Question(s) About Overheated Lead

[SWAGE-X]

First off a bit of background information;
I had about 2 tons of pure lead & about another 2 tons of old (8-10 yrs.) coww in the back corner of my fab. shop.
I also had about 500lbs. of pure lead that was processed into ingots.
After fire completely destroyed the shop,the lead & ww are all in a huge puddle on the cement floor. I will sort that mess out at a later date.
My question is regarding the processed ingots.
I remelted a few pound of these & the melt was a very blue/purple color.
Temp. while remelting was kept to 750-775 deg.(F). Fluxed w/bees wax didn't help & had a large amount on green sandy looking dross in the pot(on the sides of the pot,under the surface of the melt). Refluxing with fine sawdust helped with the green crud, but the color remained the same.Oak chips,same result.
Increasing temp. made the color more vivid. Oxidizing was also more evident.
I recall a discussion on this subject on a forum somewhere but can't find it.
Finally to the question,has anyone mixed this with tin & cast bullets for BPCR(25-1)?
Please excuse the length of this post.
THNX LOTS
Bob

[btroj]

Pure lead often has that blue tint. I ignore it other than knowing it means the lead is pretty darn pure.

Get things recast into ingots and move on. Other than getting the lead cleaned up you need not worry.

[Boyscout]

I had the same thing happen yesterday. I turned down the heat, threw in some of my sprues and re-fluxed with saw dust. Everything went back to clean and silver again.

[shadowcaster]

As said.. not to worry. The purple/blue color is common with pure lead. Also.. wax is NOT a flux, it is a reducer. Sawdust is an excellent flux.

Shad

[KYCaster]

Couple of things I'd be concerned about.....

First....could your lead be contaminated with other metals stored in the same area? Zinc and Aluminum would be the most likely suspects. Both could easily be melted by a building fire, and either could cause severe problems with casting.

Second....it's very unlikely that your two alloys (Pb and WW) became thoroughly mixed when they melted. You probably have one area that's mostly Pb, another area that's mostly WW and an area in the middle where they're mixed in various proportions. A homogenous mixture of the entire 2500 lbs. would probably be reasonably close to the same hardness as your desired 25-1 alloy, but getting a homogenous mixture out of the mess you have will require some work.

I'd go about it like this:
Chop out 100 lbs. of the puddle, melt it and pour into 2 lb. ingots.

Repeat until it's all cast into 2 lb. ingots, keeping each 100 lb. lot separate so you eventually have 25 lots, each containing 50 each, 2 lb. ingots.

Take 4 ingots from each of the 25 lots and melt that into one 100 lb. lot. Repeat till all is melted and the resulting ingots should all be the same alloy.

Good luck
Jerry

[btroj]

Good point Jerry. Uniformity isn't very likely in the mass melt scenario.

[Sasquatch-1]

Did the two large lots actually come together during the fire? If you are concerned there is a member of the forum who can test the lead for content. Don't remember his name but a search should produce it.

Hope you recover from the fire.

[SWAGE-X]

Thanx for the replies.
I an not real concerned with the large mixed batch(lead/ww) at this time.Planning on doing what KYCaster is suggesting when all the rubble is cleared out.
Before the fire,I had processed 500lbs.+ of the pure lead with no issues what so ever. As I said earlier,the problem is with the ingots that were already processed.
When they were remelted,the blue/purple color showed up as well as the extreme oxidizing.This at temp. of 750-775 deg.
I have had no success casting 25-1 at a temp. lower than this.
When time permits,I will mix a small batch,cast a few and shoot.
Sasquatch-Yes they came together into a large ugly puddle. Most of the lead was out hospital x-ray rooms & was to be extruded into wire for swageing.
The big extruder press & the almost completed die set also died in the fire.
THNX LOTS
Bob