were to get good lead for jigs

[Walleye fisherman]

Looking for a good place to get good lead for making jigs, sinkers ect.Does anyone have a good place?
Thanks

[bountyhunters]

look around for a old gas station that still fix flat tires they;ll have a bucket full of lead .,or if you want to buy it try a plumber,

[Burr]

I'm not that fond of wheel weights, although it works.

The best I've found is lead sheilded cable from phone companies. Lot's of work to strip the wires, but good, clean lead.

How close are you to Fargo? I've got about 5 lifetimes worth in my garage melted into bricks.

[ebijack]

wheel weights do have alot of by-products in them. lead shot (for making your own shells) works great and isn't all that expensive.

[Toolman]

If you know anyone in the Drywall biz ask them if they ever get lead shielding scraps (used in hospital radiology rooms, etc). This either comes glued to the back of Gyp board or in 4'x7' sheets. It's 1/16" or 1/8" thick and a real treat to install. Extra pieces and scrap often go to the dumpster, so it's available on hospital jobs regularly.

Tim

[RDJ unlogged]

Contact your local Trap/Skeet club. Most that are of any size have an annual or bi-annual clean up of the trap fields and they reclaim and resale this lead. It would work great to melt down for this purpose. It's very clean after the reclaiming process, just not 100% round any more...Last time I bought some it ran $7-$8 / 25# bag. This was a few years ago and at our local club so may be a bit more now. Good luck, RJ in Montana..

[ERIE REBEL]

Another great place to try is your local recycling agent. A lot of times they will have the lead that power companies use for sheathing. As previously stated it is a job to remove the outer cover but the lead is pure soft lead. Much cleaner than wheel wieghts.

[jerry bark]

wheel weights will cast better if you add a bit of tin to them. i use 5% tin in with wheel weights and have good luck.

remember to only cast where there is good ventilation, especially important if using wheel weights which contain significant amounts of arsenic.

cheers
jerry

[AllenW]

Find someone who does casting, whether bullets or whatever, and just buy some from them, lot easier than trying do it from scratch.
Wouldn't worry about the tin for jigs fwiw

Didn't say where you lived or how much you wanted, I'd bet one of us might be able to help, Burr is in Fargo and I'm in Mpls, plus who knows who else is smelting lead.

I've done both jigs and bullets, only reason I did jigs was I wanted a longer shaft on my walleye jigs, not so sure I'd go though the trouble if I wanted standard jigs though.

Al

[Captdoug]

Just call the local scrap yard. They will have the best price and the best choice of quality. Look for clean lead and melt it outside into ingotts, than make your jigs. Doug

[Bill Krejca]

Jerry,

I'd like to get some tin for use as a casting material. Where do You get it?

Thanks,

[Prowler]

A couple of my buddies and I volunteer for the annual clean up at the indoor pistol range at our gun club. Last year we got over 1200 pounds of clean lead in one evening. Two of us shoveled it into plastic buckets and two guys melted and cleaned it. We just use a couple of big old cast iron pots on high pressure gas burners, like the ones you use for deep frying turkey. We just melt 70 or 80 pounds at a time in them. Skim off all of the copper jackets and junk and ladle the clean lead into cupcake pans. We just spray the pans with Pam to keep it from sticking. Each "cupcake" gives about a three pound ingot to remelt for making jigs, bullets, or whatever. The best part, besides that it is free, you make a lot of friends for doing the dirty work at the range. Instant heros, free lead.

Craig

[jerry bark]

i got some ingots at a reloading table at a gun show, i have seen them at stores with a good supply of reloading stuff. fairly expensive but you don't need much to really improve the quality of castings that you get, at least in my bullet molds.

cheers
jerry

[SdDoc]

Check with your local dentist. If they have not gone to digital, then all the intaoral xrays have a little piece of lead. These add up over a 6 month period, and is a very good sorce for pure lead

Doc

[ndfishin]

I have been making jigs and bottom bouncers for 20 years you can use wheel weight lead for the larger jigs but for smaller ones its best to use soft lead like plumbers lead. Like everyone has said use proper ventilation when working with lead.

[Mike W1]

What you need to open lead sheathed cable easily is a "chipping knife" something cable splicers spend a bit of time using. Small diameter cable can be a challenge but usually when salvaging lead from that I'd just ring it with a cable knife and bend it to break and slide off. If you cut your cable into 2-3 foot pieces it helps quite a lot. The bigger stuff is where you want the chipping knife and I'd imagine Klein Tools makes them as they made everything else we seemed to use. I probably recovered several tons of sheath and lead sleeves using such a tool. Incidentally cable splice sleeves (minus the soldered parts) are softer than the sheath is.

[gonfishn95]

If you are close to a plumbing wholesale house you might stop in and ask if they have some. The reason is lead joints are a thing of past. or slowly going. Being a plumber, we rip out a lot of lead I throw out I am in Mpls, mn. And if you e-mail me I can start a pile for you sometimes we go in stretches where we have a lot. You will have to come and pick it up. I used to do my own jigs had a big lead burning pot, but quit.In fact anyone who wants some lead let me know.