Salt in Lead ?

[6mm250]

I live near the coast of NC & a question occurred to me today when I saw some lead net weights advertised for sale. Would net weights being underwater for long periods cause them to become contaminated with salt ?

Mike

[454PB]

I don't see how. Other than attracting moisture, the salt would not "alloy" with the lead, and should separate out when fluxed. If it has absorbed some moisture, just heat it slowly to drive off the moisture.....don't drop a cold ingot into the melt.

[AlaskanGuy]

I use lead line lead, and lead acorns from scein nets all the time... No problems.. Just rinse if off and away you go...be sure to dry it well before you use it if you rinse it off. No problems at all.

[geargnasher]

Lead absorbs salt about like it absorbs x-rays and nuclear isotopes.

Gear

[Mal Paso]

I've used them before without problem. Mine were pure lead and I cut the 25# balls with a log splitter. I mixed it with Lyman #2.

The hardware was Monel and Stainless. Somewhere a fisherman was weeping.

[MtGun44]

No. Impossible.

Bill

[Tatume]

There is a danger associated with salt on lead. Salt is hygroscopic, and may contain water. If you drop lead sinkers into molten lead there is the possibility of a steam explosion (tinsel fairy). Either rinse them well and dry them, or fill a cold pot with sinkers and then melt them (which will drive off water gradually).

[6bg6ga]

Been melting lead for years and had one tinsel fairy. The fairy was a result of using wheel weights that has sat for a long time and possibly got some moisture. Don't worry about the lead weights that had been underwater drawing moisture and or salt.

[Tatume]

Wheel weights can also hold salt, and as a consequence, water. Salt is a danger when casting. An appropriate precaution would be the wearing of protective gear, such as long sleeve shirts and safety glasses. Personally, I like to wear a shop apron.

[Mal Paso]

Fishing weights are not made with the same care as we do for boolits. Mine had voids which could and did hold moisture. I always started with a cold pot and never add metal to the melt. I should have said that.

I don't think there is enough salt to do anything. Moisture in the cracks is serious.

[bangerjim]

Agree with the croud. Salt and lead do NOT mix. Just wash off any crusts and (making sure the pieces are dry) melt them. As with WW's, best to start with a cold pot to get rid of any "hiding " H2O!

Banger

[ofreen]

Lead has always tasted more sweet than salty to me.:-P

[Shiloh]

Agree with the croud. Salt and lead do NOT mix. Just wash off any crusts and (making sure the pieces are dry) melt them. As with WW's, best to start with a cold pot to get rid of any "hiding " H2O!

Banger

There is a good chance the salt will be holding moisture.

Shiloh

[bangerjim]

Lead has always tasted more sweet than salty to me.:-P

Funny you should mention that! History shows the Romans used to make a sweet-tasting beverage from.......LEAD! Their bathes had lead plumbing. The drinking water was distributed by pipes sealed with lead. That is why (it is said) the ancients lost their minds due to injesting lead on a regular basis.

The "Fall of the Roman Emipre" may very well be attributed to lead.

bangerjim

[Mal Paso]

That was Vinegar and Lead they drank for some reason it tasted sweet.

Lead by itself wasn't the problem.

[geargnasher]

Cheap, sour wine was sweetened with lead acetate before it was discovered to be deadly.

Lead acetate is useful as an electrolyte solution for removing lead from gun barrels.

Gear

[ofreen]

They tell me lead paint chips taste sweet, which is why kids go for them.

[runfiveslittlegirl]

the romans did add it to some of thier wines to sweeten the taste, they also ate off lead plates and drank from lead goblets.
remember there wasn't huge sugar cane fields back then to make sugar from, but sweetness was still craved and fruit wasn't alway's in season.

[btroj]

I love this site, ask a simple question and who knows where it will lead. Or is that lead.

[eljefeoz]

who knows? ;)

[6mm250]

A lot of them old Romans were perverts , reckon drinking lead was the cause of it ?


Mike

[bangerjim]

That was Vinegar and Lead they drank for some reason it tasted sweet.

Lead by itself wasn't the problem.

Well I know is sure was not the vinegar that caused the mental decay! [smilie=p:

Your local condors will know!

Mabe the wine???????????

banger

[bangerjim]

I love this site, ask a simple question and who knows where it will lead. Or is that lead.

Inquiring minds want to know!

The day you quit learning.......is the day they nail the lid on your coffin.

Now.......get the lead out! HA....ha!

banger

[ogre]

I seek out net weights by choice for my hunting boolits.

I shoot game at such long ranges that I depend on salt contaminated lead to preserve the meat until I can reach the game and dress it out. ;)

[6mm250]

I seek out net weights by choice for my hunting boolits.

I shoot game at such long ranges that I depend on salt contaminated lead to preserve the meat until I can reach the game and dress it out. ;)

Do ya put any pepper in the mix ?

Mike

[David2011]

Been here almost 7 years. I'm convinced that there is probably no subject that someone here can't expound upon whether it's building a sod house or nuclear physics.

Salts are bad juju around lead. If in doubt rinse well and dry thoroughly. My mentor (RIP) used borax for fluxing/reducing/makes no difference. One Saturday, near Galveston Bay (humidity city) he was smelting. Some borax was left on the spoon. Sunday he smelted some more. When he pushed the spoon into the melt the hydroscopic borax that had been exposed to Gulf Coast humidity all night turned to steam becaue of all of the water in it. His full beard and aviator glasses saved him from really bad burns from the tinsel fairy.

David

[6bg6ga]

I lock up my 1lb containers of table salt when I melt lead because they have a habbit of migrating to the smelter area and try to mix with the solid lead. This usually happens at night and is most frequent after several drinks.

[454PB]

Any utensil that is thrust into the melt should be preheated! Failure to do so will eventually call the tinsel fairy.

[bangerjim]

Any utensil that is thrust into the melt should be preheated! Failure to do so will eventually call the tinsel fairy.

Agree. The extreme temp differentials will cause violent reactions many times. I have seen the "boiling witch's cauldron" syndrome in my casting pot by putting 1# COLD ingots in too fast. Now I preheat them a bit and lower them in with LONG handled tongs.

The "boiling" action never got out of the pot, but kinda scary to see the silver waves forming!

banger.

[Mal Paso]

Any utensil that is thrust into the melt should be preheated! Failure to do so will eventually call the tinsel fairy.

+1

Moisture condenses on metal and Carbon buildup on tools attracts moisture like a magnet. I float stirring tools on melt the surface first.

[Just Duke]

The Visigoths surrounded Rome and starved them out. They then let the Goths in and to their surprise there was not much they wanted. The Goths left and the slaves killed there masters, i.e. Romans
Unless they were beating Gluteus Maximus with lead pipes or shooting him with lever action and a lead bullet you might want to reconsider you history lessons. ;)
I have no real fascination with this era at least not until they started building some REALLY SWELL CHURCHES.

Third siege and sack[edit]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)
An anachronistic fifteenth-century miniature depicting the sack of 410.
Alaric was on the verge of an agreement with Honorius when his forces were attacked by Sarus, a fellow Gothic commander who was allied to Honorius and who had a blood feud with Ataulf. In response, Alaric returned to Rome and laid siege to it a third time. On August 24, 410, slaves opened Rome's Salarian Gate and the Visigoths poured in and looted for three days. Many of the city's great buildings were ransacked, including the mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian, in which many Roman Emperors of the past were buried; the ashes of the urns in both tombs were scattered. The Goths also removed a huge silver ciborium from the Lateran Palace but left the liturgical vessels of St.Peter's in situ. The sack was nonetheless, by the standards of the age, restrained. The two main basilicas of St.Peter and St.Paul were nominated places of sanctuary. Structural damage was largely limited to the area of the Salarian Gate (where the Gardens of Sallust sustained heavy damage), and the Basilica Aemilia / Basilica Julia. [6] The city's citizens were devastated. Many Romans were taken captive, including the Emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, who subsequently married Ataulf. Tens of thousands of Romans subsequently fled the economically ruined city into the countryside,[citation needed] with many of them seeking refuge in Africa.[7]
The historian Procopius recorded the following satire: the feeble-minded Emperor Honorius was informed by a eunuch that "Rome was destroyed" and, thinking the reference was to his favorite hen named "Roma", cried out in great consternation: "How could it be? She just ate out of my hand." Upon being informed of his mistake, the hapless emperor was greatly relieved.


Ostrogoths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths (Latin: Ostrogothi or Austrogothi) were a branch of the later Goths (the other major branch being the Visigoths). The Ostrogoths, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy in the late 5th and 6th centuries. The Ostrogoths traced their origins to the Greutungi and a semi-legendary kingdom north of the Black Sea in the 3rd and 4th centuries. They were part of the Invasion of Rome. Invading southward from the Baltic Sea, the Ostrogoths, at the time known as the Greuthungi,[dubious – discuss] built up a huge empire stretching from the Dniester to the Volga River and from the Black Sea to the Baltic shores.[dubious – discuss] The Ostrogoths were probably literate in the 3rd century,[dubious – discuss] and their trade with the Romans was highly developed. Their Danubian kingdom reached its zenith under King Ermanaric, who is said to have committed suicide at an old age when the Huns attacked his people and subjugated them in about 370.
After their subjugation by the Huns, little is heard of the Ostrogoths for about 80 years, after which they reappear in Pannonia on the middle Danube River as federates of the Romans. However, a pocket remained behind in the Crimea when the bulk of them moved to central Europe, and these Crimean Ostrogoths existed until at least the 16th century. After the collapse of the Hun empire after the Battle of Nedao (453), the Ostrogoths under Theoderic the Great first moved to Moesia (c. 475–488) and later conquered the Italian Kingdom of the German[dated info] warrior Odoacer. Theoderic became king of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 493 and died in 526. A period of instability then ensued, tempting the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian to declare war on the Ostrogoths in 535 in an effort to restore the former western provinces of the Roman Empire. Initially, the Byzantines were successful, but under the leadership of Totila, the Goths reconquered most of the lost territory until Totila's death at the Battle of Taginae. The war lasted for almost 20 years and caused enormous damage and depopulation of Italy. The remaining Ostrogoths were absorbed into the Lombards who established a kingdom in Italy in 56


Within the Roman Empire[edit]
Main article: Gothic and Vandal warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_tribes
Maximum extent of territories ruled by Theodoric the Great in 523.
Major sources for Gothic history include Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae, which mentions Gothic involvement in the civil war between emperors Procopius and Valens of 365 and recounts the Gothic refugee crisis and revolt of 376–82, and Procopius' de bello gothico, which describes the Gothic war of 535–52.
In 332 Constantine helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks and thereby enforce the Roman Empire's border. Around 100,000 Goths were reportedly killed in battle, and Ariaricus, son of the King of the Goths, was captured. In 334, Constantine evacuated approximately 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube after a revolt of the Sarmatians' slaves. From 335 to 336, Constantine, continuing his Danube campaign, defeated many Gothic tribes.[56][57][58] Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century. This came about through trade with the Byzantines, as well as through Gothic membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. Reportedly, 40,000 Goths were brought by Constantine to defend Constantinople in his later reign, and the Palace Guard was mostly composed of Germans,[dated info] as the quality of the native Romans troops kept declining.[59] The Goths were converted to Arianism by Ulfila during this time.
Refugees and invaders in the Roman

[Just Duke]

Been here almost 7 years. I'm convinced that there is probably no subject that someone here can't expound upon whether it's building a sod house or nuclear physics.

Salts are bad juju around lead. If in doubt rinse well and dry thoroughly. My mentor (RIP) used borax for fluxing/reducing/makes no difference. One Saturday, near Galveston Bay (humidity city) he was smelting. Some borax was left on the spoon. Sunday he smelted some more. When he pushed the spoon into the melt the hydroscopic borax that had been exposed to Gulf Coast humidity all night turned to steam becaue of all of the water in it. His full beard and aviator glasses saved him from really bad burns from the tinsel fairy.

David

Pretty much the same as Marvelux. Which will make a LEE pot pretty nasty,

[olafhardt]

I hope this does not stop
the party here but the real problem with salt exposed lead could be lead chloride. Hydrocarbon or carbohydrate fluxes would convert the chlorides into hydrogen chloride which reacts with water vapor to form hydrochloric acid. Which like all casting fumes isn't good to breath and enhances corrosion like a lot. Of course the answer is good ventilation. You can't wash lead chloride off as it isn't soluble in water.

[btroj]

That isn't going to happen. To convert NaCl to HCl you need protons, or the H+. Hydrocarbon fluxes aren't going to produce protons. Burning hydrocarbons produces CO2, CO, and lots of other fun stuff but protons aren't in the mix. If they were then ALL smoke would be acidic!

[Mal Paso]

The Visigoths surrounded Rome and starved them out. They then let the Goths in and to their surprise there was not much they wanted. The Goths left and the slaves killed there masters, i.e. Romans
Unless they were beating Gluteus Maximus with lead pipes or shooting him with lever action and a lead bullet you might want to reconsider you history lessons. ;)
I have no real fascination with this era at least not until they started building some REALLY SWELL CHURCHES.

Third siege and sack[edit]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_(410)
An anachronistic fifteenth-century miniature depicting the sack of 410.
Alaric was on the verge of an agreement with Honorius when his forces were attacked by Sarus, a fellow Gothic commander who was allied to Honorius and who had a blood feud with Ataulf. In response, Alaric returned to Rome and laid siege to it a third time. On August 24, 410, slaves opened Rome's Salarian Gate and the Visigoths poured in and looted for three days. Many of the city's great buildings were ransacked, including the mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian, in which many Roman Emperors of the past were buried; the ashes of the urns in both tombs were scattered. The Goths also removed a huge silver ciborium from the Lateran Palace but left the liturgical vessels of St.Peter's in situ. The sack was nonetheless, by the standards of the age, restrained. The two main basilicas of St.Peter and St.Paul were nominated places of sanctuary. Structural damage was largely limited to the area of the Salarian Gate (where the Gardens of Sallust sustained heavy damage), and the Basilica Aemilia / Basilica Julia. [6] The city's citizens were devastated. Many Romans were taken captive, including the Emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, who subsequently married Ataulf. Tens of thousands of Romans subsequently fled the economically ruined city into the countryside,[citation needed] with many of them seeking refuge in Africa.[7]
The historian Procopius recorded the following satire: the feeble-minded Emperor Honorius was informed by a eunuch that "Rome was destroyed" and, thinking the reference was to his favorite hen named "Roma", cried out in great consternation: "How could it be? She just ate out of my hand." Upon being informed of his mistake, the hapless emperor was greatly relieved.


Ostrogoths
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogoths
The Ostrogoths (Latin: Ostrogothi or Austrogothi) were a branch of the later Goths (the other major branch being the Visigoths). The Ostrogoths, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy in the late 5th and 6th centuries. The Ostrogoths traced their origins to the Greutungi and a semi-legendary kingdom north of the Black Sea in the 3rd and 4th centuries. They were part of the Invasion of Rome. Invading southward from the Baltic Sea, the Ostrogoths, at the time known as the Greuthungi,[dubious – discuss] built up a huge empire stretching from the Dniester to the Volga River and from the Black Sea to the Baltic shores.[dubious – discuss] The Ostrogoths were probably literate in the 3rd century,[dubious – discuss] and their trade with the Romans was highly developed. Their Danubian kingdom reached its zenith under King Ermanaric, who is said to have committed suicide at an old age when the Huns attacked his people and subjugated them in about 370.
After their subjugation by the Huns, little is heard of the Ostrogoths for about 80 years, after which they reappear in Pannonia on the middle Danube River as federates of the Romans. However, a pocket remained behind in the Crimea when the bulk of them moved to central Europe, and these Crimean Ostrogoths existed until at least the 16th century. After the collapse of the Hun empire after the Battle of Nedao (453), the Ostrogoths under Theoderic the Great first moved to Moesia (c. 475–488) and later conquered the Italian Kingdom of the German[dated info] warrior Odoacer. Theoderic became king of the Ostrogothic Kingdom in 493 and died in 526. A period of instability then ensued, tempting the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian to declare war on the Ostrogoths in 535 in an effort to restore the former western provinces of the Roman Empire. Initially, the Byzantines were successful, but under the leadership of Totila, the Goths reconquered most of the lost territory until Totila's death at the Battle of Taginae. The war lasted for almost 20 years and caused enormous damage and depopulation of Italy. The remaining Ostrogoths were absorbed into the Lombards who established a kingdom in Italy in 56


Within the Roman Empire[edit]
Main article: Gothic and Vandal warfare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_tribes
Maximum extent of territories ruled by Theodoric the Great in 523.
Major sources for Gothic history include Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae, which mentions Gothic involvement in the civil war between emperors Procopius and Valens of 365 and recounts the Gothic refugee crisis and revolt of 376–82, and Procopius' de bello gothico, which describes the Gothic war of 535–52.
In 332 Constantine helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks and thereby enforce the Roman Empire's border. Around 100,000 Goths were reportedly killed in battle, and Ariaricus, son of the King of the Goths, was captured. In 334, Constantine evacuated approximately 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube after a revolt of the Sarmatians' slaves. From 335 to 336, Constantine, continuing his Danube campaign, defeated many Gothic tribes.[56][57][58] Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century. This came about through trade with the Byzantines, as well as through Gothic membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. Reportedly, 40,000 Goths were brought by Constantine to defend Constantinople in his later reign, and the Palace Guard was mostly composed of Germans,[dated info] as the quality of the native Romans troops kept declining.[59] The Goths were converted to Arianism by Ulfila during this time.
Refugees and invaders in the Roman

So salt in lead is an Italian thing? :-)

[olafhardt]

That isn't going to happen. To convert NaCl to HCl you need protons, or the H+. Hydrocarbon fluxes aren't going to produce protons. Burning hydrocarbons produces CO2, CO, and lots of other fun stuff but protons aren't in the mix. If they were then ALL smoke would be acidic!
Practically al smokes are acidic. Industrial HCl is produced among other ways by the combustion of chlorinated hydrocarbons. I used to sell it by the truck load out of chemical plants on the gulf coast. Approximately three pounds were produced for each pound sold, leaving a real messed waste stream to deal with. Since HYDROcarbons and carboHYDRATES both contain hydrogen there is no lack of H+ or protons available. I theorize (and I will not put any effort into proving it) that Pb oxidizing in salt water produces some PbCl2. Since both carbon and hydrogen both have higher affinities for oxidizers than lead as HCl and C-Cl groups are stripped off. The C-Cl groups are futher oxidized to CO2 and HCl. To balance these chemical equasions is a pain in the arsenic so I ain't going to do it. My battery is running low, but I could not let the historians have all the glory. I hope everybody else is enjoying this thread as I am. Perhaps it should be made a sticky to illustrate the danger of leaving old farts unattended with computers.

[btroj]

Do they further oxidize? When we flux we end up with a low grade flame, this produces lots of CO instead of CO2.

The reason we "flux" with something like this is to reduce oxides. We have a reducing atmosphere, not an oxidizing atmosphere.

Not saying it can't or doesn't happen, just saying it isn't relevant to what we are doing. The amounts produced would be minimal.

We shouldn't be breathing the smoke anyway, good ventilation is never a bad thing.

[olafhardt]

If I read my chart of " free energy of formation" vs "temperature" correctly we can expect carbon to reduce the oxides of lead, bismuth, copper, mercury, silver and gold. Carbon monoxide, CO, will reduce antimony, nickle, cobalt, cadmium, bivalent iron, and tin.The oxyhydrogen (-OH) groups are reduced by the carbon into CO2 and H2. The H2 and CO and the CO2 all oxidize zinc, chromium, manganese, vanadium, aluminum, berillium, magnesium and calcium to their oxides and give up carbon and hydrogen.

[olafhardt]

Now I propose to move to something useful. If I look at this chart it shows that hydrogen will recover the metals we want to keep such as tin, lead, and antimony, and oxidize the bad boys such as zinc, aluminum and calcium. If the tensile fairy took a hike water ought to be an excellant flux.
Now one way to get
around the fairy would be to use super heated steam.
. If one put a small coil of copper tubing in a lead pot and SLOWLY fed water the steam could be produced to release the tin and burn out the zinc. There should be very little odor. If anybody wants to work on this pm me

[bangerjim]

Let's re-name this thread "Chemistry 101"!!!!!!!!!!!!

banger

[olafhardt]

Actually, when you use a carbohydrate flux like saw dust, corn meal, anamal feed, sugar, etc you add the combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen which really makes for a superior flux regenerating the good guys and oxidizing the bad guys. So everybody who said sawdust etc is right. I thought I might post the chemestry so we could all know why we were right. Please note VENT ADEQUATELY, DON'T BREATH CASTING FUMES. Metal oxides will do a number on your lungs as will other particulates.