Hello All,
I stumbled up this site recently and really like what I have been reading. I currently live in VA and recently bought a house on Currituck Sound in NC. I plan on retiring from Law Enforcement in August 2019 and will move to NC permanently. Since I recently purchased the house down in NC, I have been starting to learn about surf fishing salt water fishing. With that in mind I recent ordered a Pyramid Sinker, a Hot Lips and a Shad Head mold figuring I would be using them quite a bit.
I started pouring lead to make bank sinkers in my back yard when I was about 14 years old. My brother and I had built a forge of bricks that were just stacked together. We used an old lawn mower blade to balance the metal coffee can that we melted the lead in and used sticks as our heat source. I am currently 48 years old and still pouring lead. My set up is totally different now; its a safer setup and I make all sorts of jigs for personal consumption and to give to friends. I melt in my garage with a home made hood that vents out of the garage and a Lee pot. I have begun using a fluid bed and powder paint and hope to start tying some buck tail jigs for striped bass for this year. I used to tie flies and make dear hair bass bugs so I I have an idea on what to do but I have never tied large amounts of buck tail to make these 1 to 3 oz jigs.
I have about 300 + pounds of 1 pound ingots, that my son and I have pored over the years. I have been having a harder and harder time getting decent lead lately. I just started to get lead from an indoor range. I give the guy a 5 gallon bucket with a gamma lid and he fills it 1/3 of the way (around 40-lbs) then wipes the outside of the bucket down with "Dlead" wipes and gives it back to me. It is nice lead but it has gone through an auger after the deceleration chamber of the bullet trap and the lead is broken down to little pieces to dust. I have been trying to melt this in my Lee pot but the amount of copper jacket and dross makes it quite time consuming to process. I want to do this quickly, and I want to do it out doors. I feel I will have the lowest probability of lead contamination by doing it out doors. What set up would you guys suggest for doing this out door? I am thinking a Dutch oven as the pot over a propane turkey fryer burner. I can dump from the bucket a large ammount of lead into the Dutch oven allowing me to melt large amount at once with an large surface area to easily ladle off the dross and minimizing the amount of times I need to pour the ground up lead out of the bucket. Any suggestions on which burner to get and where? I want to keep the investment low on this as I will only be using it for a short time.
Thanks,
Jay
I stumbled up this site recently and really like what I have been reading. I currently live in VA and recently bought a house on Currituck Sound in NC. I plan on retiring from Law Enforcement in August 2019 and will move to NC permanently. Since I recently purchased the house down in NC, I have been starting to learn about surf fishing salt water fishing. With that in mind I recent ordered a Pyramid Sinker, a Hot Lips and a Shad Head mold figuring I would be using them quite a bit.
I started pouring lead to make bank sinkers in my back yard when I was about 14 years old. My brother and I had built a forge of bricks that were just stacked together. We used an old lawn mower blade to balance the metal coffee can that we melted the lead in and used sticks as our heat source. I am currently 48 years old and still pouring lead. My set up is totally different now; its a safer setup and I make all sorts of jigs for personal consumption and to give to friends. I melt in my garage with a home made hood that vents out of the garage and a Lee pot. I have begun using a fluid bed and powder paint and hope to start tying some buck tail jigs for striped bass for this year. I used to tie flies and make dear hair bass bugs so I I have an idea on what to do but I have never tied large amounts of buck tail to make these 1 to 3 oz jigs.
I have about 300 + pounds of 1 pound ingots, that my son and I have pored over the years. I have been having a harder and harder time getting decent lead lately. I just started to get lead from an indoor range. I give the guy a 5 gallon bucket with a gamma lid and he fills it 1/3 of the way (around 40-lbs) then wipes the outside of the bucket down with "Dlead" wipes and gives it back to me. It is nice lead but it has gone through an auger after the deceleration chamber of the bullet trap and the lead is broken down to little pieces to dust. I have been trying to melt this in my Lee pot but the amount of copper jacket and dross makes it quite time consuming to process. I want to do this quickly, and I want to do it out doors. I feel I will have the lowest probability of lead contamination by doing it out doors. What set up would you guys suggest for doing this out door? I am thinking a Dutch oven as the pot over a propane turkey fryer burner. I can dump from the bucket a large ammount of lead into the Dutch oven allowing me to melt large amount at once with an large surface area to easily ladle off the dross and minimizing the amount of times I need to pour the ground up lead out of the bucket. Any suggestions on which burner to get and where? I want to keep the investment low on this as I will only be using it for a short time.
Thanks,
Jay