Woe and Intrigue: Thick Brown Dross

[Woodsroad]

"Krap", does that make it past the filter?

[sargenv]

Doesn't mean that it will not kill you, it will just kill you differently.

Hmm.. like too many pepperoni pizzas and beer eh?

Thanks for the reply all

and yes, the "K" word seems to get past the filter...

[sagacious]

The local department store was selling fishing weights labelled as "cadmium." I bought some just to see if it could actually be true. They were slinky weights for steelhead drift fishing, filled-- sure enough-- with cadmium shot.

It's too bad that cadmium is so toxic. It has a low melting point and remarkable cavity fill-out properties. I remember seeing castings of large tropical horned beetles poured from solid cadmium. The beetles were placed in a plaster/bentonite clay mixture, and the mold was heated to orange hot in a furnace. The beetle would burn to carbon, and the solid carbon would vaporize as CO2, leaving a beetle-shaped cavity. Then cadmium was poured in, and once cooled, the mold placed in water which softened/dissolved the plaster. And presto, a shiny cadmium rhinoceros beetle-- every leg, horn, spine, and antenna reproduced perfectly in metal.

There are several metals that would be immensely useful for casting bullets, were they inexpensively available and not so toxic. We have much to be thankful for that lead is easy to use, inexpensive, and not too toxic to work safely with.

[pjh421]

So when I handle cadmium plated parts at work am I killing myself?

Paul

[sagacious]

So when I handle cadmium plated parts at work am I killing myself?

Paul

No.

Just don't eat them, or roast anything over them.

[SciFiJim]

Or melt them.

[lwknight]

And presto, a shiny cadmium rhinoceros beetle-- every leg, horn, spine, and antenna reproduced perfectly in metal.

I always wondered how they did that. It would in effect be making a fossil.

[StanDahl]

I flux again and begin seeing a pretty weird thing: Brown/red/green dross "bloom" starts rising out of the melt. I remove it. It is very heavy, with a consistency of dirt. ...As I remove it, more rises to the surface. It's looks like that this is an oxide, forming as the surface of the melt is exposed. I realize that I could sit there and remove it all day. It looks like rusty dirt, but is not magnetic. If I scoop some up with a strainer, as the molten lead drips out of it, it leaves a
stalactite of slag, which begins to glow and burn off, giving off a thick yellow smoke. I do have a respirator on.

I had exactly same thing happen 10 years ago with some lead I got from a scrap yard. My dross looked like the crust on a peach cobbler, and it just kept coming up. I'd scrape it off, and it would return, then harden to where I had to break the crust to get it out. I got a sick feeling in my stomach when I posted this on the Shooters forum and someone suggested cadmium contamination. I wasn't wearing a respirator. I had all kind of hypochondria about it for a few weeks. I've survived this far, and if it kills me someday, I'll probably have forgotten what could have been the cause.

[Woodsroad]

Stan, you can get a Cd level blood test. Just ask your physician. Or not, if you ever intend to buy life insurance.

For the record (don't remember if I posted this or not) I did get my blood checked, and it is below threshold for Pb and Cd.

Whew.....

[leadman]

Cadmium is used as a plating on most of the bolts that hold the things in our lives together. As a mechanic I used a torch to cut many of these and saw the yellow smoke and thought nothing of it.

Also recently some childrens' jewelry imported from China was found to contain high levels of this metal. Must be because it casts so easily?

[Woodsroad]

Cadmium is used as a plating...<snip>...recently some childrens' jewelry imported from China was found to contain high levels of this metal. Must be because it casts so easily?

That and they don't give a rodent's posterior about the lives of their workers or anyone else in the world.

[sagacious]

As long as one doesn't eat, breathe, etc, the cadmium, it's not going to hurt anyone. Same as lead, which we've learned to handle safely and properly.

Cadmium was used to plate refrigerator racks, as it offers excellent corrosion resistance for that application. However, some folks would use old fridge racks as makeshift campfire grilling racks, and that's apparently a good way to introduce dangerous levels of cadmium into one's diet.

To my knowledge, cadmium is no longer used to plate fridge racks or anything else that comes into direct contact with food-- but just to be safe, it might be best to avoid grilling with fridge racks.