to be fully filled out so the temp you cast them at isn't all that important. That's a good find.

exactly...nice shinny smooth bars was not what I was looking for....good clean pure lead was the focus!

637lbs cost me a set of sawsall blades and a chainsaw blade. What I also used was a pneumatic rivet gun with a chisel bit...maybe $50 worth of purchased "tool" accessories.

[Feral American]

What I also used was a pneumatic rivet gun with a chisel worth of purchased "tool" accessories.

I have an air chisel, that I made a special bit for, just to cut the lead shielding (1/8" thick, some thicker, some with 1/4" rubber shielding glued to the lead) off of underground electric power cables and splices. It works slick as can be to zip a cut the length of the cables and splices, then pound the shielding off with a 2lb hammer. You have to break it loose from the bitumen tar inside and the 2lb hammer does the trick once you open up a cut. Point is, I've used the regular flat blade bit that usually comes with an air chisel to bust up solid chunks of lead. No saw dust flying everywhere to clean up, and way easier on the arms. I'd dare say faster too with a good compressor.

For really big stuff, like a boat keel I would break out my electric jackhammer with the 4 inch wide flat blade and go to town. I've used it on lots of large lead chunks like counter weights and race car ballast (the other source of questionable lead).

The guy in Texas I've bought legit good keel lead from used a mini excavator with some sort of cutting jaws on it that are used for demolition. I envision that to be an over sized jaws of life type unit....which would work too if you had one. Having cut a few vehicles apart to extricate crash victims I know something like a set of jaws with pinch cutters would work great. Expensive tools though. I'll just stick with my 40 dollar harbor freight air chisel for now and save my Stihl saws for the firewood.