Other places to find lead?

M

maillemaker

New member
So I'm having a hard time finding scrap lead. I've only found one tire place in town that will sell me their lead, and I've only netted about 40 pounds from them so far since Christmas. It's good, and a good price, so I don't complain, but I've already cast it all up and am looking for more.

I've made a list of all recycling places in town to see if I can buy lead from them.

Any other suggestions?
 
Good luck. Most stores around here either "have a guy" or "turn it back in to corporate". There's even some dude that goes around scavenging wheelweights to smelt down to ingots for sale to the scrap yard.:barf:

One guy at a local gun store told me he has 4000# of wheelweights he got from all the tire shops within a 20 mile radius. "Not selling, sorry". :mad:
 
I have heard others suggest talking to roofing contractors to see if they will sell you the old flashing (pure lead, usually) or lead pipes that they remove in renovations. Probably would help to talk to plumbers, too.

Around here, most of the tire places tell me they are "under contract" to a salvage company.

One place I used to get wheel weights was at wrecking yards. Most yards have racks of wheels for sale, and some will let you go pull off the wheel weights and sell them to you.

I just today bought about 40# of pure lead at a salvage place... I had to take some scrap iron out there, and thought, why not? I paid .80 a pound for lead flashing scrap. They also have wheel weights, and I think they charge less for them. I'm planning another trip out there in a week or so.
 
Investigate any demolition that is going on. I saw large sewer pipes(lead) being replaced in a small town in Southern Michigan. Old buildings...it has been a long time since lead drain pipes were used; the building has to be old to have had them.
Check out any junk cars with hoods without any chrome that date from the sixties. They could have been "decked out", that is all the chrome removed and the seams and other features blended with lead-tin to create a "lead sled". This was common before the invention of "Bondo" and is still used today for "restoration" instead of "repair" for vintage tractors.
All uses for lead alloys, and therefore the availability of such is diminishing rapidly.
 
I've had much better luck at auto dealers. They don't turn as much as a tire store, but they ussually don't have a contract to scrap. I go in every 6 months or so with a fresh 5 gallon bucket. I'm seeing a lot more steel & a few cursed zinc ww. I've taken to looking at each one before smelting. That really slows the process down. I've got plumbers & contractors looking out for lead pipe all the time. I told one guy I REALLY liked wiped joints (50/50 solder). At my christmass party he brought me a couple of buckets of wiped joints, all neatly cut out of the pipe. When I later asked him what he did with the rest of the lead pipe, he said he threw it away. DOUH!
 
Check with your area dentists, if they are still using x-ray film, there is little bit of protective foil on each film pack. It's not much; but, last week I got 6.5 pounds of lead in the form of postage-stamp-size thin foil film protectors.
 
I buy recycled range lead on E-bay for about $1.10 or so a lb. shipped, usually 120 lbs at a time. I just get tired of fighting for scraps.
 
Range scrap works too! I have two outdoor ranges nearby and whenever I visit I try to just pick up whatever I see laying on top, no digging so nobody can complain. I pick up a large sized plastic coffee container about half full each time I do that. A full container melted down results in about 10-12 1lb ingots.
Just takes a little time.

Joe
 
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