Lead hammer (lead cast to replace hide insert)

[Philip Davies]

Although it doesn’t last very long, I prefer to use a lead hammer when for example, scrolling material that’s twisted, to avoid marring it. A wooden mallet is too light and a hide mallet smokes and smells, and a brass or copper hammer is too dense. The hammers depicted will last a few sessions though and the mushrooms are easily removed, far easier than a copper insert. Hide inserts are fairly durable, but drop out, which is why I have these.
As you can see, I hope, I take a cheap holesaw blade, tighten up a hose clamp, in order to make a form in which to cast the lead. NB Donning leather jacket, leather apron, gauntlets and visor beforehand. Tuck feet beneath an open drawer in case a droplet penetrates jeans and disappears behind tongue of boot. Which has happened more than once.

[DIYSwede]

Thanks for sharing, Philip!

Cheapo tip for free* lead alloy (app 2-3 % tin):
Some forty years ago I had a need for lead, and a few dozens of kilos would suffice (I won't tell what for),
so I fixed myself an improvised shovel from thin perforated steel plate with lotsa 4 mm holes in it.

Brought that and a few empty 10 L paint cans to the local .22 cal shooting range,
and (at a time it wasn't in its intended use) I dug thru the sand bullet trap (or whatever it's called in H M English).
The low energies of these bullets gives you fairly shallow and easy work. Sand sifts thru - bullets stays in the shovel.
15 minutes of labor and the filled cans couldn't even be budged (113 kg per 10L).
Had to empty them out to 1/3, and they still weighed app 35 kilos apiece...
Smart thing: .22 bullets don't have any jackets and the thin plating goes into the dross, giving you a clean pour.

*Don't know if this practise is acceptable or allowed today, tho.
I still haven't run out of lead, 40 years later.
Filled a crushed tomato can last February to easily achieve a Q & D 4,4 kg point load weight for a colleague,
instead of his suggested "Just turn away 55 % of this free cast iron block I brought you":



How to:
Use a gas absorbing respirator and PPE as you already stated.
Melt on a stovetop in an aluminium saucepan, though it takes some time and is tedious
as the heat conductivity of lead is pretty bad, spoon out the dross and pour in mold/ into billets.




Just my thruppence worth

[mklotz]

*Don't know if this practise is acceptable or allowed today, tho.

LOL at the concept of harvesting lead from a shooting range...

Here in the liberal paradise of Kalifornia I live in a relatively small but affluent city. The city has a very nice park on the bluffs overlooking the Pacific - a great place to relax, picnic, or just cool off. Some excavation for drainage revealed a few spent bullets in the dirt. Research revealed that, during WWII, the area was used as a rifle training range. The millenial snowflakes got so scared you would have thought they had discovered an unexploded nuke.

The city, run by more uneducated snowflakes, promptly signed up for a clean-up that ultimately cost $14M they could ill afford. The park was closed for more than a year while they sanitized, purified, and blessed the dirt.

Generations of city residents had used the park since the armistice with no reported cases of lead-poisoning. All they really needed to do was erect a few signs saying, "Do not eat the dirt, $1000 fine and loss of your facebook profile" and everything would have been fine.

I wonder what they would do if I took a tiny sample of mercury, an element they fear almost as much as lead, to the city hall and told them I found it on the steps outside the building?

[DIYer]

Thanks Philip Davies! We've added your Lead Hammer to our Hammers category,
as well as to your builder page: Philip Davies's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Lead Hammer by Philip Davies

tags: hammer