Consider as pure?
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Consider as pure?
I do.
swamp
Yes ... lead roof sheathing , roof flashing and if you can find them , lead shower pans (showers were built with lead sheathing) all are considered as pure soft lead .
They may have a little something when rolled out into sheets but as scrap consider it all dead soft lead .
Gary
Perfect. Thank you, gentlemen.
Yup. Perfect answer right there.Quote:
Originally Posted by gwpercle
Yeah, all of the lead sheet I've ever seen had to be pure lead considering how soft it was. I keep a short strip of it on my loading bench for when I need to use a pair of pliers to get a stubborn die to turn but don't want to scuff up the knurling. Wrap that soft lead around the knurled portion of the die before grasping it with the pliers and the problem is solved.
You won't find much Lead sheet that isn't more or less pure.
If it looks dark gray, with a powdery dust looking something on it-- it'll be the pure stuff.
Other than pure foundry "plumbers" ingots it is as close to plain lead as you are likely to find as scrap metal. Lead pipe will also be close but solder joints and sometimes a trace of antimony will be in pipe.
I keep a couple of pieces of sheet for wrapping on vice to protect soft metal parts I clamp in the vice and have a larger sheet on hand to use as a funnel to drain fluids from places where getting a funnel can be difficult. Like under a car where drain plug can be above suspension or frame. Can just bend sheet into a trough to drain into a pan without getting fluid all over the place. Lawn tractor oil changes too. Drain is too close to frame to get funnel under but the sheet slides between frame and plug and can direct oil out to fall in drain pan.
Lead sheet is very useful and is very soft. When I buy scrap, I keep my scrap sheet as sheet and don't melt it into ingots. I do melt the stuff that is not easily flattened. I cut the flat sheet into plates less than a foot square. It stacks easily.
Tim
I keep a little lead sheeting about for if I ever want to cast muzzling projectiles. What I have was lead sheeting from a dinitrotoluene line. It was used for antispark purposes. I just grab few pounds when it was being stripped prior to burning the building down as a way to make it safe or explosive free.
There is a ring of 50/50 solder where the round part meets the flat part.
I cut it out and add it to WW when casting to add a little tin to the mix!
If you look closely you can see that it’s a different color.
yeah, just like keep solder joints separate when salvaging lead pipe, I keep the joints separate when salvaging sheet.Quote:
Originally Posted by deltaenterprizes
Tim
I gave a piece of sheet lead to a guy at work. His hobby was rebuilding old tractors. Can't remember which brand, but they used a round lead washer as a gasket, in the radiator. He was very happy cuz he hadn't been able to locate any sheet lead
Long arm: Lead sheathing is the best soft lead for casting into Minie ball boolits, conical and round balls for muzzleloading rifles and cap and ball revolvers. The Minie ball has a skirt that has to be soft to expand into the rifling to spin the bullet. Lead pipe is usually dead soft too. But the joints on lead sheathing and lead pipes is tin. The old plumbers would use the tin bars to bond the lead sheathing and lead water pipes together. I have always saved the lead/tin joints to use in alloying my cartridge gun boolits.
Yeah, I'm another that considers it pure except for any soldered seams. Flashing, roof jacks, lead pipe and stick-on wheelweights are also considered pure, at least for our needs. Like deltaenterprizes I cut the soldered seam out and add it to the next batch of wheelweights.Quote:
Originally Posted by long_arm
Very interesting and useful information, gentlemen. Thank you.
I thought it was well know that any lead item that extruded, like pipe, has antimony in it to extrude it easier. I've used just about all the stuff mentioned here and will say the thin lead sheets are close, but everything else...no cigar. If you had 99.9 percent pure lead and had the lead you think is very close you will see the difference. Another place you see the difference is in swaging it. But as the scrap out there today it's as close we will get or find.
You can still buy rolls of sheet lead ,saw some at the hardware......the price of a roll would knock your socks off ..........people with old houses with lead flashing are up for tens of thousands for repairs when a thief steals lead off their roof.
Historically, military flintlocks over here, used a piece of sheet lead to hold the flint in the cock. Today most people use leather, maybe the lead would make the flint hit a bit harder.
I tried to get the roofers to give me the roof flashing off my house (pipe exits), but there was no way I was getting in the dumpster to dig it out after they it in there. It's a shame, they should put it on the side and they could make some money off it.
My friend works for an A/C business and they encourage their staff to scrap the copper line sets they remove (the units the owners scrap) to use for their snacks/water.
We melted a lot of lead flashing when I was a kid. My father would get used lead flashing from his roofer. He'd bring us a bucket full when we needed it. Also, wheelweights were free back then (at least for us, we knew the tire dealer and did a lot of business with him). We didn't cast that much then, just for muzzleloaders and a few BP cartridge guns. The roof flashing is what we used for BP, with just a little WW.