dah!

[badshotlal]

     Good day,
 Been out of swaging a lot of years, but would like to try it one more time.  Now this is a dumb question, like really dumb, bug does tooling exist too convert lead ingnots into wire?  Not commercial but something a serious swager might own?
  Am probably too shaky now to get precise cores, but in the '80, made some dandies.  All off Corbin tooling and his books.
  Hope your week has went well.

God Bless


Lloyd A. Leinmiller

[iiranger]

Mr. Dave Corbin, corbins.com or swage.com, has posted his books on his web site for review, downloading, etc. Sans pictures. In the books he discusses this. If you are going awful small, .14 or .17, maybe .20 you can use a hand press to make small pieces of wire. Much larger and you must have hydraulic power. With appropriate dies (not cheap) and power and pure lead, or other dies for some alloys, you can make your own wire. With the expense involved, not practical for just anyone. If that suits you... luck.

[Quan Toi]

Corbins also sells a mold that make the appropiate size mold. 4 Cavities. I use mine all the time and cast hundreds of cores and store them in sealed jars with dessicant in them to keep the lead from tarnishing.

[Rick Teal]

As the others said, check with Corbins.  If you have ingots you'd likely have to melt them down and either pour cores or pour them into billets and then draw those into wire.  I simply buy my lead as wire, then cut blanks and swage them into cores.  Wire and ingots cost the same from my supplier.