What exactly does car battey lead look like?

[Patrick L]

I totally get it that battery lead is a no no, and is very dangerous to try to smelt.

I was just wondering, what does this lead look like? I mean obviously lead looks like lead, but I mean what form does it take? The reason I ask is that in my lead hunts this summer I have gotten some lead from the survivors of deceased casters. Mixed in with the wheelweights, I have found two or three square pieces of lead, maybe 2x2 inches square, maybe 1/4 of an inch thick at most. What are these?

I have never melted anything but wheelweights and old fishing sinkers, and I know those when I see them. It occurred to me that I wouldn't know a battery plate if I saw one. Maybe if someone could post a pic of one for those of us who have never seen them?

[GerryM]

The plates are usually flat and thin.
The post are round and sold sticks at each end.
The lead is gray with white calsification from burned out batterys.
The only real dange is the same as regular lead . do it outside , make sure the lead is dry;

[Maven]

"The only real danger is the same as regular lead. Do it outside , make sure the lead is dry...." Gerry M

No, I'm afraid the risk is much higher with battery lead, especially from maintenance-free batteries. Those contain calcium and strontium, which are contaminants and must be removed; but doing so also removes antimony. Here I'll quote the late Dennis Marshall:

"The second, and more critical aspect...relates to the subsequent handling of the dross. Either in moist air or in contact with water, the intermetallics contained in the dross can react to form poisonous gases, such as stibine (SbH3) or its arsenic counterpart, arsine (AsH3)." from Lyman's "Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd. Ed.", p. 50, paragraph 3 (under Calcium and Strontium)

Btw, the rest of the above paragraph describes how great a volume of those posionous gases that as little as 3 lb. of wheelweights (and battery lead) can generate.

[btroj]

Not so much Gabby. Old batteries, like 50s or 60s era were ok. Newer batteries also contain metals like Calcium that can make the lead or dross do very bad things.

Newer batteries can produce a dross that can react with water, even moisture in the air, to produce deadly gases. These gases can kill in very low concentrations.

Messing with any batter plate lead is a bad idea. Big recycler can safely handle this stuff, we can't.

My guess is that any lead that has been around for years is fine. If it was an issue it would have made itself known a while ago.

Long as you aren't cutting open batteries pretty much any scrap yard lead should be fine too. Scrap yards don't want batteries either.

[bumpo628]

I totally get it that battery lead is a no no, and is very dangerous to try to smelt.

I was just wondering, what does this lead look like?

As you stated, battery lead is bad juju. The information in the sticky in this forum should be enough to scare anyone away from using it.

However, to answer your question:
The lead grid plates are filled with a crumbly lead oxide/sulfate. You can see various examples of the plates in the following picture. There is an empty one on the upper left. They vary is size, but they about the size of a 1/4 sheet of paper.

So if you find any grid plates at the scrap yard, you know not to buy them.

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/103477487/Battery_Plate_Scrap_Complete_Cell_.jpg

[Patrick L]

So then my little square pieces of lead are just that, little square pieces of lead?

[bumpo628]

So then my little square pieces of lead are just that, little square pieces of lead?

I sincerely doubt they are battery lead.
Post a pic and we'll take a look.

[I'll Make Mine]

No, I'm afraid the risk is much higher with battery lead, especially from maintenance-free batteries. Those contain calcium and strontium, which are contaminants and must be removed; but doing so also removes antimony. Here I'll quote the late Dennis Marshall:

"The second, and more critical aspect...relates to the subsequent handling of the dross. Either in moist air or in contact with water, the intermetallics contained in the dross can react to form poisonous gases, such as stibine (SbH3) or its arsenic counterpart, arsine (AsH3)." from Lyman's "Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd. Ed.", p. 50, paragraph 3 (under Calcium and Strontium)

Btw, the rest of the above paragraph describes how great a volume of those posionous gases that as little as 3 lb. of wheelweights (and battery lead) can generate.

Further, batteries made between the late 1960s and late 1980s may have cadmium in the plates; like calcium and strontium, it was added as a hardener and to reduce flaking to extend plate life. It is toxic in far lower concentrations than lead. It was banned in battery production because it leached from the lead into ground water after the batteries entered landfills (not a serious problem with lead itself, because lead forms almost no soluble compounds).

[PuppetZ]

That phrase should be read as "don't use batteries cell plates". They are made out of some nasty chemicals you dont want to mess with without the proper protection equipement usually found at the smelters. Now the posts and links that connect the grids together are of use. Getting them out of there might prove problematic though. Lots of work and there is acid in there you want to be careful when working with.

I work for the parts dept at a dealership and actually asked the battery guy if he'd be angry if the scrap batteries I give him back missed the external post. Said he dont care, then asked me why I wanted those. When I said I make bullets of of them he gave me the weird look :veryconfu

Oh! Did I mention I am the guy who buys the shop supplies? You can bet that I'll be getting these lead WW for as long as I can. I'm sitting on maybe 3000# of unused ones waiting to be used and then "recycled"

Life is good :bigsmyl2:

:castmine:

[Patrick L]

Sorry this has taken so long, I've been ealL busy with school starting up and all. Anyhow, here are some pics of the lead in question. I put a quarter in the picture for size reference. I guess, based on previous replies, these are not battery lead?


These are just little squares lf lead. The one on the left has a hole all the way thru it
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Smelting/leadandingotmold004.jpg

This one broke when I gave it the wire cutter test. There are hollow pockets inside
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Smelting/leadandingotmold001.jpg

[Wayne Smith]

That is probably sheets of an alloy folded over and whacked. I do that with my sheet lead to get it into the pot to melt it. Crumbly suggests something other than pure lead.

[I'll Make Mine]

I agree -- if the lead cracks and fragments when deformed, it's far from pure (pure lead will deform as much as copper before it fails, and takes a lot less force to do so). That said, what you have probably isn't battery plate lead; that stuff (if made in the past forty or fifty years) is patterned to give maximum surface area with the cell dimensions. What you have actually looks more like zinc, as in sacrificial anodes or dry cell battery cases, than lead; the hole would be for mounting to a metal part so that the zinc will corrode away before the steel it's attached to.

If it's zinc, first, keep it well away from any lead you may want to cast with; zinc contamination is very bad for lead alloys, both in terms of casting and for accuracy once you have boolits (zinc and lead segregate, leading to unbalanced boolits). You can test it by filing or buffing a small area to bare metal, then dripping vinegar on it; if it fizzes, it's zinc -- or just possibly something more reactive, like calcium (calcium will react this way, if a bit slower, with plain water, makes a good distinguishing test if you suspect it might be calcium), but zinc is the most common and cheapest metal that will react vigorously with the 3% acetic acid strength of household vinegar.

[Patrick L]

My experience with zinc is that zinc is barely scratched by wire cutters. All of this stuff is soft and cut pretty easy.

[bumpo628]

Sorry this has taken so long, I've been ealL busy with school starting up and all. Anyhow, here are some pics of the lead in question. I put a quarter in the picture for size reference. I guess, based on previous replies, these are not battery lead?

This one broke when I gave it the wire cutter test. There are hollow pockets inside
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Smelting/leadandingotmold001.jpg

The bottom one has letters on it that say "Permit No. B102", I believe.
This could be monotype. It makes sense since it broke in a brittle manner. If it were zinc, then I don't think you would have been able to cut it.