extracting antimony from ww lead

I know when melting lead the clumpy sftuff you get right before it all melts is antimony, but how much %? I want to add sb to about 75-100lbs of an alloy I have, but I cant afford even a pound of sb,or even linotype or monotype. do you guys think it would be easier to melt the WW's, remove the clips and clean. then re-melt and get the sb clumps out, or just get the antimony out after I get the clips out, and just keep the temp low as possible? I know it is a complicated project, but to do what I want I have no choice. any help would be much appreciated.

Instead of removing the excess, why not cut it with pure lead? You can do it as you go without a major outlay of funds, and in the future, you may need the harder alloy.

Mix ww with lead!!! That iswhat most do. Rather than doing a chemistry experiment

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Originally Posted by The O.K. KIDD

I know when melting lead the clumpy sftuff you get right before it all melts is antimony

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This is news to me. Can you provide documentation in a published journal that this is in fact true?

I believe you would find that this is just alloy a that is still below the liquidus point, and in it's semi-solid state is less dense than the surrounding alloy.

This is actually a very good question, and maybe a good time to prove it true or false. I would suggest the next time you do a melt, quickly skim this off and save it. Do this to a couple of batches. then melt this skimmings again all by it self to create a sample disc and send it to one of the guys for XRF testing. If it tests to be High in antimony, then the theory will be proven true. I would like to know...... I am curious.

Those wheel weights are a homogenous mix that cannot be separated without very expensive smelting equipment. Individual components of the alloy can't be separated easily.

Magnum bird shot could be used to increase the antimony of your alloy. It runs about 4% antimony.

Linotype, monotype or foundry type is the easiest way to increase the antimony content.

Some foundries have antimony for sale to add to your alloy, too. It's all expensive.

Water dropping or oven heat treating and quenching is the cheapest and easiest way to increase the hardness of antimonial alloys without having to add expensive stuff to it, like antimony.

Pre-alloyed metals are very inexpensive:

http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/hardball.htm

Around $2.75/#. that gives you 5% Sb to work with if you do not want to mess with or cannot find COWW's anymore.

Surely that small amount of $$ will not hurt your budget.

Or watch the S&S section on here for people selling metals.

I use Super Hard Alloy (30%-Antimony, 70%-Lead) which gives you a LOT of Sb to play with! That is about $3.80/#. Still not a lot of $$ for a hobby!

banger

It would be interesting if this were true. Removing antimony at home? I would go for that. I use far more soft lead than hard. If I could do this I would.

I think he wants to add antimony to his lead.
I'd look around for a bag of #8 magnum shot it should be 5-6% antimony and available locally for $1.50lb or less.

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Originally Posted by triggerhappy243

This is actually a very good question, and maybe a good time to prove it true or false. I would suggest the next time you do a melt, quickly skim this off and save it. Do this to a couple of batches. then melt this skimmings again all by it self to create a sample disc and send it to one of the guys for XRF testing. If it tests to be High in antimony, then the theory will be proven true. I would like to know...... I am curious.

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i have performed the opposite test. I heated a pot to 800f and skimmed the top off over the next couple of hours. The idea was that the oxidized stuff on top was rich in tin. All samples tested the same.

I think Yodogsandman stated it correctly.

why have I read over and over that when heating your lead up, do not skimoff the clumps, oatmeal tye stuff, it is you antimony aand to flux it back in, I believe I read this in a article about flux, by taffin I think, and also, I have no money. or I would probably by mag shot, as it would be easiest to measure out

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Originally Posted by The O.K. KIDD

why have I read over and over that when heating your lead up, do not skimoff the clumps, oatmeal tye stuff, it is you antimony aand to flux it back in, I believe I read this in a article about flux, by taffin I think, and also, I have no money. or I would probably by mag shot, as it would be easiest to measure out

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You ALWAYS should use beeswax (only) in your casting pot to clean and reduce (not flux) the "stuff" back into your melt. Do not just skim it! You be a-wastin' Sn and (likely) Sb, my friend! Definitely Sn.

And if you "have no money", how can you cast/load/shoot your guns on a regular basis? I invest many hundreds of dollars in Pb and alloys when I find them. And have tons of the stuff. But you can easily buy small quantiies that will fit easily in your budget. Just shop around! And avoid evilbay.....no telling what you will get there. People on here are trustworthy....or they would be gone in a heartbeat!!!!!!!

Good luck in your quest.

banger

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Originally Posted by bangerjim

I invest many hundreds of dollars in Pb and alloys when I find them. And have tons of the stuff. But you can easily buy small quantiies that will fit easily in your budget. Just shop around! And avoid evilbay.....no telling what you will get there.

Good luck in your quest.

banger

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I'm with banger. I have several thousands of dollars invested in my lead, tin, etc. as well. If you really are down to "no money", it's probably time to sell a gun or two. If you want a small quantity of super clean clip on wheel weight lead, I can give you two reliable sources for very clean COWW in ingot form from eBay. Between them you can buy 5lbs or 50lbs. If you're concerned about buying lead on eBay, don't be. I have hundreds of pounds of COWW from both of these guys. $12.75 would get you 5lbs delivered. That's be over 250 130gr boolits. $70 gets you 50lbs ready to cast COWW delivered to your door. That's nearly 2700 130gr boolits.

As for not removing the lumps in the pot, you flux them back in to not lose metal, period, whatever they might be. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest you will not be able to pull antimony out of your lead to move it to another batch.

what you skim off is a combination of oxidized lead, tin and antimony. Once an alloy is made it is not possible to separate it. At least not with the equipment that a bullet caster that's not a scientist has in his shop. You an enriched or dilute an alloy but not separate it. Id bet you could fire your pot up every day for a month and skim off the dross and it wouldn't change the bhn even a half a point.

banger jim, you do not understand my situation, so please do not tell me to sell a gun or two, the only two worth anything were gifts from my father, and I do occasionally come across money, it just so happens that the last time I did, I bought powder and primers, and I know the stuff I am talking about skimming would not be pure antimony, believe it or not I am actually fairly smart, I just wanted to use a batch of ww's to enrich an alloy that needs antimony, it seems that some off you read the title and skimmed the post, while others responded without judgement and wished me luck. and show of hands, who uses something other than pure beeswax to flux or mix oxidized metals back into your mix, I do, I use a boolit lube I made that didn't work as well as I liked. and it works great. beeswax is too precious to throw away into flames

At work in die cast the big pots we had (50,000 lbs) were checked for composition every few days and when things were out of speck they added to low materials to bring the mish metal up to what it needed to be. Theroetically you should be able to remove antimony with a low melting temp and carefull heat but once mixed the lead tin lower the antimonies melting point to very close to the others making the controll needed hard. How much antimony do you need to add to your mix? How big a batch is it? Once blended an alloy is homogenous and one material seperating them can get involved. I dont know your situation and not going to pry, You can give it a try. Maybe heat the pot to 400-450 degrees to bring it to that temp and increase 10* at a time to where you think you need to be. It will be a long process as you dont want to over heat the bottom/ side areas melting the center.

I have already gotten it to the point that I am looking for in the past, just heating the alloy up slowly, but that was before I wanted to try this, I know that the antimony will be bonded with tin, that's what helps lower its melting point I believe, but some extra tin doesn't bother me.

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Originally Posted by The O.K. KIDD

why have I read over and over that when heating your lead up, do not skimoff the clumps, oatmeal tye stuff, it is you antimony aand to flux it back in, I believe I read this in a article about flux, by taffin I think, and also, I have no money. or I would probably by mag shot, as it would be easiest to measure out

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This will only happen with high concentrations of antimony in lead with no tin in it. The thick stuff is the antimony trying to float out. Even if you try to skim it off the top, you will find very little difference between what you skimmed and what was left.

That is why I tell people to add some tin to make the antimony behave because it will not cast well in that state , not because it will actually strain out.

After reading some more of your posts, I should explain that the tin dissolves the antimony like salt in water and you cannot separate it with any simple means once tin is in the alloy. Actually its only a mixture before the tin alloys in it.