Interesting trip to the scrap yard - what is it

[RogerDat]

I'm figuring this is the lead wire that has been mentioned on the forum as being plain lead. But what is it and what was it used for? Is that head plain lead too?

104201

At a scrap yard I also saw a chunk of lead that was pretty large, rang rather than thunked so I was interested but it was a large chunk so I knocked off a piece and asked them to check it with the gun. Came out as 74% lead but with 9% Titanium, 1.5% tin and about same % of antimony. No zinc, a little silicon. I passed on it having no idea what titanium would cast like.

Anyone ever come across high titanium lead? Is it any good?

[R.M.]

Titanium.Hmmm.I wonder how they alloy that with lead. You would think the high melting temp of titanium would cause problems, unless it's like antimony.

[bangerjim]

Not being able to touch & feel it and not being psychic (allergies today), I have no idea on that alloy with supposedly Ti in it. Never heard of it. Are you sure he did not read the gun wrong as Bi (bismuth)? If you could break off a piece easily, it is brittle which means rather hard. Might be a good thing, depending on what the yard charges for lead....which is what they should charge you.

banger

[RogerDat]

Well bangerjim it was hard but not brittle. Took hard blows with the claw end of a hammer to get a corner piece knocked off about 1/4 the size of a pea. By the last blow it was a small chunk that would not break loose. I looked at the readout same time as the employee, read Ti 8.78 to both of us. Can really find nothing on these two metals being used together but this looked like a crudely formed block. Maybe a combination of stuff melted together?

Any ideas on that lead wire?

[RogerDat]

The wire and it's head melted with a rapid transition from solid to liquid at between 385 & 415 degrees. Pencil test puts it between 4B and 3B (~10 BHN or a little under) Poured OK at those temps too. I made two ingots in muffin tin. One sort of collapsed into it's center, the other showed some bubbles on the bottom. Melt was only 400 deg. and mold was cool. Fluxed clean with one small shot of sawdust, and second one using bees wax.

Wire is 3/8 inch dia. and head is about 10 inches and 3.5 lbs. Really wish I could figure out what this wire and head were originally.

Whatever it was it melts nice so I went back and got the 65 lbs. that was left. :-) That wire had been sitting in the lead box at the scrap yard all winter. I just picked up the one chunk to check it out as plain lead. Pretty clear it's not plain. It melts at too low a temp, is too hard. And transition to fully liquid is fast, one minute chunk is sitting there, next it gets a little shiny puddle around the bottom edges, then sploosh whole thing is a puddle.

Somewhat better picture.

104416

[bangerjim]

Your best bet is to take one of the ingots you cast back to the yard and have them shoot it with their Xray gun. Since you bought a bunch of stuff from them, they should gladly do it.

Then you will know exactly what you have. Otherwise you are just guessing!!!!!!

banger

[leeggen]

I bet that is an end to pull the wire cable with. Just as we use a wiresock to pull wire with.
Cd

[RogerDat]

I bet that is an end to pull the wire cable with. Just as we use a wiresock to pull wire with.
Cd

I think you are correct. There was some Bell System Seam solder that was there during the same time frame. Wire pull makes sense it looks a lot like the end of a wire fish tape. And there are smaller and larger "heads' in the bunch.

Took bangerjims suggestion and asked the scrap yard to test ingot from wire with the gun. Wire and head are 3.4% Sb and 3.6% Sn and 88% Pb with a few percent Titanium and Silicon. That is how we cleared up the mystery of the Titanium in the big chunk I asked them to test. Gun sensor end has titanium dust/chips on it from checking loads of machined scrap. Probably picked up some silicon lubricant too.

Looks like I got 65# of something close to 94/3/3 for less than 70 cents a lb. They also checked 4# of some mystery ingot I picked up. That turned out to be 12% Sb 88% Pb so that was a happy trip to the scrap yard.

[bangerjim]

Good news! You have some useful alloy there for not a bad price!

banger

[badbob454]

hope you picked up the bell solder too...

[RogerDat]

hope you picked up the bell solder too...

I snagged that bell solder without actually knowing it was solder just because it was with a bunch of other solder bars. :p This pile of wire with slotted heads has been sitting in the pallet box of lead all winter ignored and lonely. Heck I have climbed in the box and pulled it out of the way to get to small stuff a few times myself.

Just not much coming into the scrap yard so I decided to grab about 5# of the wire to see if it was plain lead.

Oh and I don't think the 400 degree temp for wire melting in my prior post was accurate, too little lead in the pot. Think it becomes liquid above 400 but less than 500 degrees.