Lead Foil Roll

[DaveyDug]

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

I recently acquired this pure lead foil roll, which is about 12" wide by .005" thick and weighs about 15-20 lbs. I was planning to smelt it into ingots and use it up a little at a time in my WW alloy. Any thoughts on a better use for it, i.e. would selling it be worthwhile? I only cast for .45ACP and 9mm, so I can't use pure lead by itself.

[scottfire1957]

I'd mix it without smelting it. Just add. Why waste the fuel melting it? Unroll whatever weight you need and add to your pot.

[bangerjim]

Don't waste fuel re-melting it into ingots as said!!!!!!

I do it all the time with CLEAN lead roll and sheet. Just cut it into convienent size uniform pieces, weight each, and add it per weight you need.

I have stacks of stuff like that all cut into known sizes and weights ready to use.

I add a tiny pea-sized piece of beeswax (ONLY BEESWAX) when I add new alloy or lead to my casting pot......reduces the Sn back in like magic!

banger-j

[DaveyDug]

It makes sense to just work it into my alloy since I know it's clean and pure lead.

So no special intrinsic value to the thin foil roll that I will negate by melting it?

[bangerjim]

You can bake a turkey in it.

And raise your lead levels real nice!

[scottfire1957]

It makes sense to just work it into my alloy since I know it's clean and pure lead.

So no special intrinsic value to the thin foil roll that I will negate by melting it?

Pure lead is pure lead, no matter it's shape. It's just lead. Less than 85 cents/pound. Why would it be more valuable on a roll?

[DaveyDug]

Pure lead is pure lead, no matter it's shape. It's just lead. Less than 85 cents/pound. Why would it be more valuable on a roll?

Dunno. Figured it was probably originally sold for big bucks as xray shielding or something. I'm perfectly happy turning it into bullets.

[Dusty Bannister]

Offer it on S&S so some winemaker can use it to finish off his home made product. Swap or sell for what you need for alloy.
It would make a bunch of nice foil caps on a wine bottle.

[bangerjim]

Offer it on S&S so some winemaker can use it to finish off his home made product. Swap or sell for what you need for alloy.
It would make a bunch of nice foil caps on a wine bottle.

I sure would not use that stuff on MY wine bottles! LEAD = contamination of everything potable it touches.

Some VERY expensive olde wines are/were capped with REAL TIN foil. Most today are just aluminum foil only, so don't go craze out there scrounging wine caps from the dumpsters! My son is a sommelier at a 5 star restaurant and even their $800-900 bottles are not capped with Sn! I have him watchin'.

That stuff is too thin for x-ray shielding....usually 3/16" or thicker sheets. There are obviously some industrial usees for pure Pb squeezed that thin in a rolling mill. I sure do not know of any. Might have been some specialized shim stock at 0.005? Most shim stock I have ever had or own is brass and rather hard. I have it from 0.001 -0.1" in brass. Pure Pb would smash out too easily.

Maybe someone else will chime in with some ideas on it's original purpose?

One thing I just thought of: back when I was a kid in the '60's, Christmas tree tinsel was made of narrow thin lead strips! That could be a feed roll used in the slicing machine that cut them into the long narrow icicles for tree decorations. Once the lead paint scare hit, they switched to aluminized plastic.

OP.............are you completely SURE it is LEAD??????????????????? It is probably some other metal, so before you just melt it down......make sure what you have. X-ray shoot at a scrap yard of the roll.

[lightman]

Thats a good score! It should be much cleaner than most of the stuff that I get. I melt all of my lead and make 1# ingots. They are just easier to store than the bulk lead that I scrounge. The only idea I have on the foils purpose is maybe it was to be used in the dental x-ray industry. Thats the only guess that I have about it.

Members here would probably buy it but you can use it in your clip on wheel weights. Some casters cut coww up to 50/50 with soft lead. I would probably keep it separate and save it for future use.

[tallwalker]

I was told that lead rolls were used as lining for walls that needed to be soundproofed also. It has since been mostly replaced by a newer product that is vinyl impregnated with barium.

[RogerDat]

Old thread but I too came across these rolls of lead foil. Was doing a search to see if anyone knew what the lead composition was. Or what it was used for. One thing I will say if it is pure soft lead the muzzle loaders love that stuff. Round ball or Minnie ball needs to be soft. I keep known "pure" separate from "plain" soft lead. Some lead items will have a bit of antimony or tin in it to help cast or form it. So if I know it is an item such as x-ray shielding which is nearly pure lead (standards for shielding thickness were based on pure virgin lead) Or lead came for leaded glass windows without any solder joints then I keep it separate.

Was planning on melting a sample of the foil to see how it melts, and at what temperature it melts or starts to solidify. Lead alloys tend to have lower melting temperature. Zinc alloys higher temperatures to melt.

I have gotten away from keeping stuff in original form as ingots store better and by doing large batches and having them tested I can have an inventory of well labeled and consistent ingots cast from the "Redneck Gold" and "Cast Boolits" molds sold in swapping and selling forum.

[Winger Ed.]

I'd just cut/tear a length off the roll, fold or roll it back up,
then stomp it down so 2-3 pound or so chunks can drop into the pot as needed.

[RogerDat]

I'd just cut/tear a length off the roll, fold & stomp it down so 2-3 pound or so chunks can drop into the pot as needed.

I will say it can be useful to have some different leads and solders around in a form suitable for adding a little bit of something to "tweak" a pot. This foil might fit in that category. A while back I cranked out a lot of ready to go alloys in 2.5 lb. ingots. After that it was mostly stirring in a bit of wire solder to replace lost tin.

[kevin c]

I got a roll of lead foil from a club member that seemed to cast only for muzzle loaders. All the ingots I got from him were pure, and, on XRF, so was the foil.

I mostly cast one boolit in volume, so I use premade alloy in ingot form rather than mixing in the casting pot. For the sake of efficient storage I melted the roll into ingots as base stock.

[JimB..]

“ tinsel was made of narrow thin lead strips!”

I’ve heard this a few times, and I owned some of this tinsel way back when, but based only on the name why wouldn’t we expect it to have been made from tin rather than lead? I’m sure there is a box in mom’s basement, maybe I’ll have it tested if Incan find it.

[kevin c]

Per Wikipedia and Wiktionary tinsel is from the old French word for "spark", estincelle, and originally was silver foil. Both aluminum and lead foils were used in the 20th century before plastics took over.

[RogerDat]

Per Wikipedia and Wiktionary tinsel is from the old French word for "spark", estincelle, and originally was silver foil. Both aluminum and lead foils were used in the 20th century before plastics took over.

If you visit a scrap yard looking for lead after a while you realize from the items that come in made from lead that lead was the plastic of its time.

So many of the items that come in as scrap lead are things that are today made from plastic. Plumbing pipe, roof boots around vent stacks, shower and bath tile liner, wire covering. Many things that today we see in plastic that were in the past made from lead.

[Charlie Horse]

I prefer to keep things like that in their original form. You never know when you might want to sound-proof a wall or something. All my lino is still in print form.

I would use that foil to make soft hunting bullets, slightly hardened with some lino. You can always make a harder alloy, but you can't make a softer one.