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A friend who works for the city water dept gave me the last lead water meter yoke in the town. We recently got an RO system due to nitrate concerns and that water is blended with the other well water. This has cause a shift in the water chemistry that is removing the calcium buildup in the pipes. Lead piping had not been a concern as the calcium coated the lead. Now there is no more lead plumbing. I gained 20 lbs of pure lead.
The best kind of lead possible.............free!
Makesure it's dry inside before putting it in the pot to make ingots. Somewhere I saw a fella with some 1" or so lead pipe and was cutting it off in handy pot lengths to smelt. The cutter was a Big wire cutter and it would seal off the end of the pipe when it sliced through...dang, can't remember where I saw this...but, it exploded in the pot. Pb everywhere!
Keep both ends open and dry.
Never thought about that OS OK. Makes sense.
Ahhhhhhhh, lead pipe. Good score. It's as pure as it gets. As has been mentioned, make durned sure it's dry before you throw it in the pot.
are there many small towns left using lead pipe? if so I want to know about all of them! but seriously, are there many left?
Oklahoma Rebel, I live in a fairly large city here in the great white north. The utilities guys say there are still miles of lead pipe in the ground, round here it doesn't seem to wear out. They replace it when they come across it, usually while fixing some other problem. Scored a couple of hundred pounds a few years back, great stuff.
This stack is about 2foot square by 3foot tall or a little more. All free
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l48/CBMJake/Pipe.jpg
Kevin
There is an incredible amount of Pb pipe out there...pre 1960 construction and many municipal systems. I wonder about the calcium buildup in the lumen, will it act as a contaminant to pure lead, it's bad to have it in alloys. Calcium oxides and acetates can be removed with muriatic acid (HCl) but I wonder if we even need to bother?
Loads over here and gas pipe to ,chop it up into 6 inch lengths only melt it from cold in a pot to smelt it .lots of dross from inside the pipe, gas pipoe is much cleaner but who cares as its free.
This is good advice,
to cut it in smaller pieces and put it in a cold pot.
Melt the batch by it self first, then save it to
mix later or trade for CWW.:coffeecom
I have melted down lead pipes from this source before and never encountered a problem with the calcium.
Lead pipe ingots I smelted XRF scanned at .6%Sn and 3.5% SB