OK my favorite picture to re-post. I tried to buy this off ebay years ago.
I didn't get it, but I saved the picture.
You can find blowtorches. Ladles are no problem either.
Oakum/lead drivers are not too hard to get, by the pound.
All these things were available at almost every swap meet ever held.
Every town had a plumber and big towns had many. Cities had dozens and dozens.
You find the tools of the standard plumbers kit everywhere you look.
All except this part. The wrap around lead mold.
You pound in your greased oakum to make a foundation, and to even up the pipes
(cast iron drain pipes, prevalent from coast to coast.)
Next, wrap around a mold.
Then pour in your molten lead from your ladle (that you just melted over your blowtorch).
Wait a moment for the lead to set up.
Then proceed to drive the lead ring you just cast, into place.
Lead does not stick to cast iron. Hardly anything sticks to iron.
So you cast the ring, which won't seal by itself. But its lead, its soft.
You drive the ring in deeper and harder until it bottoms out in the oakum bed, and expands there. Neatly locking the pipes into place, and sealing tight.
For many many years service.
All those bent plumbers "chisels" you see, are for this job.
Just about every home and business, and everything else, had this underneath it. My house still has some lead/oakum sealed cast iron drain pipe.
Where are all the molds?
There once had to be almost as many molds as the other tools we still see so often. Unless there were other kinds of molds I don't know about, and have overlooked them.
yours Scott
