Lead Hogs

OK It seems there is some lead hogs in my area. There having all the tire places saving lead for them and they have picked the local range clean. So it looks like im gonna have to buy it. Any ideas on a good place to get lead cheap seems like getting it off the web shipping cost is gonna kill me. Can you get like lead wights from a hardware store?

If you are having to buy it, the web is about the best place you can get it. The going price is about 1.00 a pound. If you can get ingots already made, then you are doing good. i do not like buying wheel weights in raw form as the metal clips and stuff is part of the weight you are buying.

There is a couple guys over at castboolits that sells lead ingots all the time. They use flat rate for shipping which is the best way to go.

I should be making my rounds getting my wheel weights. If I have a bigger stash I would make ingots ever so often to help people out to getting good lead..

Check a salvage yard if you have one. Some yards that has cars that sells parts off would let you take a bucket and you can remove the wheel weights for a small price. I would not go no more than say, and I could be a bit off as I have not bought wheel weights before, but maybe say 20.00 for a 5 gallon bucket??

I would try metal recyclers first. then there are always all the auto places. If you swage I have found Richard Corbin to be the least expensive on lead wire.

Most guys get into casting to save money....if you have to pay high prices for lead, you have to ask yourself if you are saving anything.

What is sad is the fact that alot of the guys cleaning out the tire dealers don't even use the lead...they only want it to resell.

Do you have any local junk yards that will let you scrounge the weights off the junker cars and piles of rims that are usually laying around? Don't forget about the ones on your car if you go to get new tires....take them off first

Battery cable post connectors are usually lead....but don't use battery lead.

I hope you find a source for your lead.....

I dont know if there useing it making fishing sinkers or bullets or just reselling it. but there getting it for something. Im not gonna stop lookin tho ill find some somewhere and your right if i have to buy it im not going to be saving much of anything. But im going to check a few more places before i give up ill find something.

I just got off the phone with a local recycler. he said he has lots of lead and it is pure lead for 1.15 a pound if you want to buy some of it let me know and I will include yours with what i buy for myself. you can ship up to 50.lbs in a flat rate box for i think 15.00 if interested let me know.

Do you have any trucking companies in your area? I know a guy that got all the lead wheel weights from a oil refinery (they bought/sold crude oil, gas etc.) they had around 20 tractor trailers on the road. Yeah he has 55 gallon drums full.

Another source that I have found productive is talk to the local firestation. We have a lot of old houses that still have lead pipes inside.

Occasionally the fire dept gets one of these old houses to use as training and they get to set it on fire.

The fire dept appreciates the help getting the house ready to burn and they usually strip the inside to make the house burn a certain way for training.

Most of the appliances, carpet, etc are removed, and they usually pull all the insulation out so that mostly just wood is burning. They want the house to burn for no more than 6 hours, so they make sure there are lots of vent holes and most of the nasty burning crap like insulation, carpet, etc are removed for a cleaner burn.

The local fire dept appreciates the help and they did not mind me clearing all the lead pipes out for my use.

The fire dept is real good about trading a little hard work for some lead pipes. Sometimes have to think outside the box, when free lead is getting scarce.

So, how old does a house have to be to have lead pipes in it? pre-1890's?

I have never asked - there might be someone here who knows.

I ask the guys at the fire house and they let me know when they are tearing a house apart for training burn.

I follow them to the house and offer a few hours of work for letting me dig through the house for lead pipes. Sometimes I luck out, and get a few lead pipes, sometimes I end up helping the guys carry couches and other crap from the house.

A lot of the houses the fire dept are getting to burn are siezed by the city as public nuisances because they have become crack houses, meth labs, etc.

I had to volunteer and pay to take the courses from the city to get certified for helping clean up hazardous sites, but it has paid dividends for me with occasional pick up work and occasional haul of lead pipes.

While I can no longer offer the amount of physical labor I once could, I still am able to aid the fire dept in documenting the material to be removed. I work occasionally now as more of a surveyor, using a fireman's polaski instead of my cane to dig around in the house to ensure there are no hazardous chemicals left before burn.

I wish it was more steady work as it pays decent, but not for the claustrophobic because you spend hours in a Scott air pack. I have done one house so far this year, and it did not have any interior plumbing at all.

Most of the houses are pretty old at least near turn of the century. We had a lot of houses built here during the Alaskan Gold Rush, and some of those were pretty shoddy.

We also find lots of not-to-code plumbing that was either done on the sly or as cheap as possible and some of those used lead pipes.

I talked to the fire station chief and what started out as a WAG (wild ass guess) for a source of cheap lead, has turned into an occasional job with some more training and schooling.