Funnily enough this is like the only way you can somewhat legally get lead in the EU since lead was banned from consumers. Been thinking about taking apart a few old batteries because lead is still useful in places if handled properly, the total blanket ban is a bit of a shame
What you melted was the elemental lead that made up the electrodes. 2.5 pounds is about right. The remaining lead is the form of Inorganic Lead (lead sulfate and oxide) that is coating the numerous plates (plastic liners) . This doesn't melt at all. By burning inorganic lead with a carbon source (charcoal or wax) you'll convert inorganic lead to metallic lead. This, by the way, is called smelting and occurs worldwide to get the rest of the lead out. Good luck and be careful.
@@marek9135 It's not easy to get good mixing of the heavy lead compounds and the light charcoal particles. But you need intimate contact of both. Just throwing a candle into the crucible will have it burst into flames on top of your melt without much reaction with the lead compounds.
@Mark Twain This is actually not a big problem if you know what you do. The metallic lead will sink to the bottom of the crucible and is covered by lead oxide and the reducing agent. Let it cool a little fresh out of the furnace and everything is fine. Wear a mask, of course...
The reason that you only got 2 pounds of lead or so is because most of the lead in a battery is in the plates in the form of lead oxide and lead dioxide. The oxides must be stripped from the lead returning it back to lead. You can "reduce" the lead oxides back into lead by using "coke" or even charcoal powder mixed into it when you heat it. The carbon reacts with the oxygen in the lead oxide becoming CO2 leaving you pure lead. You would still lose a fair bit of weight compared to the weight of the battery due to the loss of oxygen but you could recover a "lot" more lead from the battery overall.
@@jonbraddock5545 You need a real furnace and a crucible that reach >1000 degrees to get useful reaction speed. The whole process is called smelting and is done for ages. Just sprinkling some charcoal powder over the pan won't cut it.
@@jackmclane1826 Yeah I did this last year Its just not worth it with the hazmat. Found it easier to just get wheel weights and scrap lead. Its a good source and practice to know for sure.
Thanks for the tip. After watching a couple videos I realized that myself and I don't have the time for this. So I'm going to have to find other means and obviously spend some money.
I ended up with about 8lbs pure from mine standard battery nothing special. Found talking to car shops you can actually acquire quite a lot of lead from wheel weights. Largest haul I have had was about 100lbs from bmw dealership.
I have a big chunk of lead in the trunk of my car which has to weigh at least 15lb.'s, I'll bet it would cost a few bucks to ship it from Nova Scotia to Arizona. I am waiting to see a video of you putting together your sawmill.
Yeah, what car batter did you use? This seems like it's not enough at all. When I did my battery (dodge ram van). Size 24. It brought out a good 10lbs after it was melted down.
I know this is an old video but I would think soft lead would dampen your anvil. Did it feel like that? nm I thought you were filling the whole cavity.
Getting lead from a car battery is only worth it for when the shyt hits the fan. It is a complete bitch to get a battery apart. It's not worth it unless you need to cast bullets or sinkers for survival. I've done it once and won't do it again.
This is cool and the anvil is increasingly impressive…however I first started following you because of a Telecaster build. At first I saw there were ~20 videos I almost bailed. But I stuck with it, gobbling up each new episode as it was released. Now I've watched 30-THIRTY-Tele videos only to be denied sweet relief. Could you not please spend one evening finishing that gorgeous desert beauty for your legion of followers? Or for the sake of the poor, nearly realized instrument itself? It's been about 3 months since we saw hide or hair of it. This almost constitutes mental cruelty. Please, sir, take pity on us!
