Lead

Anyone have any ideas on lead bricks. I saw somewhere that someone in North Georgia had some bricks to get rid of. I cant find the info now?? Any help appreciated.

LeadHeadz

I went to the local scrap yard and bought two 155 lbs blocks of lead that were used in military aircraft as ballast to level the plane. Cost about $.40 per lbs. I wouldn't recommend doing this though. The blocks were 8" X 9" and 10" tall... they were to big to melt down all at one time. I tried cutting them down with a Saws-All but the blade just got gummy and wouldn't cut through them. Ended up having to use a band saw with coolant to keep the blade free of gunk. After I cut them down (about 2.5" X 4" X 4") I used non-stick bread pans on a large gas grill. The bricks melted but it took FOREVER, and pulling 25-27 lbs. of molten lead off a grill at waist height was not fun. I did help speed the process up a bit by using my propane torch that I use when connecting copper plumbing. After they cooled they dropped right out of the bread pans and I coated them with Rubberizer (comes in a spray can at the local home center) because lead doesn't rust but it will oxidize and screw your carpet up.

Knowing what I know now and doing a little bit more research... I would have gone to the local gun/ammo supply place and bought 25 lbs. bags of lead shot for reloading target loads. It's like $.45 per lbs that way but much much easier to handle and melt down.

Some of the guys on here suggested going to the local tire center and asking them for their old tire weights. The problem with that is the weights are coverd in brake dust and brake fluid and also have little metal clips attached. Talk about some toxic fumes when you open the lid of the grill... not to mention the next time you grill out!!

Site Note: I thought LeadHeadz went out of business do to the expenses associated with shipping all that weight.

thanks for that!!

I simply used poly-e sandbags and filled them with the tire weights. Double-bagged and wrapped with duct tape. 50lbs per bag and I really like the fact that I can reshape them to fit in areas like under the side benches in my V210. Cost-- 78 cents per 50lb bag (39 cents for each poly-e bag).

Going to the local mom n' pop tire shop was the best for me. While the big name retail chain tire stores I went to seemed to dump their weights regularly, the mom n' pop shop had buckets worth of about 10 years of discarded weights.

check out www.metaltecsteel.com look for the shot bags in the product catagory.Right now Andy is selling them for $30.00/50 lb. You'll just have to deal with the shipping.

(Message edited by heavywake on July 29, 2004)

thanks fellas.