Lead Wool?

[GLL]

I just obtained about 35 pounds of what I will describe as "lead wool". It came along with a bucket of lead pipe fittings so I assume it is some sort of joint packing material.

Has anyone ever seen this stuff before? I melted a batch and it appears to be pure lead.

Jerry

http://www.fototime.com/CA843260007AFA8/standard.jpg

[StrawHat]

It looks like the packing we used on board ship to tighten up plumbing pipe.

Lead wool? Yeah, that's about it.

[lovedogs]

You are correct in your assumption. It's used with packing to seal joints in old cast iron plumbing, like old sewers, etc. It can also be used as an anchor. They used to pound it into holes in concrete and then put lag screws into it for an anchor. Kind of an old-fashioned Molly Anchor. It is pure lead.

[tall grass]

I priced some at a plumbing supply warehouse before the price of lead went way up. It was about $25 for 5 pounds. Read on this site somewhere that you could tamp it into your chamber for a chamber slug.

Jim

[runfiverun]

its pure lead we used to fix leaks with it in firesprinkler systems

[Morgan Astorbilt]

Wow, Does this bring back memories!!! Back in my youth, for a while, I was a plumber's helper. Lead wool was used as a cheap substitute for running joints in cast iron waste lines. The correct way to run a joint, is to pack it with oakum, a hemp fiber impregnated with a tarry oil, then pour melted lead in the joint, (In addition to "wiping joints", this is what the plumber's furnace was used for), and when hard, peen it in tighter with the caulking iron. Joints in horizontal pipes were done the same way, using a "Joint Runner", a length of braided asbestos rope with a spring clasp, which was placed around the pipe, against the joint web to make a dam to hold in the molton lead.

Lead wool was an easy fix, you just packed it in over the oakum, hit it for a few seconds with the Presto-Lite torch, and tap it a bit with the iron.

Just a bit of trivia, don't know if it belongs here.
Morgan

[GLL]

Thanks for all of the info !

If priced at $25/5 pounds I guess I should not have melted it ! :) :)

Jerry

[Bret4207]

Morgan brought back a memory- OAKUM! Dang that stuff stinks. We had several log cabin tourist type building on the place dating from WW2. They were chinked with oakum. So were all the doors and windows on the main house. Seems like every fall we went around with big hanks of oakum and a blunt chisel and hammer and refreshed all the chinking and "weatherstripping". I can still feel that stuff and smell it.

[John Boy]

Morgan ... thanks for the memories as a plumbers helper while putting my way through college. Still have a caulking iron and runner in my tool chest of plumbing stuff. Sure wish I had the soooo many pigs that I melted

[LIMPINGJ]

Memories of the stuff a kid could find in Grandfathers shop and on the truck.

[NSP64]

That ain't lead wool. That thar is boolits!:drinks:

[Alangaq]

I guess I dont run in circles with plumbers and have never seen it used for that kind of thing. I have used it (IAW the technical manuals) for ballancing propeller blades. The individual blades have a hole milled into the butt end and lead wool is tamped down into the hole to insure that each blade is the same weight. Ballancing propellers doesnt require much in the way of quantity of lead wool, so I have never seen enough of it to really make it a viable bullet casting source, but it sounds like you hit the jack pot. I am sure it will work great and good luck.