Thread: Lead pouring question

I'm needing to make some ingots/billets of lead
Around 3/4" in diameter and 5" long
Was thinking on a piece of board with hole bored into it and standing some 3/4" ID alu pipe and pouring into that

For those that play with this stuff, will the slugs come out of the alloy pipe easily while they are still hot?

And anyone in the Wellie area interested in pouring it for some beer (have the lead)

any reason you want them round?
i can see getting it back out of the ally tube being a pain in the arse
i always cast sinkers, the big bottom bouncing kind and use them as my ingots.
cheap moulds from tackle shop for 15 bucks or so
also good for fishing
greg

I wouldn't use alloy, it doesn't handle heat at all well. Carbon steel would work better. Do they have to be totally round when finished?

The slugs will be going into an extrusion die to make wire, and then processed further to make jacketed bullets - so do really need to be round
Seamless pipe would be ideal

The idea of alloy was that once the lead had solidified, the heat in the alloy tube would allow the billets to fall/be tapped out due to expansion of the tube

Good in theory?

DLM - Extrusions To easy.

Originally Posted by Wirehunt

DLM - Extrusions To easy.

They want around $13 or so a kg... vs me making my own wire in exactly the sizes I need for around $2.50/kg

Last time I did something like this used pipe like you suggest but thick wall steel split it first then clamped two halves togeather.When cool un done clamps and out comes a sausgae perfect with just little seam marks

Made heaps like that hardest part cutting pipe nicely in the power band saw built cradle to hold the pipe to feed it through in out of wood. Many years ago but it worked. Frost plug on bottom modded and welded to one half of pipe only.

Slit with a thin milling cutter weld in ends and hinge together like a spit roast, use black pipe

Make sure you put a little preheat into them before pouring to get rid of moister.

13 a kilo sounds good to me, they will be able to get the size very close and it saves a lot of hassle for you. Should be done outside blah blah.

They wanted a fortune to make the dies for the size I need and 500kg run.
I need different diameters and already have the tooling to extrude it
5x the price + tooling and 5x the amount is just not an option

What ever you go with , fill the mould to overflowing , this ensures there are no air voids , Could you cast it in half rounds like solder ? or even get a bullet mould of about the correct size and machine out the grease grooves . the alloy lee ones are cheap enough and you have to cut your wire to length any way

An easier way maybe to cast the lead into clay moulded with a stick of the right size the dried in the lovely weather we are having an broken off the solid lead, you should be paying for this expertise!

just drill holes in the ground, fill with lead and then dig them up

Originally Posted by Spook

just drill holes in the ground, fill with lead and then dig them up

Now that's real smart, I'm impressed

I am not sure of the name but there is a type of sand we use in metal for aluminum. Just get a metal bar the thickness you want and fill a bucket with the sand and push the rod into it, it'll hold the shape.