dental x-ray lead?

[chewie]

does anyone ever melt down dental x-ray lead for casting?

would that be prue lead that i could use to make balls for my ROA's?

chewie

[Cactus Farmer]

Melt it and shoot it,lead is lead. The pic is of medical lead containers.....radioactive medical stuff.Life time supply? 85 lbs each....... Melted down:castmine: with 3% tin and I have great BPCR bullet alloy.

[Down South]

From what I understand, dental X-ray is pure lead.

[runfiveswife]

hey i never thought of using dental x-ray lead will have to check with the dentists office here

[Shuz]

The Kodak brand I get from my dentist is 99%lead (according to the folks at Kodak.)

[chewie]

i live in a town which has about 20 dentists. my wife and daughter each work for two of them. lead from them was not an issue. so i went to 4 others today and 3 out of 4 gave me lead and took my phone number. got about 30#'s from the 3. so thought that was good. they all said they pay to have it taken away. i am going to encourage people to get more cavities so that means more lead??????

[idahoron]

The dental lead i get from My dentist is hard. I have a lot of it and it runs between 11.5 and 12.5 BHN on my cabin tree tester. Ron

[floodgate]

The dental lead I got from our dentist, before he went digitable, is a bit on the hard side too. Apparently, different sources use(d) different mixes.

floodgate

[44mag1]

Ive used the lead lined drywall lead from a doctors office remodel. It seems real soft so my guess is its mostly lead if not %100. I added wheel weights to it and it cast just fine.

[454PB]

I've been getting the lead shields from dental Xray squares for some time. My daughter works as an assistant to an endodontist, and has been saving them for me. I too assumed they were pure lead, but I cast some boolits with the stuff and then did a hardness test. There is something added, because they test about 8 BHN, which is harder than pure lead. I suspect it is tin, because it casts quite well. Better grab them while you can, they are now using digital equipment that doesn't use the lead shields.

I also have some of the large shielding containers for radioactive materials. These weigh 11 pounds each, and appear to be WW alloy. They cast just like WW's, and hardness test the same.

[randyrat]

I beleive there is some tin in there also, because the little rectangular peices i got were a little harder than soft lead and they cast just like tin rich alloy. I plan on adding some/ a little to my WWs to up the tin content. This stuff is nice! it makes great 45 acp bullets. I'm not wasting anymore of it on 45 bullets though. Watch how fast they melt in a pot of WW aloy, they have to have tin or something in there to make them melt so fast. Pure would melt slower. Pure lead sits there and floats for a while on top of my WW alloy before it melts. I need to visit more dentist offices.***** Hi my name is ###### and i recycle lead do you still have/use the dental Xray........................... I'll be happy to pick them up at no cost you.

[chewie]

will be alright to cast for my balls for my rugers? or what should i do?

[jahela]

I got about 50 pounds of X-ray paper/lead-sandwich last year.
It was from the company they xray our welding-constructions...

I melted it and sent a small piece to a battery-manufactor who made me an analysis: 99% lead 1% tin.

BUT I'll never do this work again except I have NO other lead-sources anymore.
At first I thought it can be melted with the paper left, no chance, too much paperwith too less lead.
Then I layed the sandwich in a bowl of water with some dish liquid an separated the lead from the paper. that works quite well, but toooo much work.
Because of the big surface it was nuch odise in the melt.

Dirk

[eka]

A friend of mine has been bringing me little bags of lead foil for some time now. I have no idea where he gets it, but he says it's from a dentist office. These things are approximately two inches by two inches or so. A sandwich baggie full has a little weight to it and I assumed it would be nearly pure lead and threw it into my stash of lead for round balls.

Is that the kind of dentist office lead you guys are getting? I haven't run across this stuff before.

Keith

[chewie]

yes. that is what i am getting.

[remy3424]

Melt it and shoot it,lead is lead. The pic is of medical lead containers.....radioactive medical stuff.Life time supply? 85 lbs each....... Melted down:castmine: with 3% tin and I have great BPCR bullet alloy.

RADIOACTIVE????? is all the dential lead like that?? Is it worth messing with??? I like my hair not falling out in bunches!!! Oh, Walmart called for you Cactus Farmer...they want their shopping cart back!!!

[454PB]

Yeah, the 2" squares are what I get. I think those big 85 pounders are for radioactive material containment (think radiation treatments), and have nothing to do with dental shields.

[chewie]

50#'s of dental lead today. WOW

[eka]

RADIOACTIVE????? is all the dential lead like that?? Is it worth messing with??? I like my hair not falling out in bunches!!!

The lead is not radioactive. Lead is a barrier that prevents the rays from passing through it. The fact that the lead does not absorb the radiation is precisely why they use it.

Keith

[catboat]

I've retired from 20+ years of technical sales in the paper chemicals industry, and I'm now in my third (and last) year of dental hygiene school.

The lead backing to the films are safe. They are not radioactive.

I now have a small, but steady source of lead from our clinic. I want to keep in contact with them after I graduate.

.