I salvaged contaminated lead!

[357maximum]

44's method seems to be the way to go...boiling not good apparently

[Lon]

9mmcast, I don't understand, "Lead fumes at 825 degrees farenheit." Are you saying liquid lead turns to gaseous lead at 825 F? Or something else?

[Sven Dufva]

I talk to a metalurg in new boliden a swedish melt plant he told me that is the way they doit. I agree it a risky way to doit. When zn is boiling it goes away as posion gas. You most check temp all the time if it to hot you boil away tin and lead.

[T-Bird]

I thought I read a long time ago when I first began fooling with all this stuff that lead began to vaporize at 1100F.If it vaporizes at 825, I am going back to using a thermometer. Shoot straight, T-Bird

[44man]

1100 degrees sounds more plausible. A lot of us cast at over 800 degrees without a problem. Some guys have had themselfs tested for lead and after year and years of casting had a lower body lead amount then the general population.
I have a hunch that once the vaporization point is reached, there won't be any more dross form on the surface. Does any one know?

[Lon]

Pure lead boils at 3180 °F. I believe boiling means that the liquid, at the bottom of a bottom heated pot, turns to a vapor or gaseous state and rises to the surface of the liquid. I cannot achieve those temperatures. I don't know the boiling points of various alloys we use, undoubtedly less but not much. I melt wheelweights, etc. very carefully because the smoke of UNKNOWN crud could be harmful. I do not believe any caster has ever inhaled gaseous lead. You certainly can coat your hands in oxides of lead (dark grey surfaces) and then suck your thumb and ingest lead. You can also use a very high RPM grinder/sander on lead and produce particles small enough to inhale before gravity can pull them to the floor.
When I was a boy, 60 some years ago, the folk treatment for painful boils was to swallow fine birdshot of a shotshell. I'm guessing a little dark grey lead oxide got into their bodies and the lead which is very chemically inert passed through. I do NOT advocate this remedy, obviously.

[Sven Dufva]

Boiling temp lead 3180 F Melting temp lead 620 F
Boiling temp ZN 1665 F Melting temp ZN 786 F
Boiling temp TIN 4715 F Melting temp TIN 447 F
Boiling temp Antimon 2888 F Melting temp Antimon 1166 F

[Sven Dufva]

Here is a close up of the first boolit

That the way boolits should look. Must be perfect temp and a good alloy and a experence caster.

[44man]

There are still mystery things about metal. I bought antimony chunks and flux from Bill Furguson to make my hard alloy. It takes a small amount of flux and a temperature of 600 degrees to melt the antimony into the base metal even though it has a very high melting point. Without the flux, you must get the base metal super hot.
Now if we could find a zinc magnet to drop in the pot and pull it all out---huuuum, anyone have contact with aliens?

[Ricochet]

What you're doing there is not so much melting the antimony as dissolving it, like a lump of sugar in a cup of hot coffee.

The flux is keeping a surface oxide layer from keeping the antimony and lead apart so it can't readily dissolve.

When we heat treat boolits in the oven at 475F or so, the crystals of antimony in the mix are "dissolving" into the surrounding matrix of solid lead.

[felix]

Keep in mind that if tin does not surround the antimony, lead will. In other words, if there is no tin present in the amount necessary to "cover" all of the antimony, the boolit is just as prone to leading as if no antimony was present. No matter how "hard" the boolit is. ... felix

[44man]

Felix is right, I add a small amount of tin too. I follow Bill's formula for the alloy I want.