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Post by needsmostuff on Jul 4, 2009 20:42:30 GMT -5
It struck me the other day that no one ever discusses salvaging lead from old car batterys for bullet casting. Is this bad lead  |
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Post by wickerbill on Jul 4, 2009 21:08:16 GMT -5
NOT A GOOD IDEA! NO! NO! NO! DO NOT DO THIS. NOT SAFE!!!
Bill
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Post by taffin on Jul 4, 2009 21:38:22 GMT -5
It struck me the other day that no one ever discusses salvaging lead from old car batterys for bullet casting. Is this bad lead JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WICKERBILL, THE ANSWER IS YES IT IS DANGEROUSLY BAD LEAD. DON'T DO IT. |
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Post by needsmostuff on Jul 5, 2009 1:43:48 GMT -5
Well, I did figure there had to be some kind of problem as no one was doing this and there is alota lead in them suckers.( I have access to a bunch of big deep cycle units )
Just for my nosey self , I got to ask ,what is the danger ?
Is it fumes when melting , the basic issues of working with sulferic acid or is the quality of the lead lowered by it's long exposure. Just wondering.
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Post by needsmostuff on Jul 5, 2009 2:17:14 GMT -5
I did a little searching on the interweb and found plenty of answers, enough to agree, mucho bad idea.
Thanks for looking.
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Post by wickerbill on Jul 5, 2009 9:46:42 GMT -5
OK it's time for a little lesson on how a battery works. There are two types of lead in a battery. the regular lead or sheet lead is attached to the anodes(+). The spunge lead is attached to the cathode(-). The spunge lead absorbs teh sulfuric acid in the electrolite at a different rate than the sheet lead. the difference in this absobtion give a potential and this is what give electron flow.
To make a long story short, no mater how much you wash this lead, you will never get all the acid out of this lead. When you melt it down. It releaces the acid as fumes and you die.
Bill
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Shakey
.327 Meteor
Central Arkansas
Posts: 543
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Post by Shakey on Jul 5, 2009 13:28:14 GMT -5
Lest you think that all you have to do is avoid the poisonous fumes..., besides the lead, you are also left with a generous amount of various hazardous materials. All in all, it is just an awkward, messy, operation and you don't wind up with as much lead as you might think.
I did it ONCE about 40 years ago (I knew to stay clear of the fumes but had no clue about the hazardous materials). Even though I had a dozen or so old batteries left, I decided it just wasn't worth the trouble.
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Post by nobearsyet on Jul 5, 2009 15:31:31 GMT -5
Not ot mention that a lot of the lead in old car batteries is actually turned to Lead Oxide and simply will not cast worth a crap, and the fumes, and the acid risk, it's just a bad idea.
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Post by AxeHandle on Jul 6, 2009 12:35:39 GMT -5
We did it for fishing weights about 50 years ago... We didn't know that we could even die much less be killed by fumes from burning a battery or two... Don't remember how the fishing weights turned out or even how much of a mess we made... Maybe the fumes killed those brain cells... And a few others!  |
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Post by scifijim on Oct 18, 2009 22:18:21 GMT -5
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