Mystery Metal--What is it and can it be smelted?

[TexasJeff]

I was making the rounds at my salvage yard last week and the guy gave me a five-gallon bucket of wheel weights. In the bucket were also these two pieces of metal.





At his operation, he has a tire remover and machinery all in a separate area, so just about anything that is in buckets is front-end (automotive) related, and he tries to keep like metals together.

I'm not sure what these things are (which is kind of embarassing since I'm a semi-decent shade-tree mechanic), but they are heavy as hell, "clunk" when you lightly drop them on a concrete floor, scratch VERY easily. . . . but here's the catch, they don't want to melt.

I held the torch to an edge of one for over five minutes, and it didn't so much as even dimple it. The "test" wheel weights I next to this mystery metal melted real fast. But not this chunk.

Pretty much stumped. Any ideas what this is? (I have two of them.)

Jeff

[azrednek]

It looks like steel adapters for an old brake drum lathe shaft to me.

[TexasJeff]

It looks like steel adapters for an old brake drum lathe shaft to me.

Sorry, but I forgot to mention that it has zero magnetic qualities to it. I mean zilcho whatsoever. I was thinking the same thing (steel) except these things (I have two of them) weight a LOT MORE than steel would--getting into the range of what cast iron would weigh, but again, no magnetic qualities. No "ting" when you hit it against concerete or against each other. Soft enough to scratch and flake easily--and the flakings are easily molded/moldable.

It just won't melt!

Jeff

[Lead melter]

Kryptonite?

[fishhawk]

has to be "nonmelteum"

[targetshootr]

It's Fred Flinstone's bowling ball. No clue. Maybe scratch an area clean and then see if a torch melts it.

[Christian for Israel]

zinc? or maybe uranium?

did you check it with your geiger counter?

[Bill*]

If it was only a hand held propane torch, maybe it was just to large a "heat sink" to melt. You might want to torch a few scrapings and see what happens.

[mtnman31]

Ditto to what Bill* said. Carve or saw off a few chunks and see how well they melt and maybe put them under the lead hardness tester. A big piece like that is a huge heat sink and you'll have a hard time spot melting unless you use something like a cutting torch.

[Lloyd Smale]

like was said a lead block that big would take some real serious heat to melt.

[TexasJeff]

Mucho thanks.

Good idea about chopping it up--headed out to my shop to see how that goes.

Each one of these things weighs right at 20 pounds. If it turns out to be lead, it'll be interesting to see what the BHN/hardness factor is.

Even better, if it IS lead, my pal at the salvage yard said, and I quote, "You can have all of the damned things you want. I'm tired of throwing my back out picking them up!"

Jeff

[HeavyMetal]

I'll second the heat sink concept. I'd clean the lead pot hit the heat as high as it would go and then run the propane tourch over the top of these things until they melted.

Keep everything seperate as it could be zinc. once it's melted cast a few in a nice sized mold and check for hardness if you have the tools.

At this point you can make a much better guess as to what it might be.

If it helps years ago I got several large chunks of lead and spent hours trying to melt them down into something I could feed into my old Lee pot. Finally did exactly what I outlined above and cast them into ingots I could use as needed!

Keep us posted on what you find out.

[truckjohn]

OK,

Figure 1 liter of solid lead (About a quart) weighs about 25 lbs.
Or.... roughly 0.41 lb per Cubic Inch.

Now, get out the tape measure and do some rough volume calcs.... and figure out the volume.

So.... a 4" OD, 1" ID X 4" tall pure Lead cylinder weighs ~19 lbs.

Steel the same size weighs about 11 lbs. (0.6 x Lead)

Aluminum the same size weighs 4.5 lbs. (0.24 X Lead)

Anyway, how big is that thing....
It looks like it is about the size of a 1-gallon paint can.
If Lead, would weigh ~75 - 100 lbs.

Aluminum would come in right at 20 lbs..... which is even more interesting.... because 20 lbs of Aluminum is worth way more than 20 lbs of Lead....
Aluminum is also non-magnetic, and scratches easy. Hmmmm

Good luck

John

[TexasJeff]

It's lead, and now it's in ingot form.

Stuck them in the dutch oven, cranked up the heat, waited about an hour and voila--beautiful shiny lead.

It is now sitting in ingot form with a "Lee" stamped on it since I used my Lee ingot mould--I figure this stuff is purer lead and that is how I keep the pure lead separated from the WW lead. WW lead gets the Lyman mould.

Appreciate your insight, and now that everything is cranked up, I might as well finish sweating my butt off and melt down the rest of my wheelweights.

Jeff

[Goatlips]

"Mucho thanks.

Good idea about chopping it up--headed out to my shop to see how that goes.

Each one of these things weighs right at 20 pounds. If it turns out to be lead, it'll be interesting to see what the BHN/hardness factor is.

Even better, if it IS lead, my pal at the salvage yard said, and I quote, "You can have all of the damned things you want. I'm tired of throwing my back out picking them up!"

Jeff"

Jeff ol' buddy,

Don't think that all the advice above is without cost - please go back to your pal and box up a few for everyone that replied. There's a rule around here somewhere that says you have to.

Goatlips
__________________

[454PB]

I have some radioactive isotope containers that look a lot like yours. Mine weigh 11 pounds each, and the alloy is nearly identical to WW alloy.

[Cherokee]

Jrff - check the hardness on those. May not be pure lead.

[KCSO]

It won't melt because you have so much mass to heat up. The bigger the chunk of lead the more it takes to get it to run. They look like windmill bushings to me and if they are they are prime lead babbit material.

[Christian for Israel]

I have some radioactive isotope containers that look a lot like yours. Mine weigh 11 pounds each, and the alloy is nearly identical to WW alloy.

i TOLD you to check it with your geiger counter...