Melting Lead Safely: Step-by-Step Guide for Pouring Molten Lead into a Mold

Hello, if I am in the wrong section, please move to the appropriate one.
I have such a problem because I want to melt lead into a mold but I don't know how, so I am asking for help.

Example:

Do you know what temperature lead should be melted?

The exact temperature depends on the admixtures. I use a fireplace covered with bricks or a gas burner, such as for laying heat-weldable roofing felt.

And what can lead be in, because I know it's in batteries and what else?

I just didn't get the batteries back. Apparently some people collect fishing weights
I'm melting old dive ballast. I'd also look at junkyards.

And if I may know, what are you smelting for?

Differently. Used ballast begins to have pitting, looks ugly. The need for a different weight or a different shape. Some ballast can be bought (obtained) cheaply and adapted to your needs.
Włodek Kołacz also covers his weights with a plastic coating, which looks nice. I used to be interested in it, but gave up.

Rob02prusik wrote:

And what can be lead, because I know that it is in batteries and what else?

Ask the roofers.
Lead tape is used to seal window-roof joints and chimney flashings

I have a couple of old batteries, so I'll take them apart and see if I can get the lead out.

Go to any vulcanizer and ask for wheel weights. It's getting harder and harder, but you can still find lead. Melting - ordinary stainless steel pot and gas cooker. For this, it is necessary to have free space, protective glasses and gloves, because it can get very dirty.
I do not recommend batteries - exceptional crap, acid and not much lead at all.

I had a couple of old fishing weights somewhere.

@Kaszpir77 writes well - can splatter. Long sleeves also come in handy and full boots. In the apartment, it is necessary to have good ventilation - open the window wide? I always do it on a plot, I didn't even think about an apartment.

Something will come up, grandpa has an Ursus c 360, so the battery terminals are made of lead
I'll come and pick you up tonight

Rob02prusik wrote:

And if I may know, what are you smelting for?

And as the author of the topic, can you answer "for what purpose"?

For fishing lures.

And you don't know if there's lead in the car?

Lead occurs as the outer coating of old power cables, in fishing shops you can get posts by the battery on which clamps are put, sometimes there are such lead bridges under the battery cover, wheel weights.
Melt as someone wrote, fire, stove and pot. The melting point is probably something around 327 degrees, but it's pure lead.

Rob02prusik wrote:

And you don't know if there's lead in the car?

Maybe on the rims as balancing weights...

supchem wrote:

Lead occurs as the outer coating of old power cables

I'm sorry but I don't know what are you talking about?

What's so hard to understand about that? The cable, for good insulation against moisture, has instead of rubber-gellite-plastic - an outer lead coating, like a tube. Formerly very popular, most often intended to be buried in the ground - quite a lot of lead if you have several meters of such a cable, only ripping the wires from the inside is pure masochism ...

PS: My angler friend buys bullets for CP revolvers, a bit expensive for angling purposes, but he really appreciates them...

Thanks I didn't understand.

Jamie wrote:

My angler friend buys bullets for CP revolvers, a bit expensive for angling purposes

Well, I guess he doesn't have a fishing shop, after all, professional fishing sinkers are plentiful and certainly much cheaper, or he doesn't think ...

I took vulcanization. I cast fishing sinkers - olives in plaster moulds. I melted over a gas stove in a gravy spoon. Just pour the plaster into the box and press the olive down halfway. Then wipe everything with soap and pour over the whole thing. After opening and removing the olive, scrape out the sprues from the wider side and the place for the swivels. THE FORM MUST BE COMPLETELY DRY!!!!!!!

As for lures, it's probably for mormyshkas? It is enough to scratch the place for hooks in the plaster and it's ready...

Well, I wanted to flood the mormyshki.

Most weights on wheels are weights not made of lead but of zinc - zinc has a melting point higher than lead and is harder - because hardly anyone cares about such trifles as the melting point of the charge, it is easy to confuse zinc with lead.
The simplest source of lead is ballast - a lot of it on Allegro. You can buy colored scrap, maybe they will resell such ballasts ...

In batteries there is an alloy of lead with antimony which improves the castability of the lead and increases its hardness (but also makes the lead more brittle).
Actually the metallic lead in the batteries is the bridges and the supporting structure of the plate - it's not much - most of the mass of lead in the battery is lead oxide - you can recover lead from it but you would have to either use carbon or hydrogen and a fairly high temperature to reduce the lead oxide to lead.

As colleagues have already written - a plaster mold, the mold itself should be preheated to 100 degrees (this will allow the mold to dry and delay the cooling of the lead, which can improve its filling - lead does not have good castability and poorly fills molds with complex shapes).

Jamie wrote:

Formerly very popular, most often intended to be buried in the ground - quite a lot of lead if you have several meters of such a cable, only ripping the wires from the inside is pure masochism ...

Inside such a cable there is also a steel wire about 0.8 mm thick, just isolate the first 3 cm, catch the wire in a vice and pull the rest of the cable. This wire will simply cut the lead sheath, then we grab the strands in a vice and pull the lead sheath, it will bend and come off the rest of the cable. I don't know if everyone has this wire, but mine did.

Because you are talking about a cable that has not been in the ground for a long time - if you find a well-bedded one, this wire will be well corroded and will break every bit, I know this from practice, I used to want to recover some lead from such a thing...

By the way, reply to wojtek1234321 :

Quote:

Well, I guess he doesn't have a fishing shop, after all, professional fishing sinkers are plentiful and certainly much cheaper, or he doesn't think ...

I have no idea what he's thinking, I'm not into fishing. The fact that he uses bullets for guns CP informed me shortly after I surprised him picking my .36 caliber from the box ...

Jamie wrote:

Because you're talking about a cable that hasn't been lying in the ground for a long time - if you find a well-bedded one, this wire will be well corroded and will break every bit

It's possible my cable wasn't in the ground at all.