Pure Lead?

[HEAD0001]

I have some pure lead, and some WW. They were poured in the same ingot mould. I just moved. I have about the same amount of both. Now I am not sure which is which. Is there an easy way to tell the difference? Tom.

[Buckshot]

............Tom, several things you can do. Two real simple ones are the thumbnail test. True pure lead is easily dug into with the thumbnail, WW not. Or. do the ring test. Drop an ingot on the concrete. LEad is dead and will just go 'thud'. WW will ring, or ting.

.............Buckshot

[cohutt]

WW will be more silverery & granular looking, the lead will be duller and might have a blueish or irridescent (?) hue to it.

and the lead does "thud" without a doubt, no ding

[montana_charlie]

Find a steel ball bearing. 3/8" diameter would be a good choice.
Place it between two ingots and squeeze them together in a vise, just far enough to get a dimple in both ingots.
Measure to see which has the biggest dimple (diameter).
You will need to check several pairs to find dimples of different sizes.
Once you do, use the one with the small dimple to check others until that one is too dimpled to use. By then you will have found others.

All of those with the big dimples are your pure stuff.
CM

[Gussy]

Just take 2 ingots and hit the edges together. Lead will dent when hit with WW, WW-WW will dent less and equally. When you find a WW just use it for the "hitter".
Gus

[HEAD0001]

I will try these things, thank you. The ingots are not mixed, they are in two separate piles, I am just not sure which pile is what. Tom.

[GLL]

It will be easy to tell them apart using Buckshot's "ringy" vs. "thudy" technique ! :)

Jerry

[HEAD0001]

When you guys said "drop it on a concrete floor and you will hear the difference", I thought you guys were nuts. Until I tried it. You guys were right on. Thank you, Tom.:bigsmyl2:

[dubber123]

Wait till one of those zinc buggers hits the concrete, you can really tell the difference. At my brothers last smelting, I picked out some I thought were zinc, and the 2 other guys there were arguing with me, ( hey we are talking about 1 or 2 bullets worth of material here!), anyways, I grabbed one we all agreed was regular WW, and threw it on the floor, then threw one of these mystery weights on the floor. No more arguing, the sound was pretty different. The lead tester confirmed it too.

[hunter64]

This is exactly why I bought some cheap metal punchs, I stamp every ingot with PB and the date or WW and the date etc. Never have to worry about this problem.

[ktw]

I used to stamp them. Already had a stamp set sitting around. That turned out to be more work that I was looking for and my stamp set was limited to numbers.

I found it simpler and more convenient to just write on them with a permanent marker. A marker is usually closer at hand than the stamp set/hammer.

-ktw

[FISH4BUGS]

This is exactly why I bought some cheap metal punchs, I stamp every ingot with PB and the date or WW and the date etc. Never have to worry about this problem.

I just take a marker and put WW for wheel weights, LINO for linotype, and ? = unknown composition. I can always deal with those later. My ingots are stored in once used 5 gallon plastic buckets with airtight lids (they used to hold pickles for a sandwich shop). I am working on my 10th full bucket with another 10 of wheel weights to smelt.
But why do you put the date on it?