silver vs "blue" ingots?

[10 ga]

Just culled my lead cache and smelted all. All ingots came out silver except the cable sheath ingots. WW silver, stick ons silver, lead pipe silver, soldered joints combined from pipe cable sheet and boots silver, diver weights silver, old ingots from plumbers pot leftover melt silver, plumber lead joints busted out of Fe pipe silver. The cable sheathing ingots have a "blue" sheen. All were fluxed and melted same process. What is in the cable sheathing to make it "blue"? Thanks, 10 ga

oh yeah, have 2 - 50# ingots of raw lead and 6 - 5# ingots of plumbers lead and 1 - 5# bar of wiping solder that I didn't smelt. They are grey, ha ha. 10

[Bill*]

I believe pure lead can have a blue sheen to it

[Muddy Creek Sam]

If it has tin it will be silver, Pure will have a blue tint.

Sam :D

[Hardcast416taylor]

Just smelted near 100 lbs. of known soft pure lead. Came out with the blue coloration. Does the term "metallic blue" come close to describing it?Robert

[lwknight]

The blueish color is only for the purest of the pure lead.

[10 ga]

Yes, metallic blue, like a "shark skin" suit I had back in the day.

Just a rundown of what I ended up with: 367# ww, 46# truck ww, 36# so ww, 66# pipe, 115# cable sheath, 46# range scrap, 7# solder joints from the pipe and cable sheath, 35# plumbers pot leftover ingots, 50# random soft lead mostly battery cable terminals and dive weights, and 5.5# of tin figurines and pewter weighed and a couple of ww added to go about 50-50. Then I didn't smelt about 75# of sheet lead, 2 - 50# ingots of pure, 1 - 5# bar wiping solder, 4 part rolls (2#) of 50-50 sweating solder, 3 - 5# ingots of plumbers lead. Next week I'll cast some boolits. My goal is 1 ton clean smelted ingots. Then I'll see if I think I need more. 10

[lwknight]

Hey , 10 GA be careful with the pewter stuff. There are zinc fakes out there.
Actually they may have only a small amount of zinc but it still messes up your alloy.

Do the acid test on unfamiliar brands of pewter just to be sure.
I got an old looking creamer that turned out to have zinc in it.

[Bob Krack]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=63550

Will tell you much about the color.

Bob