Hospital Lab Lead

[Wildwood-Lake]

Came across this lead at work. Will be taking apart this lab room and making it to something else. So everything goes to the trash or into the back of my truck. My question is how long does the radiation or what ever they used this lead for, stays in the lead? I know this lab has not been in use for over a year.

[jdfoxinc]

60 days max. What a find!

[Wildwood-Lake]

Wow..that's good to hear.
Also the silver blocks seam to be Linotype because of the ring they have when moving them.
Not real sure, don't have a tester.
These blocks are 8"x 4"x 2" and are 30 lbs each.

[rancher1913]

probably should have worried about the radiation before you handled it :bigsmyl2:

have some like the bricks and they test out real close to coww for hardness and usability, mine made excellent shot.

[Baja_Traveler]

I have 10-12 of those same bricks sitting outside in the lead stash. They are not particularly picky when they make them, so the alloy can be just about anything - but they usually tend towards pure lead. I have to mix mine 50/50 with hardball alloy to get a good silhouette rifle bullet out of it.
The hardest part is cutting them up into small enough pieces so they fit in the pot - I ended up getting a stainless pot from goodwill and melting the brick on the BBQ, then pouring the lead into ingot molds for easier handling.

[Skipper]

If the alloy is pure lead and the exterior is clean, it's not a radiological problem. The only time you might have a problem is when it's alloyed with antimony or other elements and it's been used in areas that utilize high energy photon beams for radiotherapy. Normal diagnostic xrays pose no problem.

[Wildwood-Lake]

probably should have worried about the radiation before you handled it :bigsmyl2:

have some like the bricks and they test out real close to coww for hardness and usability, mine made excellent shot.

I did wash my hands afterwards.

[runfiverun]

if the cylinders there are lead they will have some tin and antimony in them.[1/3 or so]
the bricks are probably @1% antimony.

[Wildwood-Lake]

if the cylinders there are lead they will have some tin and antimony in them.[1/3 or so]
the bricks are probably @1% antimony.

I didn't grab the cylinders, thought that they were the most contaminated.

[Skipper]

I'd check with the local high school or community college science teacher and see if he would check it with a geiger counter.

[lightman]

The cylinders look like isotope lead and should be safe. The half life on that stuff is extremely short. I would grab them too. Nice Score!

[skeettx]

As long as they are empty of sources, get the cylinders also
Mike

[Idz]

The hospital rad tecs should have checked for radioactivity before they ever let you near the stuff. Ask them. If they didn't check they are grossly negligent.

[Wildwood-Lake]

Yes..your correct. I believe that's why it was off limits for sometime. We just got the green light to start the job, I was fortunate to check
out the job first.

[n.h.schmidt]

I work in the industry .I deliver radio active med to the local hospitals. It is shipped in lead pigs that we reuse every day. If lead can retain any radioactivity ,I have not encountered it. We test the pigs after each use and as soon as the source is gone so is the radioactivity. I am around the lead bricks every day and and the same applies.
n.h.schmidt

[Wildwood-Lake]

I work in the industry .I deliver radio active med to the local hospitals. It is shipped in lead pigs that we reuse every day. If lead can retain any radioactivity ,I have not encountered it. We test the pigs after each use and as soon as the source is gone so is the radioactivity. I am around the lead bricks every day and and the same applies.
n.h.schmidt

Thanks n.h.schmidt that's good information. Would you happen to know what alloy the bricks have? The silver ones seam to be linotype.

[runfiverun]

any radioactivity they have seen will be shed in less than a month.
they use lead because it is a shield/barrier not because it soaks up the x-rays or isotopes.

[lwknight]

Two things here:
1. Lead is dead and radiation does not stay in lead. ( good grief people)
2. If those blocks were used as shielding for radiological monitoring equipment, they may be "Low-Alpha" lead worth around $100.00 per pound. Or they may just be plain old shielding.

[Lloyd Smale]

I was told the same by the xray techs at the local hospital. They said if it retained radioactivity they wouldn't be allowed back in the xray room until it was gone.
I work in the industry .I deliver radio active med to the local hospitals. It is shipped in lead pigs that we reuse every day. If lead can retain any radioactivity ,I have not encountered it. We test the pigs after each use and as soon as the source is gone so is the radioactivity. I am around the lead bricks every day and and the same applies.
n.h.schmidt

[Crash_Corrigan]

I was talking with a neighbor a few years ago and the conversation came around to my reloading and casting. I was helping him in his building of a large R/C plane that was quite large. I then went with him to the flying facility in Red Rock Canyon and he flew the plane.

A week or so later he asked me to come over to the house as he had something for me. He had about 350 lead bricks from the nuclear facility North West of Las Vegas. They were doing some alterations and these lead bricks 2 1/2 x 5 x 12 were excess and slated to be hauled off and disposed of at considerable cost. He had them trucked to his garage and it was up to me to make use of them.

Wow this was a very nice pile of almost pure lead that would work well with my pile of high percentage tin (solder drippings and pieces of wire solder from a radiator shop) that were also considered toxic waste and my friend (owner of radiator shop) was very happy to keep me supplied with super moldable but light for size alloy for my boolits.

Used as received they cast very easy but the boolits were very brittle and never expanded at all. It is a bear to melt down those droppings and drippings etc in a bare cast iron pot over a coleman stove.

When I finally upgraded to a turkey fryer and a propane tank it was a lot easier. And if I left an inch or so of melted alloy in the pot the following smeltings were a breeze. Another friend got into welding and made me some ingot molds. A Ballard casting ladle makes smelting and pouring melted alloy into molds (ingot) a really easy and safe procedure.

Now I look forward to an extensive smelting session where I combine the two ingredients and end up with a high quality alloy for casting boolits.

As I am pushing 76 years I could be taking that final dirt nap any time now but I hope for the best but I think I have my lifetime stash of boolit making alloy.

[labradigger1]

All the isotope containers I have had have all been very soft lead. All the bricks I've had were a good bit harder and would "ring".

[dragon813gt]

The isotope containers are going to vary greatly depending on their size and shape. The large ones that are most common are 96/3/1. But you can find ones that are almost pure. The only way to know is to have them tested.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Friend of mine was a maintence worker at a local hospital. He moved lead shielding containers to a secure lead lined storage bunker in the hospital as the cores came to be used. He was told by a lab tech that the nuclear half life for the lead to not have any contamination was 6 months max. The lead was marked with a date and was checked with a geiger counter before disposal. Amazing how many hospital workers as well as Dr.`s wanted that lead that was given away for free.Robert

[plainsman456]

They make good boolits without adding anything.

I have bought several hundred pounds and wished i had gotten more.

[Beagle333]

Those containers would be a sweet find.

[Wildwood-Lake]

Well I finally got back to that job and got the cylinders.
Thanks Guys for all the information. Maybe sometime after the New Year I could find someone to test
this lead for the BHN.

[rmark]

This might help identify what you have -

http://www.fellingfamily.net/isolead/index.html

[lightman]

Glad it was still there for you. Its usually nice and clean.

[marek313]

I bought couple of those bricks before and they smelt just fine but are pretty close to pure lead so you might have to mix it with some lino. Nice clean stuff though, very good :drinks:

[Leadmelter]

As a former Nuclear Medicine Technologist, you have to document the fact that the lead is not contaminated with isotope according to the NRC rules.
Leadmelter
MI
Retired CNMT and MR technologist

[Winger Ed.]

Can lead be mixed? EHow do you work with its vapors?

Lead is mixed into various alloys all the time.

Lead boils and creates vapors (steam) around 1,700-ish degrees.

However; as you're melting it, there is a concern from fumes of other trash coming off it.
The way most people get Lead contamination is from injesting Lead in a dust form, not fumes.

You need to be more concerned with the Lead dust coming off a dry media case tumbler than the melting pot.

[DW475]

Always a great day when you can find a stash like that. I've melted a few lead source containers down over the years and they casted great bullets. Hard to find around here now!

[echo154]

I recently scored around #500 of the Isotope vials (big cigar tubes made of lead) my contact said they only release them to the public when they reach what is considered equal to "background" radiation. The Isotopes used have EXTREMELY short half lives and do not present much problem, remember patients swallow some of the Isotope pills! The best is if you can score the lead sheeting in the walls when they remodel. I scored #700 of PURE lead sheeting when they remodeled a veterinary X-Ray suite..........very happy camper. was free, all I had to do was help demolish the suite.
I find the tubes are an alloy....fairly hard......I'm gonna mold some 45-70s and Hi-Tek coat em.......I usually go 1900 for a 405 fp. we shall see.

[kevin c]

Big cigar tubes painted blue? The ones I got were used to hold glass ampules of radioactive xenon gas. The analysis BNE did for me showed 2.5% Sb, no tin.

[oley55]

I have just over 100 pounds of ISO lead and it's all harder than I expected and the ingots generate a notable ring when thumped or dropped. Careful application of the "Pencil Hardness Test Method" says my ISO lead is a B pencil at 13 BHN. Since I PC my pistol boolits I am always on the look out for cheap soft lead to make some softer 50/50 type alloy.