What I Found in Today's Hual of lead

[mtguy]

I made another visit to my lead scrap supplier and came away with over 200 lbs of mostly soft lead, some No. 4 Babbit, misc. bars and ingots, and 45 lbs of wheel weights. I did find something shiny that i threw in my bucket...a 3-1/2 lb bar of Nickel Babbitt -



What exactly is this and what metals does it contain? Whatever it is, it only cost me $1.05 @ $.30/lb

[Agent Ronin]

While i have no idea what elemental composition that is.... It sure is pretty, i'd keep that as a paperweight but thats just me

[jhalcott]

too big for a paper weight . It might be a good door stop though!

[Tom Herman]

From reading other postings, I believe Nickel Babbit is a very high Tin alloy.... You've done well!

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[mtguy]

Did some googling and from what i can find it appears Nickel babbitt is 88-90% tin, 7-8% antimony, and a very small percentage of other metal like copper, silver, nickel, arsenic, and lead.
Does anyone know for sure if this is correct?

If so, this would probably be good for mixing with the pure lead i got.

[HeavyMetal]

I'd google N-F metals and see if I could find something on the alloy composition of this particular babitt alloy. some can be good for boolit sweetner and others have to many trace elements , like zinc, copper or nickel that might contaminate a good alloy.

The other side of the bar my have a lot number or alloy number on it you can use as reference.

Find out what it is before you add it to any casting metal.

[Firebird]

NF Metals Babbitt web page doesn't list the compositions, just properties and uses; but if you called them I bet they will tell you what's in it. They also have quite a range of alloys for bullets.

[wildbill49]

Check out this web site http://www.conquestind.com/babbitt.php You will find that you have about 88-90% Tin. It also contains Antimony (7-8%) and Copper (3-4%). There are also several other metals, but in very small precentages. It should work well for hardening your wheel weight metal. I've been using pure tin from Midway and was paying about $30 for 2.2 lbs, so you did good at 30 cents a pound.

[mtguy]

Will that 3-4% copper hurt anything?

[felix]

Not when you are using the Babbitt as an augmentation. You want no more than 2 percent tin in your mix, so just melt enough to make that happen directly in your pot. If you want to be exact in the amount of tin added, weigh the bar on a good scale, and when a little is melted off, weigh the bar again. Thataway you know how much tin you are putting into your pot. DO NOT make smaller ingots out of that bar, because each ingot will not be uniform within each. This is a general advise with all Babbits. Most of them are sent from the company with special instructions on melting and pouring for a UNIQUE application. ... felix

[Willbird]

I'd put that baby on Ebone at an outragous start price and see what happens

[3006guns]

Willbird is right.........those old decorative babbit bars are now collectors items. I'd put it on Ebay and some fool (like me) will buy it!

[Willbird]

Well decoration, and people actually rebuilding machines that use poured babbit bearings

[Tom W.]

That stuff makes light and hard boolits by itself. I used to use it all of the time, but my ingots were considerably larger. It's mostly tin with a trace of copper and ( at least the stuff I have) has .005% nickle. Ours was lead free as per OSHA regs...

Now I hoard what little I have and use it for the tin content.

[mtguy]

Right now i have a good assortment of no. 4 babbit, linotype, wheel weight, and soft lead. I think i'm just going to use that nickel babbitt for it's tin content when alloying.

[mtguy]

I emailed N-F Metals and asked about the composition of the nickel babbitt bar i have and this is the response i got:

"That is an old bar that's not used any longer and really has little value.
The alloy is proprietary."

[Godsdog]

Fellas, I used a Lead-Babbit Mix and found it turning frothy on top of the melt. You could flux it with a piece of bee's wax and it would mix for a while and then start separating again. The babbit I had would turn the lead mix skim on top sorta blue and bronze colored. It also ate up an Aluminum Lee Mold. I've backed off from Babbit and I haven't had any trouble since.

[HangFireW8]

I emailed N-F Metals and asked about the composition of the nickel babbitt bar i have and this is the response i got:

"That is an old bar that's not used any longer and really has little value.
The alloy is proprietary."

Wrong approach. Ask for the MSDS.

-HF

[3rptr]

Ha! Ha!

Hangfire's got it right...

Call them nf fellers office up and say, "I NEED an MSDS sheet for your product faxed to THIS number ASAP."

My guess is it will happen like magic.

Still might miss a small percentage of proprietary stuff, though.

The MSDS is probably posted online..

[clodhopper]

A few years back I was useing ingots like that for chipper knife babbitt.
I was saw filer and knife sharpener for a small sawmill. To keep OSHA happy we got rid of our lead babbit ( I personally disposed of it properly hauled it away my self) Then we used Premier Nickle Babbitt. I read the MSDS sheets and what has been said here by other posters is what the MSDS sheets said. My numbers are approx
87% tin
7% antimony
3% copper
Remaining 3% various other metals.
0% lead
They could not specify the remaining 3%. Looked like BS written to satisfy federal regulations.
Memory again, seems like the mill payed about 80 bucks for each five pound ingot about 1994 or 95. Mill owner got kind of steamed when I told him 27, 358-009 bullets was how many I could make with a pound.