Evaluation please, re: Yesterday's "variety pack" of scrounged lead

[cohutt]

After my nightmare experience with the "babbitt" that turned out to be pure zinc (and coated all my smelting gear with noxious blue oxidation), I thought i'd ask questions first and smelt later this time.
Yesterday I picked up some set asides from one of my sources. It was a variety pack to be sure. I've posted a couple pics below and my take on what it is and would appreciate any corrections/confirmations the long timers might offer.

On the tailgate, front L-R:
Weight with bolt- pure?
Plumber lead ingot-pure?
lead hammer head- pure?
3 plates with round cut outs- babbitt of some sort? I though counter weights of some sort initially but they are lighter and "ting" a little more. banging a ww ingot on them dents the ww.
counter weight with bolt holes-pure?
coffee can of lead foil- pure? looks like someone went to a lot of trouble peeling the cardboard off some dentist x-ray leftovers.
Bucket of WW- i know the ritual on these
Back- L-R
some big pipe with brass end fittings- Pure? These look like firehose / sprinkler system drains or connection ends, like on the side of the old buildings around here.
Flashing and plumbers seals- Pure?
"Pure" to me is 100% pure or close enough that it won't make any difference if treated as such.

Bottom pic has close up of babbitt plates

Comments. ideas? Thanks

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/Bulletlab013.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/Bulletlab014.jpg

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/Bulletlab015.jpg

[BigSlick]

You make me sick :mrgreen:

Showoff.

When I get home I'm gonna go on a ww scarfin rampage. I ain't gonna let up till I got em all.
________
SexualControl (http://www.girlcamfriend.com/cam/SexualControl/)

[Pepe Ray]

Cohutt;
The pics are welcome but IMHO, much of this requires a judgement call.
Whenever I have scrounged junk I use caution because the person who cast the item probably did not concern himself with Zink. His needs did not include the sharpeness or uniformity of bases and driving bands. Bolt anchors, hammer heads, and such only require weight. Contaminated (for us ) lead can weigh nearly as much as pure and serve their purposes just fine.
Whenever I see cast in lettering/numbering/logos etc. I consider that the alloy was purchased from a commercial supplyer, therefore made to a set of criteria for that buyer/caster. The likleyhood of it including zink is remote. If it was made to be used in some sort of moving machinery it's some babbit alloy. Old plumbing is soft lead except that sometimes a joint will contain tin.
Oh yes, nothing is "for sure". [smilie=1:
Pepe Ray

[ssn vet]

I've recently been advised that all my scrap roofing/flashing lead is pure, or very nearly pure.

[imashooter2]

I'd go with the flashing, foil, pipe and plumbers ingot as reasonably close to pure. Everything else could be anything at all.

[454PB]

Yeah the sheet stuff is probably all soft (pure) lead. You really have to be careful with some of the other unknown stuff.

I use all my non-castable lead to make counter weights and such. An example is a weight I made to steady a boom microphone stand. I put all my crap lead in a big pot, preheated the mic stand base, then poured 32 pounds of it into the base to make it steady. I'm sure there are others doing the same kinds of things, and if you stumble across these weights, you could have a mess on your hands. I'd recommend you test them by using small batches before ruining a large batch with them.

[cohutt]

After i sorted this last haul and got it in with the rest of my yet to be processed lead, i took a pic.
Last night I cleaned my smelting equipment ( it still had the horrible blue zinc oxidation on it from the mystery "babbitt" distaster that turned out to be zinc) and then wnet through some of my scrap. In went some of the thicker sheet, some flashing, all the seals and one of the pipes. Out came almost 200 lbs of nice soft nearly pure lead.
I say nearly pure as it is softer than wheel weights by a good bit, slightly softer than recovered outdoor range lead and barely harder than certified pure.
It does have a slight tinging to it and has color / brightness similar to wheel weights so there is some alloy in it, definitely not the "dull blue thud" of my pure ingots.
My camera battery died to no "after" shots of the pingot stack.

thanks for input as always

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/Bulletlab018.jpg

[buck1]

How I deal with mistery alloy is to melt it by itself and then cast with it a bit. I have a seperate pot for this. If it doesnt I throw it away!!.....FWIW/BUCK

[felix]

Buck, that would not be a good thing to do if the mystery metal is good stuff for augmentation purposes. Casting with it as a ready-to-go alloy should not be in the cards for any kind of mystery stash. ... felix

[felix]

As contrary as this stuff appears in the pictures.....it looks like you are in need of the likes of a MOAS kind of thing to do the actual initial smelting. See the operation on the CASTPICS site. ... felix

[felix]

If you find ready made and clean bars with an ID stamp of some sort, use that only as an augmentation metal. Do NOT melt it on its own merits, but instead use a hot pot about 80 percent full of normal lead to burn off some from the bar, keeping in mind how much. A little does it for most any babbit type of bar. ... felix

[cohutt]

MOAS. Just what my wife wants me to get. lol

I have a 22q dutch oven and a smaller one, maybe 8-10q.

I use the big one for big lots of known materials usually. Exeption was a couple months ago when I screwed up with a big mystery ingot that i thought was babbitt, turned out to be zinc. coated my stuff with blue crud. It was too big for the small dutch oven, which normally would serv as a test pot for smaller stuff. I also have small and medium cast iron frying pans that have been useful for some stuff as well.

I've figured a way to smelt the huge ingots in the picture, the ones serving as a pallet for the other ingots in the front middle of the pic. I;d lower them via a chain and hoist into the melt. Alternate might be to chainsaw them in half. They go 75 lbs or more best i can tell and would proabbly be pure or near pure. scarred up pretty bad from handling so i;d say they are very soft.

I'm in no hurry as i have 8 flat rate boxes of certified pure (xray shielding scrap) @ 90 lbs each, so until i need the lead from those ingots I guess i'll store them in present form.

[sundog]

I thought I'd throw this in just for 'grins'. Nothing to grin about really. Be careful with the heavy metals.

http://www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6sf/pdffiles/0601010.pdf

Not the only site in the world like this, just an example.