More XRF Results!!

[RedRiver]

Lead pipe (no joints):

100% lead
Ingots were purple.


Lead pipe solder joint (cut on either end of solder):

83.6% lead
16.4% tin


Range scrap (99% jacketed)

99.3% lead
.7% antimony


Clip on wheel weight:

97.3% lead
2.7% antimony
No tin!

Apparently this wasn't the first sample the guy who did the testing has seen with no tin. My stuff was fluxed too.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

so these were all in ingot form? wit the WW's, I wouldn't be surprised if that small of an amount (.5%) might have been lost in fluxing, I wouldn't be surprised if its correct that there was not any tin in it too! lol

[RugerBob]

Wonder what caused them to be purple. I had the same thing happen with old lead cable sheathing I melted down.

[leebuilder]

Interesting, thanks for sharing. From my experience pure lead will harden with a purple tinge/hue. Any battery lead i handled always had the purple. You see pics of pure lead pigs with the purple, not sure why this is but it is something to look for. The tin is gone to make ipads and such.
Be well

[RedRiver]

I mentioned purple because there was no doubt the pipe was pure lead.

[GhostHawk]

Same here, any time I had pure lead to melt it would take on purple/blue highlights. Sometimes in the pot if the temp got a bit warm and always when it cooled.

4 years ago I had to replace my water supply line. I won't call it a score, near 8,000$ and I got maybe 100 lbs of lead out of it. But I did salvage all the lead I could. And I did mix it with COWW and a bit of tin. Seemed to work fine for pistol boolits.

[OS OK]

Wouldn't it be sweet if the XRF Technology was available to the average caster's Box-O-Tools!

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Lead pipe solder joint (cut on either end of solder):

83.6% lead
16.4% tin

Here is a little hint that a metal scrapper shared with me, and it works quite well.
If you have enough solder to melt into your smelting pot, then smash or cut the pipe joint into flat pieces. then keeping the temperature below 600, you can melt most of the solder off the joint and NOT melt the pure or near pure pipe lead...giving you a much richer Tin mixture.

[Larry Gibson]

More reason why I recommend adding 2% tin to todays COWWs. Also to RL where the majority is from jacketed handgun bullets.

If some hard cast is also in there the % of antimony will be greater and usually sufficient to balance with the tin.

If the range lead has a majority of commercial hard cast alloy then I recommend mixing 50/50 with pure lead and adding the 2% tin. That cuts the antimony down to 2.5 to 3+ 5 and balances with the tin.

Larry Gibson

[RedRiver]

Here is a little hint that a metal scrapper shared with me, and it works quite well.
If you have enough solder to melt into your smelting pot, then smash or cut the pipe joint into flat pieces. then keeping the temperature below 600, you can melt most of the solder off the joint and NOT melt the pure or near pure pipe lead...giving you a much richer Tin mixture.

Yep. Going to be doing that today. Got a bunch of bulbs that I will be carefully melting. I am in desperate need of tin and I can't justify $9+ per pound to buy it.

[OS OK]

Yep. Going to be doing that today. Got a bunch of bulbs that I will be carefully melting. I am in desperate need of tin and I can't justify $9+ per pound to buy it.

Red...get yourself some pewter from the local second hand store or garage sale...melt it all down and pour it into the largest cast mold you have or get a small fishing weight mold from the sporting goods store and pour 1/2 oz. sinkers and you'll have plenty tin on hand...pewter is about 92.5% Sn.

[RedRiver]

Yeah.....There is no pewter anywhere in thrift stores, tried many times.

[tinsnips]

High tempature when melted can cause a purple tint.

[RedRiver]

Nope. Temp is just fine. Melt some pure lead, it is ALWAYS purple, regardless of temperature.

I've also accidentally cooked the Heck out of some COWW , it wasn't purple, same color as always.

[GhostHawk]

Wife has brought 4 possible pieces of pewter home. One was, the smallest of course.

looks like a large, short shot glass with a turned in then out bowl lip on the edge. Did not weigh enough and too pretty to melt it. She has it on her table full of rings and earings. Keeps the cat from playing with them.

Red, what you need is a good source of lino.

[dbosman]

Last weekend I melted down the pewter I've gotten from thrift shops in the last six months. Twenty three and three quarter pounds.

Yeah.....There is no pewter anywhere in thrift stores, tried many times.

[RedRiver]

Wife has brought 4 possible pieces of pewter home. One was, the smallest of course.

looks like a large, short shot glass with a turned in then out bowl lip on the edge. Did not weigh enough and too pretty to melt it. She has it on her table full of rings and earings. Keeps the cat from playing with them.

Red, what you need is a good source of lino.

Wish I did. My grandfather used to get lots of it from the Casselton newspaper years ago for free.

What I need is a source of extra income. Guess I could trade off some wheel weight or soft lead. Got lots of that at the moment.

Diapers and wipes for two kids ain't cheap, add in formula and it gets expensive. Baby has been going through about 15 diapers a day. 1000 wipes in the past three weeks also!!!!

[308Jeff]

Melted down a 50lb roll of lead roof flashing straight from the yard a few weeks ago. Definitely purple.

[TexasGrunt]

Wouldn't it be sweet if the XRF Technology was available to the average caster's Box-O-Tools!

It is. Just takes money.