A trip to the dentist

[michiganmike]

I returned to my new dentist for a cleaning. It had been awhile since I'd been to the dentist. The technician cleaning my teeth was explaining that a lot of dentists are going digital for x-rays. I asked if that meant that they still used the little x-ray plates with the lead sheets. And yes, that is what they used.

Having read a couple posts about the purity of dental x-ray lead, I asked if the dentist might be interested in selling it to me. "Sell it?" she replied. "I just take it down to the salvage place when we have a bunch of it."

Explaining what I did with lead, I volunteered to save them the trip to the salvage yard. To cut to the chase, I walked out of the dentist's office with clean teeth and nearly 20 pounds of dental x-ray lead, clean, pure, and pristine - as a gift. No cost.

I like my new dentist, and have a new motivation to get regular professional care, just like the old Crest ad recommended.

MichiganMike

[bangerjim]

That stuff is getting hard to find. All the dentists around me are now fully digital. No messy lead on thier part.

banger

[RogerDat]

I got some of that, pretty high tin as I recall. I posted what it tested as with xray gun at scrap yard. Did stink when melting, think there is a plastic film involved. Made nice ingots after fluxing, big stink during melt.

[bangerjim]

All of the ~80# I bought at a yard a couple years ago (35 cents/#) had very little Sn in it. I treat is as as basically pure. Different manufacturer's may use different alloys for the little shielding lead membrane in there. It came from the same office because it was in 4 plastic bags in a cardboard box taped shut. Mine had no plastic of any form in there and melts perfectly clean and odorless.

Only way to know is an x-ray gun analysis.

Have fun with your 20# of Pb!

banger

[fredj338]

I did the same thing a couple years ago. Asked my dentist about his old lead foils. He said, "I have them in a couple boxes in the back, can't throw them away, HM". So I offered to take them off his hands, 35# after removing the paper sleeves. He is a casual shooter so understood & offered me 6 lead aprons for free too, but they are not worth the amount of rubber crud to get a couple #s of lead.

[RogerDat]

Found the post, I had them gun it at the scrap yard before I took it.
".... it came out a surprisingly rich Pb 96 / Sb 2.5 / Sn 1.5 so pretty good alloy right as it is." That was the batch I picked up. YMMV.

So not high tin like solder or pewter, but better than COWW's. Little lower on antimony than COWW but 50/50 with WW's would be approx. 1% tin and 2.75% antimony 11.4 BHN which should work just fine. Need to finish building the garden shed, this conversation makes me want to go find out how it casts.

[zomby woof]

The lead they use is Lead >96%, Tin 1.5% +/- 0.1%, Antimony 1.5% +/- 0.1%.

[Bigslug]

I just had a cracked tooth pulled a couple weeks ago, and when I voiced some concerns about the recovery interfering with my annual weeklong trip for the deer opener, the staff got all excited. I think they may be all primed and ready for when I go back for the implant and pitch the question about their x-ray lead. Please cross your fingers on my behalf.

But I figure the digital stuff taking over is inevitable. Having seen the results from my knee and one of my wife's more specialty dental x-rays that had to be done in a different office, I've got to say the digital takes better pictures, and the dentist doesn't have to deal with shipping in film and disposing of lead.

Then I have to ask myself what I'd be willing to give up to NOT have to bite down on the gag-inducing x-ray films, and I find that the answer is "Quite a lot". I guess if they hand me a couple hundred pounds I'll change my tune.