A GREAT dental visit!

[selmerfan]

Well, we moved to town 10 months ago and haven't been to the dentist yet. We set up appointments this week and I went in this morning. As I'm chatting with the dental hygienist I'm looking around and all the technology and figure they've gone digital, but I ask about it anyway. They went digital 5 years ago the tech tells me. She asked why and I told her I was looking for lead to cast. She cleaned my teeth, told me they looked great, and I found out that our new health plan has 6 month checkups and cleaning for free! Then one of the other techs walks in and asks, "Did I hear you asking about dental foil? We've been walking around a barrel of it for the last five years in the back room, do you want it?" Stupid question. They thank me because they can't get rid of it without paying hazmat fees, the dentist even came in and thanked me because they were tired of it. It's literally a barrel, at least 15 gallons of crushed foils, nothing else in the barrel, it weighs in the 150 lb. range, I could barely hoist it into the car myself! :) Can anyone give me a composition on this stuff? I know Kodak's old film foils were 96/1.5/1.5 (which is only 99%, go figure, but that's what I found by searching) I'm going out to fire up the pot!

[Centaur 1]

I never thought to ask since my dentist uses all digital as well. Next time in I'm going to do like you and ask anyway.

[Jal5]

My DDS still uses the old technology and saves the foils for me, about every month or so I get a baggie full. Not a large amount but it will add up over time.

[selmerfan]

The nice thing is that I have a large amount of it at once, so I can have a legitimate pile of ingots from this alloy for mixing with others.

[MT Gianni]

I use it as dead soft. HB wadcutters and 50-50 alloy with Lino for hunting loads. BP shooters like it also.

[lathesmith]

My dentist is a civil war re-enactor, so he never had any lead laying around. Congrats selmerfan, that's a great score! You just never know 'til you ask!

lathesmith

[Ole]

Nice to hear when a fellow caster scores. :)

[selmerfan]

I melted it down, right around 150 lbs. of foils. :)

[selmerfan]

I'm going to treat it like WW alloy - it's not nearly as soft as my stick-on WW ingots and seems to be about the same as my clip-on WW ingots. This judgment determined by the ever inaccurate fingernail test. :) I'm guessing the numbers from Kodak of 96/1.5/1.5 (96/2/2 makes more mathematical sense...) are accurate. The only downside is no arsenic so water-dropping/heat treating will have no effect. I could mix it 50/50 with WW I suppose...

[EMC45]

My sister is a dental hygenist. She gave me a big bag of them. I treated it as pure or nearly so.