Mystery alloy disappointment

[cohutt]

I smelted down the odd piece in the picture below that has four pointed "legs":

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/leadaugust2007002.jpg

I don't know what i was expecting but i didn't get it-

Started with it tipped into about 3/4 - 1 inch of pure lead melt. Best case i was hoping it would have a lower melting point than the pure and slide on in. Not the case. I had to get the melt up to 800 degrees to get it started, and tossed in some more pure to reaise the level of the melt a little to help things along. It tool a while and by the time it slowly started melting it was dark here. Lightling wasn't great so I got a flashlight to inspect. What i was getting was a sludge-like surface that looked initially like the top of a casarole with browned bubbled cheese on it. The consistency immediately underneath was grainy and wasn't flowing like lead or ww does.
Odd thing too was the oxidation took on a very bright blue hue - the poker i use to scrape sides and stir in the mix would get the same blueish residue on it.
I'll post a picture or two this weekend if i get a chance. I decided not to pour it out into muffin ingots and just slopped it into a smaller pot to make 1 big ingot pending figuring out if this is anything salvageable.
SO what sludges up like this and turns bright blue when oxidized? Almost powdery looking; not any reflection. Zinc? Copper in it?
FTR It was BLUE-BLUE, definitely not the pure lead blue-hue as seen in the ingots below:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/leadingots002.jpg

[leftiye]

It looks like pure with about 60 years of salt water corrosion on it. Try some rosin, and/or some 50/50 alox, and/or some stearic acid and see if it reduces (loses the oxide). Stuff I had like that came from a boat keel and the yellowish skin wouldn't melt. Colors, especially blue seem to happen a lot with pure lead.

[PatMarlin]

That melt description was making me hungry.. :mrgreen:

[PatMarlin]

It's may be a bilge zinc.. [smilie=1:

[cohutt]

The piece was definitely lighter than pure would have been in same dimensions. . It also was dented by no alloys i have including lino. Hit it with a framing hammer at an angle to see what was under the surface; the steel hammer dented it but not much other than scraping the surface.
And what the hell was that shape anyway?

[PatMarlin]

It looks like 2 of the feet are eaten up a bit. I say a marine zinc for a special application.

[Linstrum]

It sounds like it is what Pat Marlin already said, a so-called bilge zinc or sacrificial anode made out of zinc or a zinc alloy and meant to prevent rusting and corrosion of the metal parts of a boat, hot water heating system, highway bridge that gets road salt on it, or some other metal object that is exposed to corrosive conditions. The shape seems like it was meant to straddle something where it is mounted but since I'm a New Mexico landlubber I don't know anything about boats. If it is a sacrificial anode it should have a place where an electrical connection can be made, like a bolthole, a wire coming out of it, or something. The color from the oxide coating isn't a dead give away as to what it is but it may certainly help, since there has got to be somebody out there in our rather varied crew who will recognize it. As was already said about lead, I have seen that iridescent blue color created by many other metals as well, including copper and nickel.
In case it is zinc or one of the dozens of zinc die cast alloys, there are some tests that are pretty definitive to tell it from lead.
Zinc oxide makes zinc easy to identify. Working outside where you won’t breathe any fumes it makes, heat some of the metal up and see if it begins to boil and spatter with lots of heavy fumes as it melts, while also developing a bright canary yellow coating. Zinc oxide has the property of changing color very dramatically as its temperature changes, at red heat on down to about 400°F or so it is a beautiful intense pure canary yellow, but at a sudden cutoff point it rapidly changes from canary yellow to bright white. Only a few other metal oxides do this. Freshly made zinc oxide also looks like fluffy pure white cornstarch or powdered sugar. It gathers in thready deposits like soot does from an acetylene flame that float in the air except are pure white instead of black. Also, pure zinc metal burns nearly as easily as magnesium and makes a flame that is a pretty blue color, but its blue color may be obscured by a blizzard of heavy yellow and white oxide smoke. If the oxide formed is a nice fluffy reddish-brown color like Hershey’s cocoa powder it could be cadmium, though, so be careful like I said and do the experiments outside since cadmium is really quite toxic without any good antidote for it. Silver, gold, copper, and lead metals when heated far above their melting points will also get the same brown color as cadmium where it was heated, though, but cadmium makes the reddish-brown cocoa color at a very low temperature while the other four don’t, taking very much higher temperatures.


Another test is with lye solution. Zinc is rapidly attacked and dissolved by strong lye solution to make bubbles of hydrogen gas (MAN, BE CAREFUL WITH LYE! AS I'M SURE YOU ALREADY KNOW, THAT STUFF IS DANGEROUS!!! Wear eye protection and when mixing with water put the lye into the water and not the water into the lye since lye will explosively boil water when it contacts it, making a burst of steam that could spray lye all over your face). Very few of the common metals are attacked by lye, which makes zinc easy to identify. Aluminum is also attacked by lye to make hydrogen gas bubbles, too, but you can tell aluminum from zinc pretty easily since zinc is as heavy as iron and is a dark metal with a bluish cast to it when freshly cut while aluminum is a bright silvery light weight metal.
Good luck and have fun!

[cohutt]

Thanks for the input all-

Linstrum,

You know i might just have to pull my father in law out of retirement- he was a chemical engineer with a specialty in corrosion with Lockheed and occasioanlly loaned out to NASA.

No anode connections at all- although the cannoi ball object in the same picture is covered up with them (all though very soft like pure lead).

The lighting was so-so, i wish I had replace done of my outside spotlights beofre i fire dit up. Still, i did see bubbling like I have never seen before in lead smelts- big globule types that seemd slow to form from a chemical reaction. Also, the surface initially went through a yellow/brown color on the way to the blue. I wouldn't describe it as canary yellow in that light, more like a squash casarole.

The blue was unlike the irredescent blue of pure lead, the bottom picture was from a previous "known to be" pure scrap smelt. It was much more flat- texture more like a galvanized surface with a much brighter blue color, almost powdery blue.

Zinc is probably present regardless; I'll probably take my zincish mega ingot back to the scrap guy who gave it to me to recycle. I'll mess with it a littl emore in daylight to see if I missed anything perhaps

[MT Gianni]

Pipeline anodes have some magneseum [sp?] in them also. Knowing how easy it is to start a fire and how hard to put out a magnesum fire that is one more reason to keep smelt temperatures down. Gianni

[PatMarlin]

Aw schucks... cast up some boolits- shoot em' and see what happens.. :mrgreen:

[cohutt]

Pipeline anodes have some magneseum [sp?] in them also. Knowing how easy it is to start a fire and how hard to put out a magnesum fire that is one more reason to keep smelt temperatures down. Gianni

Glad i didn't know this last night. The grass fire I started was enough fun.
lol

I'm stting in a hospital cafeteria right now waiting for my mother's heart cath procedure to be completed. I had to pick her up early this morning to bring her down and didn't have time to look at the alloy in daylight. When i can catch a minute I;ll take some pics, you guys most certainly would have a better idea about it than i would.

[357maximum]

I am not sure what it is,it looks nautical in nature to me.... but i can with some measure of certainty tell you it is not a pipeline anode produced in the last 20 years or so. All anodes I have seen are either 5/12/15/17 lb magnesium bars with a large hole (core) running the length of the anode...this hole is filled with a large spiral of steel and copper wire, and surrounded/capped by a black plastic/tar type substance. There is normally 1 or 2 large gauge copper wires coming out of this core for connection purposes.

The part about them being really hot/bright/neat upon burning is correct though.[smilie=1: If you ever get one burning...do not...do not, do not put water on it.....even though it may look cool to certain pyro minded people it will get all bad real quick...it will shoot firework like balls of fire/burning metals that will burn right through you or whatever they hit ..this includes picnic tables/hammock ropes/lawnchairs/ and fiberglass hooded lawn tractors[smilie=1:

Luckily it takes alot of fire to get magnesium bar solids to burn.

If it starts to look like it is producing sparks of any size when hot.. it is likely already too late, and a really bright white/blue fire is emminent.

Alot of pyro minded pipeline workers call them "toxic candles" for a damn good reason...do not breath anything produced in the burning of any metal...period.

The connections on that cannon ball is for attaching the downrigger cable, and the realease mechanism to the fishing line.

[cohutt]

I
The connections on that cannon ball is for attaching the downrigger cable, and the realease mechanism to the fishing line.


I didn't think of that. This haul had a lot of odd sized and rather heavy fishing weights in it too- you can see some of them in the blue bucket in front of the mystery alloy.

[PatMarlin]

Good thing about the cannon ball fishing weights are they are usually pure lead. There is plumbers lead there which is pure also, but the other stuff sure looks like zinc anode.

[Shiloh]

How does it cast?? Or have you tried it yet in boolit molds?

Shiloh

[cohutt]

I'm not going to cast it - the properties are so far away from any lead alloy I've messed with. I figure i'd take it back to my scrap friend and donate it back after i write "ZINC?" on the large recast ingot. (The little guy in the yard that pulls lead aside for me will have pulled some more in the last 3 weeks and have some waiting on me; i give him 308 handloads for his deer rifle-and with opening day approaching here he is most eager to please).

All the other lead in the pic is pure, including those backbreakers behind the mystery alloy. Here is a shot from the other side plus the garbage can full of punch out pure sheeting that i could barely drag into my shop. Not pictured is the 5 gal bucket each of pipe seals, pure plate scrap and roof flashing sheet. It was a good haul even if i did get this one big ZINC dud.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/leadaugust2007003.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/leadaugust2007001.jpg

[cohutt]

OK, here are some shots of this stuff. In the daylight the blue/purple color really pops out.

My larger dutch over after the smelt:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907009.jpg

The ladle residue:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907005.jpg

Tops of a couple of ingots (I decided not to cast any more after i saw these)

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907006.jpg

More to follow.....

[cohutt]

The bottom of the giant ingot i poured into a smaller pot when i gave up:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907004.jpg


the top - lumpy....

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907002.jpg

close up of top ( grass / dirt is from turning it over for other shots)

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907003.jpg

[Charlie Horse]

What are those ingots withthe IL CO stamping? I've seen those before.

[cohutt]

What are those ingots withthe IL CO stamping? I've seen those before.


Those are pure or damn near it, got em in the same load as the mystery ingot.

[ANeat]

Ok; Here is my best guess, I think the 4 legged thing you were trying to melt is Zinc. You said your melt had to get up over 800 degrees to get it melting.

Also you had some pure lead in the pot to help things along and that now has Zinc mixed with it.
You probably seeing the blue from the lead in the mix.

And what you ended up with is a Zinc/Lead alloy, you could call it "trash"

[357maximum]

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

It's not pure magnesium, I do not know what you got there but it sure is ugly....did you attempt any fluxing?


That is surely the ugliest alloy I have ever seen...it has copper/cadmium/aluminum and zinc like qualities, maybe some calcium and iron also....pure ugly. I personally have never seen anything quite like it....ewwwwwwwww

I would not let that near my stash. it is likely only good for trash.

Do you have a geiger counter? [smilie=1:

[Adam10mm]

Chromium will blue like that. Definately some in there. Chromium is used in steel alloys and some other alloys to help resist corrosion along with nickel. Definately not steel as that has a melting point higher than casting metals.

[cohutt]

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

It's not pure magnesium, I do not know what you got there but it sure is ugly....did you attempt any fluxing?


That is surely the ugliest alloy I have ever seen...it has copper/cadmium/aluminum and zinc like qualities, maybe some calcium and iron also....pure ugly. I personally have never seen anything quite like it....ewwwwwwwww

I would not let that near my stash. it is likely only good for trash.

Do you have a geiger counter? [smilie=1:

I kept telling you guys this stuff was nasty and you didn't believe me til you saw it with your own eyes.. :confused:

(geiger counter. heh heh )

[cohutt]

Fluxing only seem to make it angier.

Here is some of what i tried to skim off, note my freshly "blued" poker/mixer/smelting utility tool. Anything that touched the stuff came out blue coated


http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/funkyalloy9907007.jpg

[Charlie Horse]

Anything that touched the stuff came out blue coated


That should be a clue. I can't wait to see how this pans out.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I have some alloy bars similar to those in your picture marked "ILCO". Mine are marked "SANDERS" and weigh 60 pounds each. Sanders is a Louisiana company that salvages batteries for the metal. I understand the bars are typically 92% lead 2% tin and 6% antimony. My molding buddy with the hardness tester of some type says the bars run about halfway between WW and lead in hardness. My expereienced fingernail and ear for lead alloy "clunks" agrees.BvT

[standles]

I have a realted question.

All of us at one time or another get these finds and wonder what the heck they are.

Are there any metallurgical labs that can do an analysis for a decent price? I mean the diesel industry has oil analysis labs...


Steven

[Adam10mm]

I've been looking for a gastromaticgraph mass spectrometer on eBay, but no luck.

[ron brooks]

My question is, how does Cohutt go about getting the zinc off of his ladle and pot so that he isn't contaminating future smelts.

[richbug]

The mystery metal is Zinc. I found a big 60# ingot that I thought was lead, but had the same results as you. Blue ingots, high melt temps, stringy consistency... I researched the name on mine after I had the trouble with it. They are a Zinc and lead mining company, should have looked first.

[richbug]

My question is, how does Cohutt go about getting the zinc off of his ladle and pot so that he isn't contaminating future smelts.

I sandblasted mine back down to bare iron. I still need to clean out my Lee 10# pot as I tried to cast a few bullets with that crap.

[cohutt]

I have a realted question.

All of us at one time or another get these finds and wonder what the heck they are.

Are there any metallurgical labs that can do an analysis for a decent price? I mean the diesel industry has oil analysis labs...


Steven

A company i get sheet scrap from occasionally sends a sample from each lot to the Chem E dept at Georgia Tech for certification.

[cohutt]

My question is, how does Cohutt go about getting the zinc off of his ladle and pot so that he isn't contaminating future smelts.


I was beginning to think about that too. ??

Maybe chip out the bigger pieces then put the dutch oven over the cooker upside down, to capture more heat. I figure what remains would melt off or at least let go.