Satin Ingots

[odoh]

Found some various lead stuff (pipe, ladle ingots, roof jacks, sheathing etc.) at the local recyler this week at a fair price and figured on smelting it today. The pb stuff went as expected until I was wrapping up the old ww's and thot to chk the ladle ingots someone had used for fishing wgts. Removed the eyelets, scratched them and determined to my own satisfaction, that 2 were soft and 3 were hard so, assumed in all likelyhood to be ww's. Until . . . .

I went to ingotize it in my old standard RCBS mold and they came out a weired satinty. Looks like as brushed SS Torus finish. The pure lead and the ww ingots were shinny but these are frosty looking. Not temperature related as nothing changed but the unkown alloy. Full wgt is 1.25 lbs as are the ww ingots.

Any ideas from you experienced casters?

TIA

[mooman76]

Different alloys melt at different temps. Probubly had more tin in it or something else and they just came out frosted from the heat. Soft lead or pure lead won't frost much or at all at higher temps. I don't see it to be anything to wory about.

[Shiloh]

There is no way to tell just what the alloy is from scrap lead. I've had the condition you describe.
It all casts and shoots well so I stopped fretting about it. I'm happy to acquire any lead I can.

Fortunately, I have not run into zinc contaminated lead.

Shiloh

[jnovotny]

I've got some linotype, that came out of the molds , with a satin finish. Get a hardness tester and see what you got.

[odoh]

Thanks for the comments, I'll do the vice/bearing test ~ depending on the outcome, I may use it to sweeten lesser alloys.