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My dentist is doing a good job saving the foils for me. My wife was in the office for some dental work yesterday and came home with another baggie full. Not a big weight of foils at any one time but if he can save a baggie full each month it will surely add up. Good for ML!
Joe
This past week I scored on slightly over 50 lbs of dental lead sheets. They melted down in less than an hour and have a hardness of Saeco 7-8 which is about Bhn 11 to 14.
Interestingly, one dentist told me that in todays economy, he can't afford to "go digital".
So unless Big Brother mandates it, there will prolly always be some dental lead out there.
All we gotta do is find it!
Here's what I do:
I placed an "ad" in the Spokane Dental Assoc newsletter indicating that I would pick up their dental film sheets and gave my telephone number. I get about a call a month from dentists anxious to get rid of this "hazardous material" at no cost to them! Many have been saving these for years and years because of the disposal cost to them.
Good luck in your search!
funny though, when you melt these, it's like cooking greens. You start out with a full pot, and when it cooks down you've got this tiny little bit left.:groner:
My dentist tech said their machine doesn't use lead foil,
but they cover me with the lead apron when taking pics
so it's not digital (right?).
Maybe they're scared of letting it go to an "unlicensed recycler".
The digital x-rays still need the lead apron. There is no change in the x-ray itself, just the film. With the manual method, the film needs to be "wet" processed vs the digital films that are "processed" by a computer.
Scored some more DDS lead foils this morning- dentist stopped me as i was walking the dog past his office. His associate in the office next to him is saving them for me too. It will all add up in the end, about a qt. ziplock bag full each month.
Joe
Nice to be connected!
The great thing about these things is they melt down so fast! No smoke, little fluxing. I did 140 lbs of them earlier this week, that was a pretty sweet score! The dentist had been storing them for years because he didn't want to pay to get rid of them. They went digital 5 years ago...
Now thats a real score selmerfan!
I have another acquaintance who has a dental practice in town for a long time. I may see him on Monday and ask him too. Maybe he will have a big old drum full of em...
All my local dentists have gone digital......about 5 yrs ago. Younger dentists are replacing those who have retired and it appears the newer generation prefers digital.
Only one offfice had a small baggie of the stuff - about a handfull. In fact,the tech said it was TIN.
Since this was the first time thst i've seen this stuff, i do not know.
What is the composition of these tiny foils.......pure lead?.......tin?.......a blend of soft metals?
Any help would be appreciated.
Someone here described them as definitely pure or close to pure lead. You do need a bunch of them though to turn into any kind of boolit!
Kept prowling around and found this......
Originally Posted by zomby woof
The lead they use is Lead >96%,
1.5% +/- 0.1% - tin
1.5% +/- 0.1% - antimony
Stuff looks like the wrappings for chewing gum. I can only imagine how much it would take to make a pile of boolits......especially heavy boolits.
I have a dentist around the corner from me. Operates his office out of a house. May be worth a shot to talk to him. Good Thought.
I weighed one of the x-ray strips of lead and it is 13.2 grains and I got 41 pounds after smelting so being 530 to a pound, there were 21,742 of them not counting a few that would be lost when skimming the burned paper off. There was a fair amount of paper from the original packaging and it stunk but the lead itself seemed pretty clean as one would imagine being used for dental work. Perhaps others may weigh more or less from different manufacturers but I would think they are pretty close. I haven't checked the BHN on it yet but it seems pretty soft and I think what Clapped Lips wrote is very likely correct.
Wow, if your 41 pounds represented that many pictures then I wonder how many were in the 140+ pounds of dental foil ingots that I have out in the garage. All in a one day score at the first trip to the dentist in a new town. They said it would cost a ton to get rid of the hazardous waste, I said I would take them away for free, and he was tickled pink, as was I! One big yellow barrel that I rolled to my car. :grin:
that is the way to do it Selmer!