Thank you very much. I do not have access to a sand blaster but will use vinegar. It is odd that something that taste good with cucumbers and on collard greens can soften zinc. I use it to neutralize black powder when I can't clean immediately. Has many other uses too. Amazing stuff. Ed.
Very interesting thread. I don't make a lot of booliits but I have been making shot and melting down a lot of wheel weights in the process. I melt them in a cast iron dutch oven and then pour into cast iron muffin pans. I usually flux with wax comode seals or candles. In some of the threads I have read about making shot, they say to avoid the stick on weights and the big truck weights. I plugged up my drippers with what I thought was contaminated lead that I had been given and had assumed that it had zink or something in it. I see now that it had been over heated. Couple of questions. When I melt the weights, there are always a few that float on top and do not melt right away. I have been discarding them. What is their content? Also I have been told to discard the stick on weights as they contain babbet and will plug the drippers. What is their content? Thanks.
The floaters are either zinc or steel.
Stick-ons are almost always "pure" lead.
Some of the newer stick-ons are zinc and will float.
I segregate my clip-ons from the stick-ons, the stick-ons get melted down seprate from the clip-ons, the stick-ons are almost "pure" lead. Very soft.
Give us this day our daily lead.
Sic Semper Tyrannis.
If you don't want 1984 you're going to need some 1776.
WWGWD
Welcome to the forum Sasquach
I was just going to post the same question as the OP. I just melted my first lead that I bought today. After I put in some Frankfort Arsenal flux I was drossing it and the dross just kept coming out. I could not tell where to stop. The dross was coming out bright green and yellow. I finally decided to stop and poor into my ingot molds and one side of the ingot is silver and the tops are yellow gold and purple. This kind of freaked me out. I was hoping for pure lead. The ss pot that I was using over a Colman propane stove still has a lot of clumps in ot and they are all kinds of colors like that also.
Was smelting this weekend and the same thing happened to me.... Was running two smelting setups and was sure that nothing overheated.... One pot of melt turned gold and purple and the consistency changed to something exactly as described.... Poured it out, cleaned the pot and started a new melt with fresh WW and the same thing happened.... Looks like the dutch oven I was using now is contaminated....Originally Posted by softpoint
Not long ago, I mixed some stuff in a potful of lead that turned out to be some of that fake pewter. It had beautiful colors, some of those you describe, all at one time in swirls on the top of the pot. Icouldn't get it out of the lead, either after I mixed it. Iturned my pot ot lead to the thickness of cooked cream of wheat, and sort of grainy. I had to turn the Pro Melt up and pour it out, as it wouldn't come out the bottom pour spout. Makes a fine door stop in a coffee can! I hope someone hasn't mixed some of that stuff in your lead.
What a waste of WW.....
I do not think that heat is the problem. I had this issue and when I tried it again I heated the lead on purpose at a low temp. The thermometer was showing 650 or so. The colors were showing even as the lead came of the side of the ingots at this temp where the heat was not directly touching the sides.On sagacious' points, the lead mix was actually at my normal melting temp. In the same pot on the same heat settings I melted other tin mixed alloy with no issues. The solid lead itself has streaks of purple and gold hue to it before I even melt it. Its only when I melt the pan ingots that I get these color issues. Overheating the mix is not the issue.
Heat is the cause, as the colors are oxidation, and higher heat accelerates the formation of oxides. The colors are common at low heat with soft lead. Good luck.
The next day I heated a roof jack flashing from Home Depot that was new in the same pot with the same heat temperature and got no colors.
God is fluxing me which is good but it is not fun.
If heat is not the cause of the lead oxide colors, we'll have to rewrite our understanding of the chemical metallurgy of lead. A huge body of evidence supports the lead oxide color cause-and-effect.
If you don't subscribe to this explanation, do you have a an alternate suggestion that explains the dross colors? One roof boot is perhaps not enough to overturn the existing understanding.
Regards.
I don't claim to know anything about the chemical metallurgy of lead or any other metals. I am just commenting on what I have observed so far in the few casting sessions that I have had. Thanks for the info.
Mike
God is fluxing me which is good but it is not fun.
Mike,
No worries. Hope your lead melting/pouring continues to go well, and keep on posting your observations.
Regards, and good luck.
Cast some bullets are they clean afrer the first few ? If bullets are frosty melt is too high ..if nicely molded and clean looking shoot it ... But test hardness .. I quench my hammer on ww bullets in a 5 gal bucket with a towel on the bottom as soon as the bullets set . I drop them in the water bucket this is good enough for my 454 casull they should be hard to scratch deeply if you have good wheel weights.. ( clip on type ) and soft ones mean more lead less antimony or tin or arsenic all thes 3 elements will help to harden lead ... If all is good shoot and enjoy if you cant get a clean cast probably has more than 2% zinc if so heat hotter and cast frosty bullets and shoot or make fishing weights , but segregate the lead from other quality leads
I appreciate this thread, and, particularly, the info Sagacious posted. I recently had some of my smelting get the purple and gold hues, and thought it may have been contaminated by zinc, although I try to weed out as much as possible, but still get a few floaters. I re-melted some of the ingots that showed the colors at a lower temp and the colors disappeared. Thanks so much, I had been pretty sure I had a bunch of contaminated lead.
Great thread. Answered all my questions (I didn't even have to ask). It solved my problems. Now I can cast with more confidence.
Have any of you tried wood pellets - maybe smunched - or walnut shells?
To add more input to the color issue I can attest that high heat will turn pure tin gold and purple just as easily as any other alloy. When I smelt the flaky pure solder chunks into ingots as the level in the pot decreases and the temp increases I see the entire color rainbow between bright silver, gold and purple. I don't worry about the color much because I know the alloy is generally 99.3% Sn and .7% Cu. Occasionally I will get a small piece of our 95%Sn 5% Sb or our 96.5%Sn/3%Ag/.5%Cu into the melt, but these small pieces makes up way less then 1% of the total weight and have made no noticeable impact on melt colors.
Wow, I completely forgot I even started this thread. I'm glad to see it took on a mind of it's own and has become so informative. Great information here.
Who keeps not his arms in times of peace, Will have no arms in times of war.
-Gaelic Proverb
Long (timewise) thread
yellow is probably zinc chromate color (yellow green) indicating zinc
clean pot with pool acid HCL
Some lead I bought had a lot apparently. Major cottage cheese that would not flux into the melt. I just kept remelting and throwing away the dross. Worst case was I would get pure lead. Tin can be added back in as can antimony with recovered shot from rotometals. I ended up with a weight for my home made hardness tester.
Perked my interest.
I have been thinking of making a simple, hardness tester that uses a dropped weight. Is that what you did?
How about some more info please?
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