Manly Arts?

Sometimes I just cant get things outta my head. I saw a blog the other day touting the ‘Manly Arts’ and just had to shake my head in wonder. Listed posts under manly arts were things like ‘how to build a campfire, ‘beard oils’, ‘mustache taming’, ‘car camping’, and my favorite (yes, that is sarcasm) – ‘what men complained about women 50 and 100 years ago’.  W….. T….. F….. ?

I was thinking about this as I fired up the forge and collected the materials and tools to start melting old lead weights and scrap into usable ingots. In case no one out there has melted scrap down into ingots, there is actually a lot of time to contemplate life and its mysteries as you go about it. The only time you really need to pay attention is when there is hot liquid metal present and ready to splash everywhere it can and solidify. Thus plenty of time to let your mind wander….

So, what all is needed to melt lead down you ask? Does it require the insane amount of heat that aluminum and brass do? Nope, lead is easy, any campfire has enough heat to melt lead. Does it mean that we don’t respect it when you have hot liquid metal sloshing around? Nope, it will still F your sh*t up if it gets on you or something you dont want damaged, thats all the warning your going to get.  Here’s a pic of my lead smelting set up.

Pretty simple really, something to hold the charcoal, a cast iron melting pot, and the charcoal to heat it up. I do use the blower on occasion when melting lead just to ramp the heat up for melting larger pieces quicker, but it isn’t a necessity. I throw a couple pieces of lead in the pot when I get the coals lit so I can see when I get to melt temp. As the lead melts and makes a nice puddle in the bottom it gets easier to melt lead that is added since you have a nice big thermal source immersing the new scrap. Almost all scrap lead, like old tire weights, have a bunch of dirt and junk on them not to mention the steel weight clips. Most of that stuff will float to the top so you can scrape it off, which you want to do. I lose a little lead with the crap, but in the scheme of things it’s better to have clean lead than try to save every last gram.

Enlarge the picture and you will see the weight clips and dirt floating on top the lead. I use a small casting ladle I have had for years to scrape the scrum off. I usually just tap all that junk out of the ladle onto the ground then sweep it up and discard it once I’m done with the melt and everything is cooled. Get enough lead melted and the top cleared of junk and you will have something that looks similar to this.

Here comes the fun part, and since I work solo I couldnt take any action shots. Lol. Pouring requires holding that little wire bail in the picture above and using the tab opposite the spout on the pot to tip and pour the lead. Having an aversion to serious pain (I know, not very manly, but I don’t have my beard oil on. In? What is the proper way of wearing beard oil?) I have made a small tool to hook the bail wire and lift the pot that keeps my hand away from it’s contents and I use a pair of pliers to grip the tab for tipping. Oh, and I wear a big ole pair of welders gloves for good measure.

Mmmmm, lead muffins. Seriously, this old cast iron muffin pan makes a heck of a mold for pouring all kinds of ingots. Just don’t use it to bake with or you may have elevated metal levels in your blood. Lol. There is no need for a release agent in the mold as the metal contracts once its cooled sufficiently and falls right out. You can see the gap around the cooled ingots in the pic above.

A couple hours of work turned half a 5 gallon bucket of scrap into the ingots above and it was done before the clock struck noon. I bet a few of you are thinking to yourself ‘Why does he have thick ingots and thin ingots?’ Well kiddos, put on your thinking caps and leave your ideas in the comment section. First one to come up with the reason I do it will get a little of the finished product in the picture sent to them.

One final thing. I did the above work with an untamed mustache, no beard oil, and without complaining about women 50 or 100 years ago. After all, I have enough complaints about women without having to go back in history…….    LMAO!