Dividing lead ingots

[James]

What is the best way to make a 5# lead ingot small enough for the melting pot?  I tried hacksaw and hatchet, will something work better?

[Standing Bear]

Propane torch.

[smylee grouch]

I've used a band saw before and now cast my ingots less full.

[Kermit]

I have a little cast iron plumbers pot that sits on a one-burner (probably) Chinese propane "stove." That's for melting lead from a variety of sources. It will take a 5 lb ingot easily. That gets fluxed and skimmed and poured into a Lee ingot mold, making piglets of about 1 lb and 1/2 lb. Just right for adding to the pot for casting. I highly recommend the cheap Lee aluminum ingot mold. I have two.

I tried a few methods of cutting up larger ingots, mostly radiology bricks, and a bandsaw seems to work as good as anything. Axes and other blades seem a sorry solution. I finally figured out I could put a large brick into the pot and could remove it without melting the whole thing, good tongs being useful.

[James]

Thanks for the help, I have never poured ball before, trying to work the bugs out.

[Chris Treichel]

Trick for making smaller ingots... take some hardwood and cut a few 1/2 x 3 inch channels with a router then (Outside it will smoke) melt the lead in a larger pot and poure the molten lead into the channels... Presto, small ingots good for doing campfire demonstrations where you don't want a 5lb batch of molten lead.

[Black Hand]

What is the best way to make a 5# lead ingot small enough for the melting pot?  I tried hacksaw and hatchet, will something work better?

I used an axe. 

[Hungry Horse]

 James;

  Be aware that the first signs of lead related brain damage seems to be the desire to cast salvaged lead in a 14" cast iron skillet, or a two gallon cast iron bean pot, or a Buick straight eight valve cover. Nearly all the salvaged lead I have been offered is in such forms. I use a sharpened steel splitting wedge, and a single jack, to cut it into usable sizes. i haven't had much luck with sawing it, and don't want the lead sawdust around.

                           Hungry Horse

[JB2]

I saw a buddy of mine use his hydraulic shop press and a splitting maul.  good idea to keep both hands out of the press.  Seemed to work great, but I don't have a splitting maul or shop press either!

[Kermit]

Trick for making smaller ingots... take some hardwood and cut a few 1/2 x 3 inch channels with a router then (Outside it will smoke) melt the lead in a larger pot and poure the molten lead into the channels... Presto, small ingots good for doing campfire demonstrations where you don't want a 5lb batch of molten lead.

Eeeek. Any hazards you'd like to share arising from using wood that isn't dead dry?

[T*O*F]

You can melt lead in any steel container.  An old cooking pot works OK for this limited use.  Put all your lead in the pot.  Build a charcoal fire in your BBQ grill or just a hole in the ground. Melt all the lead.  You will need some type of ladle.  Once melted, ladle the lead into a muffin tin.....the one with the small muffins, not the cupcake size.  They harden quickly....dump them out and repeat.  Make sure you have a hotpad mitt.  You will now have ingots of a size that will fit into your melting pot.

[Hungry Horse]

 And if you want to do humanity a big favor, when you are through melting all that lead, in a big old cast iron cooking pot, or skillet, break it. I am a Boy Scout leader in one of my other lives. I had a boy bring an old dutch oven to scouts, to see if we could restore it to use. When we turned it upside down, and heated it up, in my wife's oven, to season it, little silver colored specks appeared on the bottom of her oven. Sure enough some genius, had used that dutch oven to melt lead, and some remained in the pores of the old cast iron. I no longer encourage people to use old cast iron of unknown provenance, because you never know what it has been used for in the past.

                          Hungry Horse

[Robby]

That is a good point Hungry Horse. I use one to melt big chunks of x-ray room lead foil, and ladle into ingot size pieces. I will use my grinder to put a message on it.
Robby

[T*O*F]

And if you want to do humanity a big favor,

Please pay attention!!!   I didn't say anything about cast iron....I said anything steel.

And as for those silver specks, it was not uncommon for dutch ovens to be lined with tin for use with acidic foods like tomatoes.  Besides that, lead melts at 621 degrees which is far above the regulated temperature of an oven,  while tin melts at 450.

[JTR]

When we turned it upside down, and heated it up, in my wife's oven, to season it, little silver colored specks appeared on the bottom of her oven.
                         Hungry Horse

I hate to be disagreeable, but as far as I know its impossible to melt lead in a regular household oven.



Maybe your wife has a nuclear version,,, or,,,?

John

[Hungry Horse]

 Just checked the wife's oven it says its good for 500 degrees, the oven thermometer says it cranks out 530 degrees. So maybe it wasn't lead. That dutch oven showed no signs of having been tinned in it past life, but, maybe it was.

                     Hungry Horse

[Robby]

Its still a good idea to mark it somehow.
Robby

[Bob Roller]

With the poor grade of natural gas we now get here it is not possible  to
melt lead.You can melt it with a #5 tip and  Presto-Lite gas which is
acetylene dissolved in acetone and THEN the natural gas will sustain it.


Bob Roller

[zimmerstutzen]

Self clean cycle on an electric oven get plenty hot enough to melt lead.

To cut lead bars, oil the blade of a anvil style pruning/lopping shears
And cut away.

[Mark Elliott]

I would suggest a band saw to cut up lead, but you should do that with a dust mask on.   Also,  DO NOT melt lead with a torch, propane, MAPP, or acetylene.    I did the latter when I was a teenager, not knowing any better.    The result was that it took the better part of 30 years to get my blood lead level back down to a normal level.   It is no telling which of my many health problems were caused or exacerbated by my high lead level.   I didn't even find out I had a abnormally high lead level until 15 or 20 years after the exposure.   Who knows what it was in my teens and twenties.   Just don't do it.   The torch will vaporize the lead and you will breath in the vapor.   Don't say you haven't been warned.

[JTR]

Self clean cycle on an electric oven get plenty hot enough to melt lead.

Brilliant! 

John

[Kermit]

Now I remember. Way back when, I had a brother-in-law who was a union plumber building nuke plants. He gave me those 5lb ingots of plumber's lead that I think were aquired as "totin' rights." I got an old single bit axe from a junk store and bucked the handle down to about 8-10". The ingot got set on the chopping block, the axe blade set on the lead, and I beat a tattoo on the axe with a maul. Cut it up small enough to fit my Lee pot.

Heed Mark's warning. Lead vapors are to be avoided. Outdoors. In a tailwind. Don't stand and watch it melt. Go do something else and check back.

[Hungry Horse]

 I was pondering the possibilities of using a hydraulic wood splitter to cut lead. There are a lot of them floating around out here in California, now that so many communities are outlawing wood burning fire places. What do you smart guys think?

                 Hungry Horse

[wattlebuster]

I use an old hatchet. Works good for me

[Hungry Horse]

A hatchet is fine for a 15# chunk of lead, but I was just given three eighty pound blobs of lead, cast in an old cast iron bean pot. I need something a little more aggressive than a hatchet.

                  Hungry Horse