Blue/Purple Colors

[gustusj]

Hello All!
I was given some lead sheeting used in the walls of an x-ray room in a hospital. It appears to be pure lead and is fairly thin. I melted it down to make some slugs for slugging barrels. When I got it melted, it had a blue/purple tinge to it on the top. I fluxed it like crazy and cleaned everything as good as I could. The tint was still there. It was almost like fuel on top of water. Anyway, I went ahead and poured my ingots. When they cooled...they still have the color to them. I hope the cell phone pic will help. What do I have here? Is this some contaminate? Did I have the melt to high? Thanks for any information you can offer!



Gus

[badbob454]

it radioactive send it to me >>> just kidding there is nothing wrong with it it is normal for pure and nearly pure lead to have these colors great job and a good score ,,,
now to score some harder lead to alloy it , so you can push them fast, this can be wheel weights clip on type or printers lead , harder bullets are best for fast high pressure loads , the pure is great for black powder . 38 spec loads . or not so high pressure .. Good job !

[runfiverun]

near pure/pure and high heat will give you all kinds of colors.

[gustusj]

Good deal! Thanks for the information. Bad Bob, I've made that offer a few times myself, but I never get takers on the "hot" stuff!

I was hoping this would be the case. I've just never noticed all of the pretty colors before. I'm planning to use some of this near-pure for slugging barrels, etc. I've got quite a few wheel weights saved up. I'll save a little as near-pure for use then alloy the rest to harden it up.

Thanks for the info! I don't post often (as you can see) but I lurk a good bit and there's always good information and helpful people on this forum. Thanks!!

Gus