Boat Keel Bullets -- Cutting Lead Metal for

The need to come up with lead in sufficient quantities without breaking the family budget can be a challenge to a bullet castor. Lead prices have been like gold, so buying the alloy is one thing, but shipping prices are another. This brings up the question of what 2000 to 3000 pounds of the stuff would be worth if you could get your hands on that much. Good alloy is at least 4% antimony. Well there is a source that should not be discounted, and that is the keel from a sale boat which is the percentage in a boat keel so it is good bullet metal as it is. The keel is the long fin on the bottom of a sale boat and much of the time it is a near solid piece of lead (except for the steel supporting bolts). The  process is in photos below. A chainsaw was used and three blades were dulled, but the end result was a lot of good alloy at bargain prices. The keel was taken to a salvage yard and weighed and was 2400 lb but they wanted to discount it 50% because of the Fiberglas so my young friend hauled it back home and used a hammer and chisel to peal off the Fiberglass. He bought a over $500 Magma 90 lb melting pot.  He used his chain saw to disassemble it. He would dull 3 chains but he could have had the same chain sharpened.   We then worked together in melting the first few hundred pounds to teach him how. The pictures below should be self explanatory. 

The hoist is two light for the job and only balances the keel. The front was cut off first. 

My young friend had the bottom of the keel sink in the dirt because he did not work on this project for over a year

In the photo above at the bottom is a Magma 90 lb smelter, this machine will melt lead like lightning 

This little tractor would not have moved the keel if it was left in one piece.

My friend is wearing a dust mask, sunglasses and a rag around his head. He is also using a Magma 10 lb mold as well as cast iron muffin pans.



(I show you how to make my version of the 90 pound Magma melting pot (Magmaw the mother of all melting pots) in this blog and no I am not selling you the blueprints its free click here  click here  )     
   To see my gun book click my name Richard W Norman