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- Jul 15, 2007
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About two or three times a year I get an email saying "Get The Lead Out" from a buddy who is a roofer by trade.
That means the recycle bin sitting next to his garage is full roof jacks from roofs he replaced, and he wants me to go empty it. When full, that bin holds about 60 lbs. of those pure soft lead roof jacks.
I recently got a "Get The Lead Out" message and picked up the goodies. They've been riding around in the back of my pick-up for over a week. So today I decided to process them.
Here's what a bin full looks like piled in my yard.
I stomped them kind of flat then folded them up and flattened them a little more with a hammer. This makes it easier to fit them in my melting pot.
Then I set up the natural gas jet burner that I use for boiling crabs and crawfish. I use an old stainless steel bowl for melting bulk lead. Here's the set up in action.
After all of the lead is melted I give it a good stir with a steel rod, which leaves about an inch of trash and slag floating on the lead. This is what it looks like.
I skim that off with an old steel spoon, then stir & skim again. After three or four stir & skim cycles the lead is really clean and looks like this.
Then I start casting ingots using a mold made from angle iron from a bed frame.
I ended up with 49 nice triangular ingots averaging around a pound and a half each. They stack real well.
Total elapsed time - from first stomp to last pour - about an hour and a half. That stack is going to make a LOT of balls.
.
That means the recycle bin sitting next to his garage is full roof jacks from roofs he replaced, and he wants me to go empty it. When full, that bin holds about 60 lbs. of those pure soft lead roof jacks.
I recently got a "Get The Lead Out" message and picked up the goodies. They've been riding around in the back of my pick-up for over a week. So today I decided to process them.
Here's what a bin full looks like piled in my yard.
I stomped them kind of flat then folded them up and flattened them a little more with a hammer. This makes it easier to fit them in my melting pot.
Then I set up the natural gas jet burner that I use for boiling crabs and crawfish. I use an old stainless steel bowl for melting bulk lead. Here's the set up in action.
After all of the lead is melted I give it a good stir with a steel rod, which leaves about an inch of trash and slag floating on the lead. This is what it looks like.
I skim that off with an old steel spoon, then stir & skim again. After three or four stir & skim cycles the lead is really clean and looks like this.
Then I start casting ingots using a mold made from angle iron from a bed frame.
I ended up with 49 nice triangular ingots averaging around a pound and a half each. They stack real well.
Total elapsed time - from first stomp to last pour - about an hour and a half. That stack is going to make a LOT of balls.
.
I have 56 lbs in ingots. I use a old cast iron cornbread pan, Makes 7 ingots at a time. That is some of the purest lead you can get. Thats a pretty good setup ya have there, it's better than mine.
