Unusual Ingot

[Beau Cassidy]

I had 6 of these ingots given to me today... well they cost me a few .45 bullets... more of these ingots are on the way. Supposedly are the counterweight on the breaker in the powerhouse below a hydroelectric dam. That must be one huge breaker!

I am not questioning how what it is made of as there is 'ol familiar dull thud when I drop it on pavement. I thought some of you might like seeing a most interesting ingot. I also have some lead that were counterweights on a blackhawk. I melted most of those, though. The ones I have left still have the contract number on them.

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[bangerjim]

Could be anything. There is a big wide world of machines out there! With all kinds of attachments for them.

Probably weights for machinery. Interesting on what pops up!!!!!!!

Cast ‘em & shoot ‘em.

[lightman]

Its interesting, the stuff members find made of lead. Nice Score!

[Tom W.]

I have gotten, in times past, some 60 lb. ingots from Sanders Lead in Troy, Alabama. They reclaim batteries there. Anytime you can get pile of lead in those quantities is a good day!

[Hardcast416taylor]

There were 5 other guys besides myself that tried to melt a back counter weight from a fork truck once at work. We melted it with an acetlene torch and caught the galena in ingot molds. We probably melted off about 250 lbs. before each of us had enough , but that was 25 years back. The lead was about like WW alloy in hardness. We found this weight in a scrap pile at work waiting for a local scraper to pick it up, we moved it to a more accesable spot for our melt. Nice find on those counter weights.Robert

[jaguarxk120]

Many machines use lead as counter weights to balance the tooling.
A broach is one machine that uses counter weights, why use horse power
to lift the tooling when it takes much less if it is balanced.

[mold maker]

As a boy, we used to burn car bodies to melt the lead off for race cars. The ground in that area was like pavement. There is a Wally World there now.

[Lloyd Smale]

Possibly sail boat ballast.

[Taterhead]

Really interesting lead. Awesome score Beau! Are those steel bushings in the center of the eyelets?

[1Hawkeye]

Your gonna need a bigger lead pot

[Beau Cassidy]

I haven't even looked to see if that is a steel bushing or not. I just unloaded them and put them in storage. It is steel or rubber beret. I think they may be rubber. They were counterweights off of a huge breaker at a hydroelectric dam. I have more coming...

[Tripplebeards]

They look like anchor keels to tie boat line to.

[Rokkit Syinss]

Used in systems similar to this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m7KbVjj7kc

[RogerDat]

I had a batch of counter weights that were very nice alloy, some Sb and Sn running about like sweetened COWW's or a little better. Member BNE will test for 1# of lead per sample or small piece taken to a scrap yard could get it tested. With that much knowing the exact alloy would be very useful.

[pls1911]

I once caged a few hundred pounds of mold material an thought I was set for life....Until I melted the first batch.
At around 900 degrees it flowed slow and sloppy like last nights enchiladas, stuck to EVERYTHING, and would alloy with nothing.
Good lead just quickly puddled on top, and flux just made a mess.
Fortunately, I had the sense (or luck) to use an iron pot on a turkey fryer for the initial test instead of a casting furnace.
It took an acetylene torch and lots of work to clean up that little project.
I have no idea what that metal was, but I got it out of my life as quickly as possible.
The moral here is this:
When testing unknown metal, DO NOT use your casting furnace!!