How to cut up into small chunks 15 pound solder ingots

[red442joe]

I welded a frame around a bottle jack, that used an edger blade at the bottom.
The ram lifted the blade up to the the bottom of the jack.
Worked fantastic up to its max capacity if about four inches square.

Joe

 

[turkeyrun]

Anvil, mower blade, hammer. Works great, fairly quick.

Or score a line, then rip off a strip. Repeat.

 

[BillM]

If you are dead set on not melting the bars, there are ways to do it.

If you cut with a saw, that makes lots of chips, so you lose material unless you have some way to collect them to remelt. Trick is holding the bar while cutting. Use a nonferrous metal cutting blade. Lubricate the blade with something (wax is a common choice for a solid lube)

If you try a press or log splitter to cut, consider how the part will be secured while cutting. Too easy to get fingers pinched in that kind of stuff. Depending on how ductile the alloy is and the angle of the cutter, parts may want to fly as they shear. I would recommend pinching the part and then getting out of the line of fire before advancing the press until you know how it reacts.

If your dead set on cutting the parts without making chips, consider and old blacksmiths technique.
Almost all blacksmiths have a short chisel that fits into the square hole (the hardy hole) in the anvil (a hardy chisel) The piece to be cut is placed on the hardy chisel and struck with a hammer, cutting the face opposite the hammer.

It would not be tough to fabricate something similar with a welder and an old lawn mower blade or leaf spring.
All you need is a vertical cutting edge welded to a flat plate that could mount to a base of your choice.
Mount it to something heavy and stout like a tree stump and beat to your hearts content.
Just get the height where its comfortable and expect to have to resharpen the edge a few times.

I don't recommend trying to drive a single bit ax through the bars with a sledgehammer. for the simple reason that it is likely to damage the ax. The web around the handle is too thin and after repeated blows to the head is likely to bow out and crack. The ax is worth more than the lost alloy.


Frankly, I don't think the lost alloy from melting is worth the effort, wear and tear on tools, and risk associated with any of the proposed techniques.

Personally, I would melt the bars in an old frying pan on a turkey fryer and cast up ingots in one of my many ingot molds, and mark them with alloy content when they cooled. Let the propane do the work.

Or an old dutch oven. I've got one that's glazed. SWMBO bought it for her kitchen, but the interior glazing cracked badly so she gave it to me for my shop. I've boiled water in it to clean lube out of a Lyman 450 lube and size press, and have a fish fryer burner for melting lead. Got 30-odd pounds of lead pipe to melt, among other things.