leadlight scrap

[rollmyown]

Got a decent quantity of leadlight lead given to me by a local leadlighting business last week. When I tried to cast it into ingots I got an unusually large quantity of dross forming. I fluxed frequently with beeswax, - the dross seemed to keep forming ad forming. At the end of the session I ended up with a paint tin almost full of dross, and only a dozen muffin ingots. [smilie=b:

It's a shame, but I think I'm about ready to give up on this as a source of lead for casting with. I think the next plan will be to trade it for roofing lead at the recyclers. (I don't have any issues with roofing lead at all) Seems a bit wierd beacause it seemed like good soft lead (allbeit with a few contaminents -glass, putty etc.).

[lwknight]

No sense wasting a lot ot time and fuel on mystery junk.

What in the cat hair is Leadlight?

[rollmyown]

Leadlight is just another term for stained glass windows, like church windows.

Funny that it gave such trouble cos it for the most part looked like good soft lead.

[docone31]

It is heavy on the tin.
If you keep fluxing, you will flux it out!
Get a melt going and toss in some Roof Boots.

[fryboy]

it 's extruded lead channel with alot of solder to piece it together , i'd be tempted to resmelt ur dross especially if any of it was silvery color , once u had the original trash out it should of all been sweet alloy ,of course it will of also had a bit of lead oxidation if it came from old redone windows but that should of came out at the first fluxing IMHO

[sagacious]

When one has to flux flux flux over and over, something fundamental to the procedure is not being properly addressed. If that happens, stop and reconsider. If it's soft lead, refine it at as low a temp as possible. More heat will inevitably cause excess drossing with soft (pure) lead, and for this reason, more heat is not always better. Always refine any scrap lead at the lowest possible temp.

I have melted a bunch of that stained-glass lead. The fact that it's soft means that alloy content is low or essentially zero-- close to pure lead. When alloy content is negligible, excess drossing is almost always due to overheating the melt. This is a common melt-management error. You may wish to try to remelt your dross at as low a temp as possible, and flux close to the melting point. Good luck.

[rollmyown]

That definetly does make sense. As I backed off with the temp the dross formation did definetly reduce. I was a bit worried that the dross that then was not forming was remaining as comtaminents in the recovered lead. And yes the dross is heavier than normal by a fair bit.

[sagacious]

That definetly does make sense. As I backed off with the temp the dross formation did definetly reduce. I was a bit worried that the dross that then was not forming was remaining as comtaminents in the recovered lead. And yes the dross is heavier than normal by a fair bit.
Remelt your skimmed dross and flux it generously with paraffin. You may recover a fair amount of lead from it. Good luck.