Spoiled rotten by good ole WW alloy.

[prs]

I have not done much casting with metal other than wheel weight rendered alloy. I've cast a lot of that. Its so easy with which to work. Today, I cast with alloy purchased from one of our sponsors, Lead 'n Brass. The metal I ordered form them was rendered berm scrap and this is typically fairly pure lead from copper condom bullet cores, .22 slugs and such. Not knocking the product, it is just that the berm scrap renderings were more difficult to cast without getting the wrinkles and under full of detail. I did well after getting the alloy up to the max available on my Lee 20# pots and then the molds up as hot as I could keep them. Just hate to see the decline of availabliity of WW alloy. Like I said, I'm spoiled.

prs

[HangFireW8]

We live in the great era of ROHS, meaning electronic shops are dumping lead based solders and moving to leadless. That means surplus lead solder (with Tin) is available more than ever- if you can start thinking beyond tire shops and know where to look.

Add some tin to your berm scrap and you'll soon be spoiled again.

[noylj]

+1.
You need some Sn, about 1%

[mpmarty]

Having over half a ton of ww smelted into ingots I'm still collecting five gallon buckets full from local tire shops for around forty bucks a pop. Weighed one once and it was close to 150 lbs of wonderful wheel weights.

[geargnasher]

I bought some of Pete's range scrap also when he first opened (I was his second internet customer IIRC) and that batch had been assayed at 1.9% Sb with 1/4% Sn and trace other stuff. I found it worked great to add 1.5% Sn and water-quench it, it gets to around 15 bhn actual hardness but acts like air-cooled wheel weights as far as expansion goes.

The wheel weights you were used to using most likely had about twice the antimony content of Pete's range scrap, plus some arsenic.

Gear