A few yeard ago, I did a lot of bullet casting. Instead of buying the commercial lead casting pot, I melted the lead on an electric hotplate in a cast iron sausepan. I would reclaim old bullets from the shooting range, melt them down, and cast them in an old muffin tin. This left me with disks of lead about a lb apiece. I would do this outside, wearing a leather welders apron, goggles, and heavy leather gloves. I had a fan blowing behinfd me to wisk the fumes away. The lead disks would be great but I would take forever to melt 1000# of lead. Perhaps epoxy is the best bet. You might want to go the the trailersailor bulletin board qand asked charlie jones for a picture of the homemade furnace that he used to mold a keel for a boat he built a few years ago. Don