What Do I Have, and How Best to Use It?

[KLR]

I was given some lead from an old retired dentist. I have a few dental impressions and a couple of bars of ingots. Both bars weight one pound. The babbit bar is about twice the volume of the counter die ingot.



Another guy gave me this. It's about 3" across the flats and weighs 5 lbs. I have two of them and they came attached.
Does LP = Lyman Products? Did they make an ingot mold in this shape, or did they ship their casting lead like this?



Any clues would be appreciated.

[Minerat]

The interweb is majic

The bars were made by Samuel Stockton White Dental Manufacturing Company
Sswdm co

Company info.
https://invention.si.edu/ss-white-de...bulk-1870-1965

Pretty neat.

[samari46]

The octagon shaped ingot is probably pure lead as used by plumbers. They came in a bunch of shapes and weights. I have some of the ones like you have shown and ingots as well. Weight you quote is probably very close. 5 lbs is about what mine weigh. Frank

[kevin c]

I agree that the five pounder is plumber's lead. Five pounds seems to be the standard weight of each, originally sold as five linked ingots. I have six sided, eight sided, square and round, and so far they're all five pounds each and the ones tested are 100% lead.

[lightman]

Those Babbit ingots would have a tin content that would be useful for adding to bullet alloy. I have a tendency to keep things like that rather than melting them down. Ya know, the "cool" factor.

I agree with the others that those 5# ingots look like plumbers lead which are nearly pure.

[KLR]

Thanks for the input, guys. I also have a couple of these:







It sounds like they may be worth more to a collector than they are to me to make a few bullets. I'll hold off on melting them down. (except for the plumber's lead.)

[RogerDat]

Babbitt is a tin/antimony alloy. Of varying ratios. Used to make bearings and bushings. I would keep those for the cool factor. Tin goes so far that one doesn't need much so buying a few pounds of solder or pewter from the swapping and selling forum or even (gag) eBay is a better alternative than melting down pieces of history.