Mystery Ingots

[odoh]

Recently reported coming up w/217#s of what seemed like pure lead checking w/a Lee hardness tester. Much were ingots from a corn cob muffin pan. However there are a few that tested off the scale ~ ~ ~ I would put one in a bench vice and smack w/a hammer and if would break. The ones that were of lead would bend in half w/o breaking.

The area of the break is crystaline ~ not fine like lino but very course and attracted light like a facetted diamond ~ very pretty. BUT ~ what is it? That fact they were ingots, me thinks that they perhaps belonged to a deceased caster. If still alive, wouldn't allow them to be dumped at the recycling center for 1¢ a lb. So far there are about 6 ingots. First thots is the dreaded zinc word. It floats on the melt and really stuning ~ very hard, but wondering if they might be someones cache of silver? Or just the lone rangers stock? Thots anyone?

[lwknight]

Silver ingots ring brilliantly and look like tin. You will not melt silver in a casting pot.
Silver will tarnish a totally different color than anything lead based.

I guess I need to find some zinc and break it just to be in the know about that.

[jhrosier]

Monotype is very brittle and will break like that also.

Jack

[GP100man]

If it takes very hi heat to melt it it`s zinc , but before expending the fuel & effort put a dab of muretic acid on it , zinc will have a sizzle&dance show for ya!!

Take correct precautions handling muretic acid !!!

[mooman76]

Silver ingots ring brilliantly and look like tin. You will not melt silver in a casting pot.
Silver will tarnish a totally different color than anything lead based.

I guess I need to find some zinc and break it just to be in the know about that.

Yes you can melt silver in a casting pot. I seen it done on TV in the movie Silver Bullet, in fact it was a lee pot.:bigsmyl2:
Actually I had to laugh when I seen it and the wife didn't know what I was laughing about. Another thing he did was to pour the "silver" into a RCBS type ladle from a bottom pour pot and then tip it into the mould!

[odoh]

Nope, no Muretic around ~ did have some phospheric (sp) that turned white (thinking from lots of tiny bubbles) that did remove gloss from the course crystals. Had one of those plumber torches that after a long attempt, did melt some of the stuff and it was very very hard. I'm afraid that it might be cadmium which can be deadly or alloy high in antimony? Had a rather longish 50cal zinc boolit but was too short for 'breaking' it. The ingots all look alike and the only way to determine which, would be to try and bend it in the bench vice w/large hammer. The mysterious stuff won't bend ~ period. Doesn't show unusual tarnish, looks like matt gray surface. IIRC, silver tarnishes 'black'. Hope to finish up tomorrow and may just toss the unknown then ~

[lwknight]

Just today, I melted some good lead out of my T-post driver weight cap and replaced it with some contaminated mystery metal stuff.
It seemed a good trade to me. I got rid of the bad ingots.

[mroliver77]

Even if it were high antimony it should melt at a reasonable temp. Unless it be "pure" antimony. Willbird has/had an ingot of supposedly pure antimony that was very hard and had huge grain structure when broken. I THINK antimony melts at 1100 and some degF.
Jay

[odoh]

True ~ that rules out 100% tin also. All indications are that this stuff is from a caster at one point. The bulk by far chks out to be pure lead. Some ingots have rust stains probably from sitting in a metal/rusty bucket out in the wx for a long period. Some of the ingots have lil' red clay chunks in it thet makes one think recovered range lead ~

[odoh]

Well, smelting finished.Grand total of 8 ingots of what I now declare as zinc and will dispose of it.

Thanks for all the inputs

[leadman]

Check the melt temp. Zinc melts at about 770' iirc, antimony melts at 1160' approx. and has a large grain structure.

[odoh]

I broke an high alloy ingot of 30% antimony ~ looked similar but the grain if you will, was not as course as the mystery ingots.

[lwknight]

Pure antimony has very large crystals. What I understand is that it will break off in hunks.
I don't think zinc will just break from a hammer blow like a rock would.
The picture on Rotometals site looks like silver coal chunks to me.

[odoh]

Today, being Christmas, my son came for dinner. Looked at my approx 14lbs of the stuff and googled for periodic tables w/pictorials. Sure euff, the antimony pic looked just like my stuff. Which poses a problem as it seems to be/look relatively pure w/large crystals w/resultant need for higher temps than what a lead pot is capable. I know Rotomeetals's high antimony alloy (30%) will melt okay w/typical lead alloys but don't think it'll work for the higher concentrations. (just FWIW, I melted some of the 30% stuff to ingotize using a Lee ½ lb mould just to have it swell up like yeasted bread) Is there some trick for home hobbyists to homogenize antimony w/a melting point nearly double of that of lead (630.63°/327.46° C)? Surely there must be a safe way to alloy the two elements ~

[Marlin Hunter]

Is there some trick for home hobbyists to homogenize antimony w/a melting point nearly double of that of lead (630.63°/327.46° C)? Surely there must be a safe way to alloy the two elements ~

oxy-acetylene torch???

[jdgabbard]

oxy-acetylene torch???

Thats what I was thinking. Get your pot up to temp, then use a torch and melt the ingot just over the top of the pot. It should mix enough with the lead to drop the melting temp dramatically...

[lwknight]

Many say that you can simply flux the antimony shot into lead at normal lead meltint temperature. Big antimony chunks would be a different story.
I found out that with the 30% sb from rotometals that if you add tin, it will quit puffing up and trying to float the antimony out. This compounds the alloy tracking. You will have to keep exact records of percentages to be able to mix your boolit alloy from it.

I don't know how the foundry gets that much antimony into pure lead without tin. They likely at least use an inert gas atmosphere in the melter. Also lead can be heated up to antimony melting temperatures without boiling.
We all know that it will oxidize badly at that temperature and is a higher risk of inhalation exposure.
I think that mixing pure antimony would have to be done in an environment that most of us would not be privy to.

[odoh]

Yes, the comments on Rotometals webpage does imply/suggest that the shot form may be easier ~ not easy but easier and my stuff is corn cobb ingots. Thot I commented before that a bernz torch will melt it barely (read: slow) its about 8# not 14 as I reported. There is some mystery still as w/rotometals extra hard 30% stuff, it takes ½ of forever to setup as if it was creating its own heat (like fission :eek: seriously it was scary messing w/the unknown (to me) as the aluminum ingot mould started turning white like an oxide and it puffing up like it was ~ I was 5 sec's short of tossing the whole kaboodle out in the field)

These ingots are about ¾ lbs which isn't real convenient of course. To re size the stuff could be problematical. I did let the molten drops on the test run drip on the garage floor which has me thinking ~ ~ I could use those recovered individual drops to work with as well as cracking up the ingots to make smaller chunks to work with ~ ~ @ $7 a lb surely its worth some effort as resources continue to grow scarce. But still don't have an 'authoritive' judgement as to what it really is. My son has taken a sample to have someone to analyze ~ as a microbiologist and amature/week-end prospector, he feels some of his connections may be able to affirm what we think it is.

[snowtigger]

I once alloyed some silver into lead in my Lee 20# pot. I fillled the pot about 1/4 full with wheelweights, and ran it wide open. It reached slightly more than 1,000 degrees F.
I tossed a one ounce silver ingot into the pot. After a while it began to lose it's edges. I added four more ingots and waited. I don't remember how long it took, but it melted into the alloy. I then had 5# of 6% silver alloy. It melted at a reasonable temp(I don't remember what, exactly), and poured well at 850 degrees.
For me, six percent was a good enough alloy for my "Lone Ranger" bullets.
It might work with pure antimony, you won't know if you don't try.
BTW; six percent silver made a very hard bullet. It bends without breaking in the very "scientific" hammer test.
Now, if I cxould only find a werewolf to try them on....LOL:(

[imashooter2]

Back in the day, I acquired a 5 pound lump of antimony from a local metals supplier. I built a charcoal blast furnace from firebrick and a shop vac to achieve the over 1,167 degrees required to melt it. I placed the antimony and 5 pounds of lead in a heavy cast iron crucible and put a thick layer of powdered charcoal over the surface of the raw material. The end result was a 50/50 mix with lead that would then melt at normal casting pot temperatures. It was an enormous PITA. I'd never do it again. Type metal is too cheap and available.

[KYCaster]

If your ingots are Antimony you can easily break them into managable pieces that can then be alloyed at normal casting temps.

Lay the ingot on a solid surface and hit it with a 12 oz hammer, it will shatter...about like limestone rock. If that doesn't work, it isn't Sb.

Once you have it in small chunks...<3/8 in...the alloying process is simple. It's been described here several times.

Jerry

[StarMetal]

Sounds too that the material you have could be Zamak which is a zinc alloy for die castings. Also they make hammer heads from the stuff much like the lead ones.

Joe