print plant dross

[Guesser]

I came into 8 very heavy five gallon steel buckets of dross and floor sweepings from an old newspaper printing shop. The buckets weigh in excess of 110 pounds each. I smelted down 1 bucket, out of it came 74 one pound Saeco and Lee ingots. I did a small batch and then waited about 4 weeks and put a couple of the ingots to test on my Cabin Tree tester. Every ingot tested a uniform "90", converted to 22 BHN.
I've read here and been told that lino lost it's alloyed tin & antimony thru the repeated heating and skimming process for repeated use. As this is dross and now clean and in ingots, how hard will this stuff become with age?

[Guesser]

150 views and no one has a comment? Do I have bad breath? Or maybe I'm simply socially unacceptable!!!!

[fryboy]

or possibly you're just impatient :kidding: on somethings i prefer to sleep on it so to speak , others of course have their own reasons [shrugz] and actually it's the first time i read this thread ( personally in page views many i believe are google bots , others are the folks wanting to learn )

as to the umm alloy .. evidently it still has some lead in it , i'm also wondering if perhaps it had a wee bit more lead you may not of lost 40 #'s per bucket , that's about what most lose when smelting raw ww's ( give or take a few percentages , but who's to quibble ? ) much of the dross depends upon the skill of the one doing the smelting , a old mizer may of gotten every drop possible out yet the new hire ( or the guy wanting to leave and go on a date ) not so much , i'm more curious what the fresh melt hardness was as it does help some to have the comparisons , i'm betting it's antimony rich and if properly fluxed tin rich ( which i think is part of the 40#'s per bucket you lost , regardless i'd test 10 or so pounds as lino ( and alloy accordingly ) and see what you get , a mix will always be just that - a unknown ( and which is why so many prefer to only buy alloy only in it's raw forms )

[williamwaco]

I came into 8 very heavy five gallon steel buckets of dross and floor sweepings from an old newspaper printing shop. The buckets weigh in excess of 110 pounds each. I smelted down 1 bucket, out of it came 74 one pound Saeco and Lee ingots. I did a small batch and then waited about 4 weeks and put a couple of the ingots to test on my Cabin Tree tester. Every ingot tested a uniform "90", converted to 22 BHN.
I've read here and been told that lino lost it's alloyed tin & antimony thru the repeated heating and skimming process for repeated use. As this is dross and now clean and in ingots, how hard will this stuff become with age?


This can actually happen. However in my experience it is so rare that I have never seen it. I have been buying lino from print shops since the 1960s and have had excellent results.

If your ingots measure BNH 22 after air cooling, they are pretty pure lino.

lino in my opinion is too hard for rifle bullets and MUCH too hard for handgun bullets.

I like to mix pure lead with lino in the ratio of 3/4.

With clip on wheel weights, ad about 10% lino. It will harden them only slightly but will make them cast much better filled out bullets.

I use lino only as a source of tin and antimony.


.

[Balta]

22 Bhn alloy..Man,you ar rich caster !

[facetious]

when you melt it dose it have a slushy stage? Lino will go from solid to a liquid all at once, when it cools it will turn solid all at once.

[Guesser]

I do not cast boolits from lino. The richest I have ever mixed is 1/1 with WW, but that was a special project. I just wanted to know how much harder it would get with the passage of time after I have cleaned it up. It melts fast and clean. The biggest problem of fluxing and skimming is that it is a very fine dust that floats to the top. I'll be really surprised if I don't finish up with over 500# of good lino. I've purchased virgin lino before and this seems to be of equal quality.
Thanks for the comments, now to watch it age!!

[smokemjoe]

Places that melt sand or glass down use tin as flux, and throw out the stuff. check with them also. Joe

[rmatchell]

I work at a glass plant and have never seen tin added to the mix. In fact we don't flux at all. I know that sheet glass plant use a bed of tin to float the glass through the lehr though.

[Defcon-One]

The only way to know what you have is to test it. It could be Linotype if it was floor droppings, etc. If it is actually dross and skimmings, the odds of your having pure Linotype drop significantly.

I'd smelt it all and double flux (I like sawdust) to get as much metal back into the mix as possible, then cast ingots.

Then I'd get at least one ingot from each lot tested (XRF or what ever I could find). That is the only way to know.

Hardness is an indicator as is melting point of the metal, but neither is a guarantee. A little detective work will give you a better guess, but only testing will tell you for sure!

No matter what it is good metal to have! GOOD SCORE!

[Guesser]

I've got 74 pounds cast into 1 pound ingots. Beautiful material. I showed an ingot to another caster, he drooled. What made him mad was the fact that he had first option on it and passed.

[runfiverun]

i'd call it linotype and move on to mixing it for use.

[btroj]

I would call it Lino and move on too. The exact percentages just aren't that important. If you must know exactly what you have then buy from a foundry otherwise we all just make an assumption and move on. Somehow it always works out fine.

[Guesser]

on & gone; as suggested!!!

[smokemjoe]

I work at a glass plant and have never seen tin added to the mix. In fact we don't flux at all. I know that sheet glass plant use a bed of tin to float the glass through the lehr though.

Okey your right, I talked to the guy that works there now,
He set me right also, He gets the tin and sells it. Joe