Sailboat keel?

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new210/22

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It seems I may have access to a few thousand ponds of lead in the form of a keel from a trashed boat. What kind of quality/purity can I expect from lead in a mid eighties production boat? While I reload I know nothing about casting. Also, if I spend the time and melt this down to ingots what is the price per pound I can reasonably sell it for, assuming it’s pure lead

Thanks.
 
Type of lead...you never know.

But at the right price it is worth it. You can send a small sample out for testing.

Clean lead should always be around $1/pound. Bit more if it ends up being pure.
 
new210/22 said:
It seems I may have access to a few thousand ponds of lead in the form of a keel from a trashed boat. What kind of quality/purity can I expect from lead in a mid eighties production boat? While I reload I know nothing about casting. Also, if I spend the time and melt this down to ingots what is the price per pound I can reasonably sell it for, assuming it’s pure lead

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Provided you can melt it into ingots with ease and it's pure you can make it pay. Cutting up a keel is hard work and ain't easy and a large volume of melting to do.
Good luck
 
leebuilder said:
Provided you can melt it into ingots with ease and it's pure you can make it pay. Cutting up a keel is hard work and ain't easy and a large volume of melting to do.
Good luck
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It is hard work indeed.............i started to cut up one last year and after a days work i figured i had about 1/4 of the keel cut.
Going for another round this summer... eventually i will get it done.
 
A friend of mine from BC Tel built his own sailboat and used scrap lead from old cable sheaths back in the day when telephone cables were encased in lead sheaths. They were almost pure lead.
I managed to score over a hundred pounds of the stuff years ago and still have some left. Easy to work with when it's in flat sheets.
 
One needs to ask "How Much Lead is there" and "How Much can I handle? "
400lbs of lead for a 21 foot sailboat is a lot of lead to handle.
Buying scrap lead at retail isnt a good deal.
Just try selling scrap lead to a recycle depot and see what they offer and other special considerations they will ask you to provide.
Rob
 
yomomma said:
Type of lead...you never know.

But at the right price it is worth it. You can send a small sample out for testing.

Clean lead should always be around $1/pound. Bit more if it ends up being pure.
Click to expand...

Where would be a good place to send a sample for analysis? I've got a bunch of lead/tin alloy I'd like to have tested
 
yomomma said:
There is a guy on castboolits, you send him a couple pounds lead, he x-rays it, he tells you the composition, he keeps the lead. Everyone's happy.
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So the guy is using an XRF then. We have one at work, but it's not calibrated for lead/tin etc. I've tried it but get wonky numbers. We use ours to analyze for gold/copper/nickel etc.
 
yomomma said:
There is a guy on castboolits, you send him a couple pounds lead, he x-rays it, he tells you the composition, he keeps the lead. Everyone's happy.
Click to expand...

I assume this guy is in the states. If so it would be more cost effective to send a small sample and add some $$ then mailing pounds of lead internationally.
 
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