Lead from an estate sale

[konsole]

At an estate sale yesterday, I found 4 of these bars that I would guess are soft lead. The person that owned these was very much into electrical work, especially lighting, as they had a ton of light bulbs and other electrical stuff for sale. However, these 4 bars where just laying on the ground against a wall behind a pile of just miscellaneous junk. They all weigh 3.25 to 3.50-lb, and are 4" in length on their top side, and 1.5" in height. As you can see some have holes drilled into them which makes me think these where used as weights at the base of something to keep that object standing up. The soft lead ingots that I make out of SOWW, have a darker color like these do, plus the ingots I make sink in on the top like the ones here also do. So thats further evidence that I think these are soft lead. Most likely someone just made these random bars to use for whatever they needed them for, but I was hoping you guys might recognize bars of this weight and dimensions as a standard size for using in some application. Unfortunately I dont have the equipment to test hardness or alloy. I took one without holes in it, and I calculated the pounds per cubic inch of that ingot to be right at about 0.41, which is what lead is so they definately appear to be lead. I'm just not sure on how pure they are.

[D Crockett]

drop it on the floor if it makes a ringing sound it probably hard lead if it make a dull thunk sound it probably soft lead if you can scratch it with your finger nail it probably soft lead it you have a ingot of ww lead drop it and see if they sound the same and do it with soww you will here the difference hope this helps D Crockett

[bangerjim]

We have no way of knowing. Like said, drop it and if it makes a dull thud, it is soft Pb. If it "rings" it may be harder alloy.

Without a real hardness tester, you will not know. You can get a SWAG using the artist pencil set test outlined in a thread on here. Poor man's hardness tester.

These are home cast and there is absolutly ZERO way of knowing what they are. We are not psychics. I have ingots given to me from years past that look the same way. No telling without a hardness tester. Mine range from pure Pb (5Bhn) to Linotype-ish alloy (~22Bhn). Alloys with higher Sn content will be shiny(er). If there are a lot of them, an x-ray analysis from your local scrap yard will definitely be in line. I know the % content of all the many bulk alloys I have in my stores.

banger

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The pale blue hue to the aged patina indicates to me, that they are probably 'near' pure lead.

[Uncle Jimbo]

They look like the weights that are use on drag race cars to put the proper amount of weight on each wheel to transfer the torque equally to the rear wheels. They bolt to the chassis.

[bruce381]

melt add in some tin pour not to worry about it

[RogerDat]

melt add in some tin pour not to worry about it

Good point for casting boolits, figure out approximately how hard the lead is, adjust as needed and cast it up. Should work for all but the most demanding boolit requirements.

Not sure konsole casts ammo. Does scrounge pewter and lead to cast ingots. Sells some hallmarked pewter in S&S forum, and think have seen him have lead for sale also. Knowing the type of lead matters a bit more if your going to sell it, and it is interesting to find out what some of this stuff was used for and what it was made from. Konsole did a thread on WW identification for sorting as I recall.

[konsole]

Yes I find pewter and lead and sell the ingots I make from them. The lead I only do local pickup because I dont want to get involved with shipping so much weight and making enemies with the post office also, but I drop the price a little under $1 for the driving the buyer does. A guy about 45 minutes away buys the lead whenever I have more then a few hundred pounds. I ship the pewter out though, since its much higher value to weight ratio, and I've sold alot on ebay. I think guns are cool but I never had the desire to own any or cast boolits for them, maybe thats partly to do with the culture around here not being big into guns.

[trapper9260]

melt add in some tin pour not to worry about it

I say the same as long you can use your finger nail on it I say just do what bruce stated

[RogerDat]

Yes I find pewter and lead and sell the ingots I make from them. The lead I only do local pickup because I dont want to get involved with shipping so much weight and making enemies with the post office also, but I drop the price a little under $1 for the driving the buyer does. A guy about 45 minutes away buys the lead whenever I have more then a few hundred pounds. I ship the pewter out though, since its much higher value to weight ratio, and I've sold alot on ebay. I think guns are cool but I never had the desire to own any or cast boolits for them, maybe thats partly to do with the culture around here not being big into guns.

Well the stuff you scrounge and feed into the reloading community is I'm sure welcome. And I know lots of folks appreciated the photos for WW identification you provided, along with tips on scrounging for WW's. Just makes the advice to alloy it until it casts and shoots well, while generally useful not really a solution for you. Might just leave them as is for the guy that comes to buy your lead, 12 - 14 lbs. of unknown but fairly soft lead, they can always play around with how they can best be used in their casting. I don't leave lead behind just because I can't identify it, one of these days I will melt all that scruffy pile of debris and unknowns. Just not today.

[konsole]

ya its funny because if I saw those ingots at a yard sale 5 years ago I wouldnt have thought once about taking them. At that same estate sale I found 2 small figurines that where heavy for their size, so I thought there was a chance they where pewter. One of them looked like it was molded in sections and then held together by some green adhesive. The great thing about estate sales is they don't really care about all the miscellaneous small stuff you find in drawers around the house. They are more concerned about the furniture, paintings, collectibles, things of that nature. So you can come away from an estate sale with a 5 gallon bucket full of stuff for $10 like I did. I melted the figurines down and they melted at about the same speed that pewter melts, and sure enough the ingots had a weight/volume ratio of 0.26-lb per cubic inch, which is what tin is. They looked like plastic, painted a bright matte silvery color, when I first noticed them, but sure didnt feel like it when I picked them up. They had alot of sharp details which makes sense since tin in pewter is used for fill out.

[Geezer in NH]

At an estate sale 5 years ago I bought 16 moulds. 2 propane burners , 22 wood boxes of ingots, three metal milk crates of plastic coffee cans of 1 oz sized ingots of TIN made in a ladle, and another 10 crates of lead ingots of Lyman and RCBS ingot moulds. I think the lead was 1000+ pounds as my pickup was sitting very low.

Total cost at the country auction house was 140 with the buyers premium. I paid another $100 bill for the auction helpers to load my truck.

Sold the moulds on EBAY for $900+ THAT has been my biggest score, since buying lead cable sheathing that cost me $150 the junk yard offered $100 for. 2000+ pounds for $150 circa 1976 nice stuff, almost pure lead. All shot of in Muzzle loading competition.

I still have TIN to help my alloys

[Hanzy4200]

I need to start hitting the local auctions again. I used to be a regular, prior to my casting days. I've seen lead sell for pennies, as well as at a premium. The last lot I saw sold for $.50 a lb! Just plain WW ingots. The first lead I casted with was several 10 lb frying pan sized ingots that I just happened to find in a box lot and had lying around. Keep your eyes peeled!