lead in planer knives?

[bangerjim]

Contact shadygrady on here. He used to sway Pb for Zn. Haven't seen his offers lately.

banger

[OuchHot!]

I'm just guessing but I think that the alloy tab is to provide a vibration and breakage isolator for the blade mount. Sort of a mechanical fuse that lets go before the blade is ruined past regrinding. If that is true, the alloy could be whatever is cheap, available and of sufficient hardness. I would suspect zinc, is present.

[psychicrhino]

Seems like I read somewhere a while back that ShadyGrady was no longer swapping zinc for lead as he was at one time.

[badbob454]

i had some of this type of babbit , used for logging it was tin ,zinc, and silver i would have it tested may be worth something for the silver content if applicable ./ ps shady grady is out of lead ingots but stated he will swap stuff ? for the zinc. what stuff i dont know ..

[357maximum]

I would hazard a guess that it is STONEWALL BABBITT as that material is used alot for balancing blades in planers and woodchippers and such....if it is in fact STONEWALL BABBIT it will test about

10% TIN
14 3/4 % antimony
1/4% copper
75% lead


I have a whole bunch of it and it is a great "sweetener" when added into 50/50 WW/PURE @ 5-10% for really nice looking and great performing hunting alloy boolits. Your crystalline structure description is dead on for STONEWALL BABBIT.

[psychicrhino]

357, that is possibly a bit of good news. But would it react with the muratic acid the way that it did without zinc in the alloy?

[psychicrhino]

Bad, I did ask at my local scrap yard this afternoon about testing an alloy. The snaggle tooth fellow there looked at me as though I'd just asked him to grow a second head (live in a pretty rural area) Ultimately, I doubt I will ever truly know what it is. I doubt that I have more that 20-30 lbs of it all total (guessing). I wonder if there is some place I could send a couple samples of to check, that wouldn't cost a prince's ransom. I may still try to melt and cast a little to see how it weighs up and what the melting temp is.

[psychicrhino]

Well, I couldn’t stand it any longer. So, I went and dragged out an old yard sale skillet I’ve never cast in before. I separated my two samples and fired up the coleman stove. I am new to casting and only have a couple of molds so I chose a Lee 309-113gr I cast some COWW in a couple of weeks ago. I decided to use the boolits in COWW as the baseline for the mold. Here is what I know (many of these are subjective observations).


Sample A
Grainy appearance when fractured (like broken cast iron)
Melting point appx 460 degrees
Dropped 103.5 gr boolit from 113 gr mold
A few very tiny bubbles noted upon close inspection when exposed to muratic acid
Multiple blows required with 2x2” pine to cut sprue
When melted, looked like smooth liquid chrome

Sample B
Crystalline appearance when fractured (like frost on a window)
Melting point appx. 450 degrees
Dropped 77 gr boolit from 113 gr mold
Vigorous bubbling when exposed to muratic acid (large bubbles with visible off gassing)
Basically the sprues were “harder than woodpecker lips” most effort with many blows required with 2x2” pine
When melted, looked like smooth liquid chrome

COWW Lead
Not tested
575-600 degrees is what I recall
Dropped boolit at 110+ gr from 113 gr mold (barely exceeded the 110 gr capacity of my Lee scale)
Not tested
Able to cut sprue with one whack usually with 2x2” pine
When melted, looked like smooth liquid chrome


So, I still don’t know what this alloy is. I do know that it seems to melt at a lower point than lead, no where near the 700+ degree melting point I have heard of for zinc. I also noted that it was completely smooth, just like lead, when liquid – no lumps – never got up above 650. All that said, again, I am very new to casting boolits. Just smelted my first 350# lead a couple of weekends ago and threw my first thousand boolits. So, do the results above mean anything to anyone?

[357maximum]

357, that is possibly a bit of good news. But would it react with the muratic acid the way that it did without zinc in the alloy?

I just tested a foundry made Indian Head ignot of my Stonewall babbit.....zero reaction with pure muriatic. Try one of your freshly cast boolits and see if it shows the same reaction. Sometimes oxides/crud on a specimen will show a false positive......your melt temp has me scratching my head.....I am firmly confused.

[psychicrhino]

It is dark now, but earlier I did take two samples down to bare metal with a grinder and got the same reactions. Vigorous with one, a few very small fine bubble with the other. I wonder if my temp could be way off? I actually brought each sample up to temp, then dropped the flame and let it freeze just barely, then back up liquid again to get the temp - could easily be off by 20 degrees +/-. But it sure was smooth as silk when liquid and tough, tough to cut at the sprue. Is there anything else that might be in the alloy that would react to the muratic acid?

[psychicrhino]

That being said, I can try retesting the boolits with the muratic acid.

[mikeym1a]

Since zinc melts around 780F, it probably is not zinc, even the one really light group. If zinc were present, it would rise to the top and look oatmealish. I would keep it, and use it to alloy pure lead. Two of the groups sounded like high tin/antimony alloy. The lightest one, no idea. but if you cast boolits at 500F, it's not zinc. Maybe someone will read this thread and offer to analyze the material for you. I'd keep it, myself.

[psychicrhino]

So, The reactivity of the muratic acid is supposed to be a good test for zinc. I have read this several times in several places. Today was the first time I have ever tried it. Tomorrow I plan to test it on a COWW ingot as well as some of the zinc wheel weights I have. Taking the observations I have listed above, the low melting point would lead me to believe that there is a significant tin component in both alloys. The low melting point would seem to preclude a significant zinc content. But! The reactivity with the hydrochloric acid....what about that. And what about the low wt. I seem to recall reading that zinc is appx 2/3 the wt by mass or density of lead. I started looking around a bit tonight to see if I could find any more information about the formation of hydrogen and the potential metals that could be in this mystery alloy. So, I did some reading, trying to look for scholarly resources.......I really did......however I ended up on YouTube. I found a couple of interesting videos that beg more questions. One shows a very mild reaction of lead to hydrochloric acid (very fine bubbles...much like I saw with one of my samples). Another video shows the reactivity of Tin to hydrochloric acid. I still don't know what any of it means but, just thought I would share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLUIzvWvg-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0iRvHk8908

[psychicrhino]

So as I continue to read I note that the density of zinc and tin are very close to one another and are appx. 2/3 that of lead. I also noted something else interesting about the 113 gr mold I used above. The density of lead just happens to be 11.3 grams/cc. Density of zinc 7.1 gram/cc and tin is 7.3 gram/cc. Gives almost a direct conversion rate out of the 113 gr mold if you were dealing with pure elements. Which we arent, but maybe useful tidbit for some other future caster?

http://periodictable.com/Properties/A/Density.al.html

[psychicrhino]

Linstrom has a good method outlined in this post from 2005 on dry and underwater wt comparisons to help with alloy percentages, assuming you are dealing with two elements.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/arch...hp/t-1038.html

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I wonder if it could be a tin-zinc alloy ?

http://www.asetsdefense.org/document...Feb%202011.pdf

according to the page 4 chart, a alloy of about 87% tin and 13% Zinc will melt around 230ºC (or 450ºF).

[clodhopper]

I should have seen this earlier. But I worked as a sawfiler/knife sharpener at a saw mill for several years.
That material is babbit. It is used to keep the knives the same width each time the knives are ground to resharpen.
The babbit is knocked out, knives ground, the the knife is put into a babbit mold and new babbits are poured into place. When the millright replaces the blades it is just a simple loosening of a few gib bolts pulling out the dull knives putting in the fresh set and tightening the gib bolts.
The bad news is that with out company records, the supplier of the babbit will be unknown.
The stamp on the knives reflects the source of the knife, has no information on the source of the babbit.
The good news, In the late 80's OSHA required lead free babbit or much more stringent inspections.
The mill I worked at bought from a supplier material labled "preminum nickle babbit", I was told to throw away the old babbit, I knew the old stuff very close to linotype and took it home and threw it away into my bullet making stash.
Working with the new babbit I asked the salesman who brought it " how do I melt nickle?" he said use the old babbit pot. I put it in and it melted at a higher temp than the old linotype babbit, and cooled very quickly with a shiney light golden sheen.
It took three months to get a sheet of paper with the alloy listed by components, but by memory, it was about 90% tin, 5% antimoney, 2% silver, 1 1/2% copper. Absoulty no nickle in it.
I hope your babbit is close to that, and happy bullet making.

Oh yeah, those look more like knives from a machine that works wet raw wet wood into rough lumber or timbers.
I used to run this nightmare of a beaver mill that took logs in one side and spit out square timbers shaped by four spinning heads loaded with staggered 2" wide knives. The heads were adjustable and could be set from 4" to 12". Eye balling each log setting the size and the log went through with a roar.
About 150 peices per hour.
Every day at lunch time I got to crawl inside it and replace the knives on one of the heads.
The good old days really were not that good.....

[bangerjim]

If you only have ~30# of this stuff, I would not worry about it! That is not much in the whole scheme of things. I figured you had hundreds of pounds of it.

It will cost you around $60 to have it tested by the places I know of if your yard will not do it for free. Mine all do it for free!

And no.............. HCl will not react with Pb/Sn/Sb/Cu or any alloy thereof. Zn and other reactive metals close to it on the periodic chart will react in varying degrees, even in an alloy. That is why it is the BEST test for Zn....better than dropping it on the floor for sound, bending it, or cutting it with pliers. I keep a 4ox squeeze bottle of it sealed in a ZipLok bag on the shelf for that exact reason. (seal it....it DOES out gas chlorine gas and will rust clean steel ever 2 feet away.....over time!)

You have some weird custom Babbitt-like alloy they must have brewed up in the mechanic's shop to hold those blades in place. It has been done in the past!

Just for S&G's, I just went out in the shop and tested some 56% Bi 27% Pb 12% Sn 4% Sb alloy I have and it does NOT react at all either. It melts at 148F.

With your lower melting temp, we are all just guessing. Only way to know is Xray analysis and 30# is not worth it.

God luck!

banger

[shadygrady]

zinc trades i have tin/lino/mono/babbitt/bees wax/hard wax/boric acid/bp/bp clothe/smokeless/top punches/sizer dies/power supplys/etc pm for trades

[psychicrhino]

Shady did you stumble on this thread by Googling your handle or zinc as the search term??!