Casting lead ingots in the city

J

jjr

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Hey, I live in the city with neighbours all around me. How bad does it smell and smoke during the process of putting your wheel weights into ingots? I have probably 100 lbs in wheel weights that I have to sort through and separate out the lead, and one of the things holding me back is being a bit anxious about doing this with neighbours complaining, calling cops or fire dept, etc.

I'd be possibly doing this in my driveway. Back yard is a bit uneven, and I have back yard neighbours anyways.
 
Sounds like a similar situation to what I had. What I did was set up some cinder blocks on my driveway in front of the garage (but a sturdy table would suffice). I then rolled my bbq in front and lifted the lid. I then set about casting on a light/medium breezy day and started cleaning and making ingots. The smell is a dead give away for those down wind, but the breeze helped dissipate. Nosy neighbours who saw me would assume the smoke was coming from the bbq. The smell is unfortunate, but I did it in reasonable quantities and it was just fine.
 
I've found that if you sort the weights out and get rid of the garbage like valve stems and junk there is almost no smoke anyway. You pretty much have to go over them by hand because there is more steel and zinc than lead weights.
 
I think the majority of them are lead, or at least the ones on top of the bucket are. I picked up a few and tested them and more than half are lead.

I have a friend who works at a dealership and fills up a few buckets every couple weeks, said I'm more than welcome to them.
 
Neighbours have never commented on it. I do most of mine in the winter though. I have however noticed that the aerial support unit circles my house a lot when I do have the melting pot going.
 
As others have said, very little smoke when you clean the valve stems and other garbage out beforehand, the 'stink" last a bit longer but is far less obnoxious than any outdoor cooker with "overdone" food on it...Just had a thought, if you really want to "mask" the lead smell, boil an old deer scull at the same time...guaranteed the neighbors wont ##### about the lead at all...
 
I live in a subdivision but in a mostly rural area. Have melted down nearly a ton of WW's in my back yard over the years. I sort out all the junk and non lead weights. Flux with Marvelux. They do smoke a little and they also smell some. Mostly I think because of oil contamination. Never had a complaint. Neighbour across back fence asked me last week if I was cooking up my special "soup" again. I do understand why some might have concerns about what neighbours think about melting lead in your yard.
I would try to keep it has inconspicuous as possible.
 
I also just learned you can do it with a large hot plate, that might be a little less conspicuous than using a big ass propane thing.
 
That "big ass" propane outfit will/can limit your outside exposure time to an hr or so per pail full while that hotplate will add hrs to the job...that might just make the difference between calm or pissed neighbors
 
I've done literally 2+ tons in the edge of my garage. All done in late Fall to early spring, at night, during inclement weather when few people are outside. As suggested, remove rubber before it hits the pot, and use something with a lot of BTU's. I've done four buckets at a time and it took about three hours of steady work to convert about 700 lbs of wheelweights into 500+ lbs of ingots.
 
Sort your WW so you won't have in the pot plastic, rubber or paper. Smelting does not make smoke to be worried about not even when you add some wax or whatever to reduce. I even washed my WW once just to see if it makes any difference. I kinda wasted time to be honest but it didn't hurt. I'd rather be worried about breathing WW fumes than the actual smoke.
When I fire up the BBQ there is 10 times more smoke than smelting.
 
fingers284 said:
That "big ass" propane outfit will/can limit your outside exposure time to an hr or so per pail full while that hotplate will add hrs to the job...that might just make the difference between calm or pissed neighbors
Click to expand...

I understand that the propane outfit will definitely be quicker than a cheap hotplate, but at the same time my neighbours might be more curious about something with an open flame, and might justify calling fire dept or something for violating some stupid by law or something, like fire within a certain distance of a structure, etc.

Unfortunately I don't really know the people living around me except a sweet old 94 year old lady that lives across the street and down a bit. There was an older couple living beside us when we first bought the house, but one of them died and the other moved away. On one side is an empty lot so that's not a concern, except they've neglected to mow it all summer so it's basically a dry hay field which I'd have to make sure nothing strayed over there, and there's new people where the old couple were, haven't said hi and I haven't been able to catch their gaze to wave, seem to keep to themselves. If I at least had met them before and could feel them out I could have just gone and told them what was up and if they had any complaints or anything to just come up and talk to me, etc, unfortunately that's not the case.
 
I do mine on the edge of the garage door, with the rear ped door open for a bit of a breeze. like others have said if you clean out the junk first the smell is minimal and only within a close prox of the melt. I am using a propane coleman type stove. I think you will find the bbq way too slow, you will want the pot right on top of the flame. if you use the bbq take the grill out and find a way to put the pan close to the flame.
 
I do mine in the middle of the day when most of my neighbours are at work. I run a big ass propane outfit and try to get it done quick. I usually wait til it's breezy as well just to dissipate what offensive smells do come off my sorted WW.
 
make them in the front drive on my charcoal forge. one neighbour raised an eyebrow, one came over and helped and one brought beer. the eyebrow guy came over then to see what was going on, went home and came back with a bunch of lead sheet and pipe. i like that guy now and i guess i`m fortunate to have neighbours like that.
 
I used an old range hood suspended from the ceiling and had it ducted to an outlet on my rear garage door. I could rig it up over the pot and take it away after I was done. Worked well and used range hoods are $10-$20 on kijiji.
There isn't a lot of smoke but there is a some when you have impurities from melting scrap lead and ww, or when you are fluxing. It's over quickly and your neighbours shouldn't notice much if anything.
 
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