Battery Terminals

[Ohio Rusty]

Here is what I acquired Friday at work. Some of these don't scratch and may be zinc. I will probably test each one with a pocket knife to see if a sliver of lead will easily peel off the terminal. Should I treat these as the same as wheelweight alloy ??

Update .... As I peeled slivers off the terminals that were lead, they actually peeled slivers off fairly easily. Might these be closer to pure lead ??
Ohio Rusty ><>

[jdowney]

I used to go through these fast on my old trucks in younger days. All that I had were pure lead, very soft.

[lightman]

Those can be about anything but most of the ones that I get are soft lead. There are a few that will test positive for Zinc and some of the older ones are brass or copper.

I test each one for Zinc and then melt them together and make ingots. Then I'll slip a few ingots into each large pot of scrap that I melt. I melt wheelweights in batches between 350-400 pounds and a few pounds of odd stuff has no noticeable effect.

Thats a nice pile of cable ends but they are still going to be a pretty small batch after you add tin and antimony to them. My thoughts are to use them by blending them into a larger batch of scrap.

Thats a nice score! Good job, keeping your eyes open for lead!

[Noveske86]

That is a great idea I will remember this next time.

[bangerjim]

A nice start on some pure soft Pb. I go thru 2-3x that amount every time I go to the range. 300gn 45 Colt boolits use a lot of alloy! It iwll make a decent pile of 9mm if that is what you are casting.

Never seen any of those made from Zn because Zn is attached rapidly by battery acid! That's why they use Pb.....inert to battery acid and fumes. And being much harder than Pb it will not conform to the battery terminals. Today they may make them for Zn due to all the environmental nut-case "greenies" out there

[Bazoo]

From what I've read, most are soft lead and the hard lead variety are Pb Sb alloy.

[rancher1913]

I have seen zinc ones personally, so make sure you check them.

[owejia]

Had to replace the battery cable clamps on my Agco Lt 85 tractor a couple of years because they broke. Were not lead. Tractor was mfg in England 2001 model, so they have been using other than lead cable clamps for a long time. Can still buy lead cable battery clamps here just had to do a little searching to find them.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I bought three 5-gal buckets of auto battery terminal connectors from a Auto Scrap yard several years ago. I never seen any Zinc ones, but I did see Brass and Steel. In fact my 2005 Toyota has Steel, I just replaced the battery a couple weeks ago and noticed that.

I smelted that three buckets all together, and got a alloy harder than COWW. The BHN would be about 14 after a day, and climb to 16 in a couple months. I was told Copper in a alloy will do that. So I think there is some Copper getting leached in there during smelting, because many had the copper wires still attached on my battery terminal connectors, the junk yard just cut them off.

[midnight]

I just keep all lead I get from batteries separate & use it for jig heads, lead hammers or vise jaws. It's the safest way to use lead from an unreliable source.

Bob

[GregLaROCHE]

It used to be if it looked like lead and felt like lead (heavy) it probably was lead. Today that has changed. fortunately, most imposters float to the top. Zinc is the one thing to look out for. I wouldn’t think they would make battery terminals out of zinc because electrolysis. However, someone just confirmed that they do. So be prudent when separating them.