Bell Systems Wiping solder

[Hardcast416taylor]

My BIL dropped off a box of lead odds and ends that a friend gave him. There are several hexagon shape plumber ingots of soft lead. About 25+/- lbs. of lead pipe from a home re-do sometime back. Of course there are wheel weights. The thing that I`m unsure of what it is is a 6" long and about 5 lb. ingot marked Bell Systems wiping solder. I recall seeing someone ask about this here awhile back, but can`t find it. Anybody have an idea of what this might be as far as tin/lead?Robert

[jmort]

38/62
I have two of those
Can't bring myself to melt them down

[RogerDat]

38/62
I have two of those
Can't bring myself to melt them down

Yeah me either. Piece of history from back when all the underground cables were sheathed in lead and the seams were solder sealed joins. Funny I can stuff a bunch of pewter object that are intended to be valued into a pot and gloat as they become ingots but won't melt an old block of Bell Tele. solder.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Guess I`ll just put it on the shelf next to the ingot of Dutchboy solder, it has the Dutchboy figure on it. Thanks for the input guys.Robert

[colchester]

Yeah me either. Piece of history from back when all the underground cables were sheathed in lead and the seams were solder sealed joins. Funny I can stuff a bunch of pewter object that are intended to be valued into a pot and gloat as they become ingots but won't melt an old block of Bell Tele. solder.

My dad was a splicer for bell He would routinely work with lead sheathed cable esp in his early days with bell. Still have a couple of sticks of the flux they used sterrine I think

[6622729]

My dad was a splicer for bell He would routinely work with lead sheathed cable esp in his early days with bell. Still have a couple of sticks of the flux they used sterrine I think

Wiping solder is generally 40/60 with some very slightly different. I have a lot of the antique DutchBoy 888 and a few ingots of the Bell Systems too. I use it where I can just because I like including something old like that in my boolit mix. It's not cost effective, that is, there are cheaper forms of soft lead and tin but I don't care. I was enjoying myself with those purchases.

[TexasGrunt]

I've got four big cable joins sitting on the driveway I need to strip the lead off of. It's not an easy job.

[RogerDat]

I've got four big cable joins sitting on the driveway I need to strip the lead off of. It's not an easy job.

But someone is got to do it. Might as well be you. Oh wait is that why it's sitting in your driveway. Duh! face+palm

[lightman]

I'm bad to save odd and unique things like that myself!

A few years ago my favorite phone man dropped off this load of cable sheathing.




This is mostly the sheath that was over the cable and not the splice covers. But I quickly tired of trying to separate the soldered joints from the sheath and melted it all together. This pile resulted in about 700# of ingots and they tested at about 7 on the CabineTree tester. I hated not salvaging the solder but it did not increase the hardness by enough to matter.

I tried several methods of cutting the soldered seam away from the sheath and none of them were quick or easy. Everything from a hammer and chisel to a saber saw to an air chisel.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack!

[RogerDat]

Ok we are all officially jealous. Oh wait a minute you had to make all that into ingots? As in work? Little less jealous now.

[huntnman]

I have removed many lead sleeves (splice closure) from telephone cables. There are soft lead wedges between the cables, if more than one cable entered the splice on either or both sides. Since wiping solder has a high tin content you can soften it with a torch, and wipe or remove it with a gloved hand. I would suggest you have a catch pan under the cable, as it is very easy to over heat and melt it. The second method requires a muffler cutter and assortment of bits.

[DanishM1Garand]

I'm retired from the phone company. I was involved in scrapping miles of lead sheath cable. I kept all the pieces and parts of the sheath and left the solder on the joints. I get a beautiful full on my molds due to the tin. I didn't know at the time that.

[huntnman]

^^^^ Is why I have 10 or 12 ingots of wiping solder that was gifted to after I retired, still waiting to be used.

[sw282]

l worked on a ''HI-RAD'' or high radiation line a few years back at Savannah River Rite ..
They were adding an extra Two lnches of shielding to an above ground line that carried liquid waste..
The foundry 0n Site was casting the lead shielding in 18'' sections and the fitters would cut it as needed..
To cut or trim these sections they used a short ''electric chainsaw''.. Did a really great job too.. Sadly they
didn't allow me to clean up.. Every ounce of lead had to be accounted for..
You would think we were working in a South African Gold Mine

[NyFirefighter357]

Upon my own research I came across this Bell Labs study a while back from a1940 study.
http://www.bell-labs.com/our-researc...ations/289167/
"The most satisfactory composition for a wiping solder from practical tests has been found to be about 38 per cent tin, 62 per cent lead. A solder containing 40 per cent tin also possesses satisfactory handling qualities and is used to some extent."

[bobthenailer]

I have about 25 lbs of what is supposed to be BELL SEAM SOLDER D I made a few bullets and checked the hardness with my LBT tester they were 13 bhn 1/2 hr after casting and air cooled, im sure the age hardend a few points.since.

[kokomokid]

38% has worked about right in my alloys. Some were made with rare and expensive substitutes during WW2 due to tin shortage.

[Lloyd Smale]

I ended up with about 2 tons of that stuff. It was on old underground power cables from one of our substations into the local paper mill. they upgraded the cables and said we could have it if we wanted it. Buddy who was a bullet caster too and I told them wed take it. stuff we got was about 1/2 again bigger then what yours looks like. It was very nasty work. stuff is packed with grease. but the really cool thing that I don't think of right away was that it had 4/0 copper inside. We had about half it done and one of the millwrights from the paper company came out and saw one of the pickup loads of shiny copper we were about to haul away and the next day the game changed. We could have to lead if we stripped it but the copper went to there party fund. We were ok with it. We ended up with about 4 tons of lead and made over 4k off the copper we got before they cut us off. Found a good way to deal with it. A sling choked on each end of a 20 foot chunk and pulled tight between two trucks. Then one guy on each end with one of those curved blade skinning knives and meet in the middle. Did it that way for a few days then found a better way. A battery skill saw. then take a battery sawsall and cut it into 4 foot chunks and peal the lead off. The worse part of the job is getting that grease soaked paper wrapped around the wire off but we found a pressure washer did that pretty good (if the epa isn't watching) Once the paper mill claimed it we let them deal with the mess. Stuff we got tested out at 6-7 on my cabin tree tester and I just treat it as pure.

I'm bad to save odd and unique things like that myself!

A few years ago my favorite phone man dropped off this load of cable sheathing.




This is mostly the sheath that was over the cable and not the splice covers. But I quickly tired of trying to separate the soldered joints from the sheath and melted it all together. This pile resulted in about 700# of ingots and they tested at about 7 on the CabineTree tester. I hated not salvaging the solder but it did not increase the hardness by enough to matter.

I tried several methods of cutting the soldered seam away from the sheath and none of them were quick or easy. Everything from a hammer and chisel to a saber saw to an air chisel.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack!

[alamogunr]

Sorry for another hijack! About 50+ years ago we lived in central Michigan. There was a strike by the communications union that went on for about 2 months. Sometime during that time someone(?) cut the underground telephone cables that our service was taken from. It took about 2 weeks of repair work to fix the damage since whoever cut the cables took a section with them. Since the damage was along a road that I drove home on, I could look down in the hole and see that there seemed to be hundreds of small cable ends showing. I've often wondered if the same guy that cut the cables was the one who ended up repairing them.