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You don't say what the intended use is, but the eyebolt reminds me of
something I did years ago. I needed a counterweight for a trapdoor, and had the lead - although it was not greasy it was roof flashings and probably worse to melt than wheel weights. I got some metal tins - "jam tins" about 700 grams capacity for jam, roughly the size to give 10 lbs of lead. Melted the lead in another pot - I fancy it was an old cast aluminium saucepan. Ladled the lead it into the jam tin as it was melted. From memory I drilled a hole in the bottom of the tin and put the eye bolt through it with appropriate nuts and washers. In that application it did not matter if the lead wasn't all liquid at once, and the tin remained as a permanent container. End result ( after painting, the heat made the jam tin look pretty sick ...) was a cylindrical weight with an eye bolt... permanently encased in a jam tin. I had a gas ring large enough to melt about a pound of lead, so my investment in the project was virtually nil. I'll mention one safety issue - the biggest one as far as I'm concerned. If there is ANY water in the lead or the form, you can splatter molten lead everywhere. And you have to dispose of the dross. Weights with eye-bolts don't sound very boat like, and if you can live with the slightly larger size for the required weight, I'd consider selling the lead as scrap and buying something else of an appropriate size. The juice can looks another good option, wash the weights to remove most of the oil, allow to dry, dip them in ( catalysed) resin, and drop them in the cans. Don't bother to fill the voids, it adds little mass, adds costs, and gets you into the heat generation issues of large volumes of resin. You could use other stuff to lock the weights together ( old paint ? ) But if you go down this path, don't ever think of using the weights for anything else ... David "Andrew Butchart" wrote in message ... I've come into possession of a quantity of lead wheel weights - about 70lbs worth. I'd like to turn them into 10lb weights with an eyebolt on the top. One minor issue is that the weights were stored in an old grease pail and so are quite greasy. As I see it I have three options: - Melt it down and pour it into forms. The good thing with this, is that the weights will be all lead. The bad thing is that I don't know how to make forms - would wood be good enough, or old juice cans? Could I melt the lead on my BBQ - kitchen stove is out because of fumes of course. What about the grease? Should I clean it off first? I'm not keen on this method because of all of the safety issues, but it give me the "best" and most dense result. - Use polyester resin and 1 litre cardboard milk cartons as a form to cast a weight. Would it hold together? Do I need to remove the grease from the wheel weights? - Put the weights into a large juice can and somehow seal up the top. I'd worry about how solid this would be though. Thanks -- Andrew Butchart |
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