It's finally wet enough, with low enough wind, that I decided to go ahead and torch some of the brushpiles I have around here. One pile was cut limbs - probably had 25-30 cubic yards of that - a big azz pile.
The other was tree trunks, mostly cedars. I've been slowly clearing cedars around here, most are very large. The problem with them, is that once the thing is horizontal something must be done with it. I haul most of it to a neighbor, he allows me to fling it in his burn pit. The trunks are another story.
Too big for me to haul around, I'm doing this manually. Come to that, when I started years ago, I didn't even have a chainsaw. I was using a limb saw, and muscle. Santa brought a chainsaw one year, boy was I happy.
Anyhoo, the tree trunks are 5-6 feet tall, and I dig them out of the ground, so there is a big root ball on each. These trunks are 16-24" across - big trees. I piled 'em up, lit 'em up, sat and watched.
Then it occurred to me - I have a bucket of wheelweights I can render down with the free heat. So I did.
After the trunks burnt down some, so I could approach the inferno, I put about a third full pot on the fire. Left it for 30 minutes. Came back, scraped the steel clips out, and poured.
I didn't even bother fluxing, you can tell by the junk floating on the top of the closest ingots. I made those molds out of some angle I had laying around. Each ingot comes out about 2.25lbs with wheelweights. Every time I set the pot of Pb down, the grass caught fire. The scorched spot is visible. The can in background has the steel clips, the bean can has the dirt and dust scraped off the surface of the Pb puddle.
Somewhat in a hurry, it was starting to spit and mist. Water and liquid lead are a hazardous combination, I just went as fast as I safely could. Ingots are a mess.
The result -
38 ingots of relatively clean clip-on wheelweights (CWW). About 80-85 pounds.
I'll re-melt these when I blend some alloy, they need to be fluxed and waxed. I'll mix it 50%CWW + 2%tin (pewter) + 50%Pb (soft lead). i.e.- 50lbs CWW, 1lb tin, 50lbs Pb.
The other was tree trunks, mostly cedars. I've been slowly clearing cedars around here, most are very large. The problem with them, is that once the thing is horizontal something must be done with it. I haul most of it to a neighbor, he allows me to fling it in his burn pit. The trunks are another story.
Too big for me to haul around, I'm doing this manually. Come to that, when I started years ago, I didn't even have a chainsaw. I was using a limb saw, and muscle. Santa brought a chainsaw one year, boy was I happy.
Anyhoo, the tree trunks are 5-6 feet tall, and I dig them out of the ground, so there is a big root ball on each. These trunks are 16-24" across - big trees. I piled 'em up, lit 'em up, sat and watched.
Then it occurred to me - I have a bucket of wheelweights I can render down with the free heat. So I did.
After the trunks burnt down some, so I could approach the inferno, I put about a third full pot on the fire. Left it for 30 minutes. Came back, scraped the steel clips out, and poured.
I didn't even bother fluxing, you can tell by the junk floating on the top of the closest ingots. I made those molds out of some angle I had laying around. Each ingot comes out about 2.25lbs with wheelweights. Every time I set the pot of Pb down, the grass caught fire. The scorched spot is visible. The can in background has the steel clips, the bean can has the dirt and dust scraped off the surface of the Pb puddle.
Somewhat in a hurry, it was starting to spit and mist. Water and liquid lead are a hazardous combination, I just went as fast as I safely could. Ingots are a mess.
The result -
38 ingots of relatively clean clip-on wheelweights (CWW). About 80-85 pounds.
I'll re-melt these when I blend some alloy, they need to be fluxed and waxed. I'll mix it 50%CWW + 2%tin (pewter) + 50%Pb (soft lead). i.e.- 50lbs CWW, 1lb tin, 50lbs Pb.