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Fatman
08-28-2008, 03:57 PM
Hey all

Have a guy on one of my fishing boards and he posted the following question and I'd never heard of it or had it happen to me. Maybe someone here knows.

"I got a new batch of lead yesterday from the same place I always get it and its pure lead or supposed to be LOL
But I started using it last night and today I go out to my shop and every thing I poured had turned blue but when i did it was all nice and silver anybody have a clue whats up with this or if its bad"

Any clue guys????

Fatman

clintsfolly
08-28-2008, 04:07 PM
pure lead will get a blue tint when poured real hot have fun clint

Typecaster
08-28-2008, 04:10 PM
This is a Very Good Thing...just means it's very pure lead. Sometimes it will be purple or straw-colored.

Richard

theperfessor
08-28-2008, 04:17 PM
I recently smelted down about 175 lbs of a lead-based material that was a liquid coolant jacket around some kind of chemical piping. The stuff had a teal-greenish-blue tint to it when molten and as it cooled it formed an "alligator skin". I let the pot cool and skimmed off the dross until it was mostly silver and poured ingots. All the ingots turned blue purple as they cooled, becoming deeper in color over a 24 hour span.

Needless to say, I will NOT mix this with my other alloys, probably save it for hammer heads and other structural applications (vise jaws, for example).

And I have no idea what makes the blue color either.

fishhawk
08-28-2008, 05:01 PM
the hoter you have it the more color it turns. i think it's oxidation even with the pure i'm doing right now once the ingot mold is real hot it get a blue color. keep the heat low as posabale and it doesn't turn. steve k

Echo
08-29-2008, 03:10 AM
I guess they don't call it 'blue lead' for nothing.

Bigjohn
08-29-2008, 03:17 AM
That's the colour I get when making ingots; it's normal.

John

cohutt
08-29-2008, 10:15 PM
Blue lead?

This is certified pure scrap from a medical shielding panel manufacturer:

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

madcaster
08-29-2008, 10:24 PM
Tell him it's radioactive moon dirt,send it to me!:twisted:

EDK
08-30-2008, 11:19 PM
Blue Whistlers

One chapter in GETTING A STAND, the classic book on the buffalo hunters, talks about casting boolits. They load up a pot with lead, put it on a wood fire, and say "it's ready now...it has a good blue on."

Sure wish that pile of blue ingots was stacked in my shed.:mrgreen:

:Fire::cbpour::redneck:

uncle joe
08-30-2008, 11:27 PM
[QUOTE=cohutt;387725]Blue lead?

This is certified pure scrap from a medical shielding panel manufacturer:

[QUOTE]

I just started smelting some lead from doors that were on an x-ray room. It was turning blue as I was melting it. Man does that glue they use for the wood stink.
Looks like it'll turn out several ingots of pure stuff.

Alvin in AZ
08-30-2008, 11:37 PM
Sounds like the same colors (and effect) from the varying thicknesses of
iron oxide on heated steel.

Above about 750F the thickness is usually so thick it just looks gray, from
there gets thicker and darker until it gets so thick and dark it becomes black
"mill scale".

Or something like that? ;)

Alvin in AZ

shotman
08-31-2008, 12:34 AM
allways heard balls same color as the barrel shotman