Boat keel

[Feral American]

Water lines have been plastic for a long time except at the pump control piping and well casing (around here anyway) doesn't extend into the water column. Most of that is changing to plastic.The few windmills I work on haven't had anodes.

Personally, I've seen a lot of "black iron" and copper water supply lines in my lifetime, and I've never once watched a plastic well casing being driven into the ground.

The answer to your question is the heat generated by the hot water tank, which is absent in the cold water supply.

Repeating, again, know what source your keel lead is coming from and this ridiculous discussion becomes mute......

Per hot water tanks:

"Heat accelerates the process of galvanic corrosion in water heaters by increasing the speed of the electrochemical reaction that occurs when two dissimilar metals are in contact with water, forming an electrolyte. This corrosion causes rapid deterioration of the more reactive metal, such as steel, leading to leaks and component failure. To prevent this, use dielectric unions to insulate metals, ensure anode rods are inspected and replaced, and perform annual tank flushing to remove damaging sediment.
How heat and galvanic action work together
1. Galvanic cell formation:
When two different types of metal (e.g., copper and steel) are present in a water heater and touch each other, they form a galvanic cell, similar to a battery.
2. Electrolyte:
Water acts as an electrolyte, allowing ions to flow between the metals and complete the electrical circuit.
3. Electrochemical reaction:
An electrochemical reaction occurs, causing the more active metal (the anode) to corrode and "sacrifice" itself to protect the other metal.
4. Heat's acceleration:
Higher temperatures, common in water heaters, speed up this chemical reaction, increasing the rate of corrosion."

[jsizemore]

It doesn't say that it does happen only that the action is faster with heat. Cold water piping with brass/copper fittings and iron pipe do the same thing. If you haven't seen plastic well casing maybe you haven't seen any in your area. Wells in my area are generally less that 300' and handle PVC well casing fine. I work on historic houses with copper gutters. Use of steel, stainless steel or plated steel screws will end with them be eliminated because of electrolytic action and their ain't no heat involved. At least not as much as a water heater. Far cheaper to replace a screw than a water heater.

[Feral American]

It doesn't say that it does happen only that the action is faster with heat. Cold water piping with brass/copper fittings and iron pipe do the same thing. If you haven't seen plastic well casing maybe you haven't seen any in your area. Wells in my area are generally less that 300' and handle PVC well casing fine. I work on historic houses with copper gutters. Use of steel, stainless steel or plated steel screws will end with them be eliminated because of electrolytic action and their ain't no heat involved. At least not as much as a water heater. Far cheaper to replace a screw than a water heater.

How's does ANYTHING you've posted here relate to keeping zinc out of the casting pot?

Repeating AGAIN, know the source of your keel lead and avoid the homemade ones. Unless you're just fine with risking zinc contamination.

How many threads can we find on this site that warn again zinc in at least one comment.

Then we have THIS one where apparently NONE of that matters........

[ulav8r]

There is a simple test for zinc using acid. It has been mentioned here many times, but I have never used it. If the test does not indicate zinc then keel lead could be a good source. If possible get a small sample and cast a few bullets. If it does not produce excessive slag and casts a reasonable looking bullet, then get all you can afford. If it casts great looking bullets, test the hardness and adjust if needed. If adjustment is needed then consider having it tested for exact constituents after melting all of it together so that you have a consistent alloy in each ingot. That might require several batches with subsequent batches being a mix of previous ones to get a consistent mix throughout.

[jsizemore]

How's does ANYTHING you've posted here relate to keeping zinc out of the casting pot?

Repeating AGAIN, know the source of your keel lead and avoid the homemade ones. Unless you're just fine with risking zinc contamination.

How many threads can we find on this site that warn again zinc in at least one comment.

Then we have THIS one where apparently NONE of that matters........

And who in post #4 stated that boats in fresh water didn't need to be concerned with zinc in the keel? About the same as boats in saltwater.

[Feral American]

And who in post #4 stated that boats in fresh water didn't need to be concerned with zinc in the keel? About the same as boats in saltwater.

They don't. You need bath water heated water or salt. Neither are available in fresh water lakes.

How many used zinc wheelweights have you actually touched having been exposed to untold miles soaked wet in rainstorms going down the road that show the kind of corrosion you seem to think is taking place in cold unsalted water? I can just imagine the mental gymnastics taking place right now to rebut that question. Sure some are painted, but just installing one scratches the paint against the rim, leaving a prime location for corrosion to begin. We could look at the unpainted ones though.

(Anyone in the north want to jump in with experience and/or pics of zinc weights exposed to road salt 6 months out of the year? That would be interesting to see. Not a whole lot of road salt needed around here in the winter...just lots of cold fresh unsalted rain)

The point that CLEARLY went over your head was drunken beach bums scrounging up whatever would melt on the beach and pouring a bubba keel. I would imagine in that scenario, only that it is HEAVY and cheap would be the main concerns/goals, not whether any corrosion eventually, someday, might take place.

Are you denying that homemade boat keels are made, that not everyone making one is paying attention to what they're making them with, and that the lead could eventually make it into the hands of an unsuspecting bullet caster?

Could you possibly be heavily vested in boat keel lead and don't want to admit that your pile might be junk? That's the only reason I can see that you would want to carry on this sort of argument.

Repeating, boat keel is a crap shoot. You should know its source before buying. Commercial boat builders are good to go.

[P Flados]

Boat keel is a crap shoot at best... .

Best case scenario is hook up with someone who deals with vintage boats and doesn't fool with one unless there's a build sheet with it that specs out the lead used by the manufacturer.

Worst case scenario is trying to use keel lead that was poured in a sand pit on the beach by a bunch of drunken bubbas throwing whatever would melt into the pot. About on the same level as "race car ballast weight".

Get your keel lead tested with XrF, and then you'll know what you have.......

Feral,

Your very first post on this thread had a tone that was very much "bashing" to anyone that enjoys a good score of scrap lead.

"crap soot at best" clearly implies that anyone that pays for scrap boat keel lead of unknown origin is foolish.

Next you talk about build sheet. Please tell me how often you have been able to get a build sheet to identify the composition of a boat keel being scrapped?

Next you talk about boat keel keels as if any not made by a top tier boat maker are made by drunken fools. Lots and lots of boat keels have been made using "good" scrap. The way you throw out worst case implies that the boat building industry is full of drunken bubbas is pretty sad. Can you provide a probability that the the drinking habits of boat keel makers will contribute to a boolit caster coming across a zinc contaminated keel?.

Yes I understand that scrap lead sourced from wheel weights in recent years can have zinc content. If some zinc in some scrap did not have a significant adverse affect on the end product and would save cost, why would you want attribute the use of this source to "drunken bubbas". I see no reason that a small percent zinc would hurt a keel made for an average sail boat. Now too much zinc would reduce the density and a keel designed to be made of lead would be too light. And yes sailing in salt water has been one of my hobbies off and on.

Only since the "save the world" types made the wheel weight industry transition to lead free products has zinc contamination of scrap lead become a concern. If you did buy some bad scrap, I can understand you were unhappy about it. Please get over it and move on. If you had just shared "Watch out, I got some zinc contaminated boat keel lead once" and left it at that, we would have accepted you input as a helpful reminder. Instead you are being confrontational and generally not helpful.

And then there is your "Get your keel lead tested with XrF". Yes I understand that knowing alloy content can be useful for some applications. I considered getting some lead tested early on in my casting efforts. The more I learned, the less worried I became. After I switched to PC for higher power level applications, I found that all I need is a reasonable hardness and good fill out. I see testing with an Xrf as being called for if you are you casting boolits that you are pushing above 2000 fps and/or are using for long range cast bullet rifle competition. Can you explain why "good enough" hardness & fill out are not good enough for the average caster doing average bullets for the most common applications (poking holes in paper, plinking, etc.).

[Feral American]

Feral,

Your very first post on this thread had a tone that was very much "bashing" to anyone that enjoys a good score of scrap lead.

"crap soot at best" clearly implies that anyone that pays for scrap boat keel lead of unknown origin is foolish.

Next you talk about build sheet. Please tell me how often you have been able to get a build sheet to identify the composition of a boat keel being scrapped?

Next you talk about boat keel keels as if any not made by a top tier boat maker are made by drunken fools. Lots and lots of boat keels have been made using "good" scrap. The way you throw out worst case implies that the boat building industry is full of drunken bubbas is pretty sad. Can you provide a probability that the the drinking habits of boat keel makers will contribute to a boolit caster coming across a zinc contaminated keel?.

Yes I understand that scrap lead sourced from wheel weights in recent years can have zinc content. If some zinc in some scrap did not have a significant adverse affect on the end product and would save cost, why would you want attribute the use of this source to "drunken bubbas". I see no reason that a small percent zinc would hurt a keel made for an average sail boat. Now too much zinc would reduce the density and a keel designed to be made of lead would be too light. And yes sailing in salt water has been one of my hobbies off and on.

Only since the "save the world" types made the wheel weight industry transition to lead free products has zinc contamination of scrap lead become a concern. If you did buy some bad scrap, I can understand you were unhappy about it. Please get over it and move on. If you had just shared "Watch out, I got some zinc contaminated boat keel lead once" and left it at that, we would have accepted you input as a helpful reminder. Instead you are being confrontational and generally not helpful.

And then there is your "Get your keel lead tested with XrF". Yes I understand that knowing alloy content can be useful for some applications. I considered getting some lead tested early on in my casting efforts. The more I learned, the less worried I became. After I switched to PC for higher power level applications, I found that all I need is a reasonable hardness and good fill out. I see testing with an Xrf as being called for if you are you casting boolits that you are pushing above 2000 fps and/or are using for long range cast bullet rifle competition. Can you explain why "good enough" hardness & fill out are not good enough for the average caster doing average bullets for the most common applications (poking holes in paper, plinking, etc.).

You ever shoot craps? Roll the dice? Take a chance? Luck of the draw? Bet against the odds? Etc., etc., etc?

Crap shoot.....boat keel is a crap shoot.

We'll just stop there because I'm not going to waste my time reading the rest of your tirade that you wasted your time writing. You couldnt pay me to take boat keel with the sources I have now. But if that's all you have then by all means, good luck with it, my opinion doesn't change.

[jsizemore]

I have seen WW's that have corroded that have sat in a 5 gallon bucket in the rain. Zinc has shown signs of corrosion where the outer coating has been compromised.

I have seen drunken beach bums frying fish and boiling shrimp but not melting WW's for sailboat keels or ballast in the boat.

Well, it's time to get something accomplished instead of stopping to listen to the donkey bray. They're usually just trying to get attention. Sometimes they may be tangled in the vines. Most times they're lost and looking for the rest of the herd. Usually a few words gets them to stop but they'll get right back to it even if it's only to hear their own echo.

[Feral American]

I have seen WW's that have corroded that have sat in a 5 gallon bucket in the rain. Zinc has shown signs of corrosion where the outer coating has been compromised.

I have seen drunken beach bums frying fish and boiling shrimp but not melting WW's for sailboat keels or ballast in the boat.

Well, it's time to get something accomplished instead of stopping to listen to the donkey bray. They're usually just trying to get attention. Sometimes they may be tangled in the vines. Most times they're lost and looking for the rest of the herd. Usually a few words gets them to stop but they'll get right back to it even if it's only to hear their own echo.

You're right, I don't know a darn thing about lead, and I'm just talking out my hind end.

⁷

This is a pile of random scrap I had laying around filling benches and buckets just getting in the way. Everything from plumber's ingots to lines of letter type, and you name it in between.

All melted first individually to make sure there was no zinc contamination or other evil things in the unidentifiable stuff. In all honesty, that's how I found zinc in some "boat keel" a couple years ago. Most of it though was in original form which I strive to find/use above all else.

Blended into 3 levels of hardness that are destined to be components in quite a large batch of 90/5/5. There is 1083 lbs there total.

I'm sure when I get the stuff tested I'll be adding quite a bit of 4.7 Bhn soft lead from underground municipal electrical transmission cable shielding (which I have hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of) to bring it down to what the calculator deems appropriate. I have around 300 lbs of high tin content tin/lead mix also should I need any of that.

I'll likely have around a ton of #2 when it's all said and done. Random scrap gathered cheap and free over the past couple years and needing something, anything, done with it, just for the sake of saving space.

Finding GOOD lead, be it scrap or not, isn't as hard as some of you want to make it out to be. But, you can have all the sketchy boat keel you want, I won't fight you for a single ounce of it.

[Feral American]

Home made keels do infact exist in the wild. Here's one done by guys that know what they're doing and it appears to be decent lead they're using.

It's not a huge stretch though, to go from this, to guys that don't know what they're doing but gonna do it anyway, using whatever they can get their hands on, however they can get it done.

https://youtu.be/HIXt3RWzUYg?si=3FFLxM0P_H12kVDP

[lightman]

You're right, I don't know a darn thing about lead, and I'm just talking out my hind end.

⁷

This is a pile of random scrap I had laying around filling benches and buckets just getting in the way. Everything from plumber's ingots to lines of letter type, and you name it in between.

All melted first individually to make sure there was no zinc contamination or other evil things in the unidentifiable stuff. In all honesty, that's how I found zinc in some "boat keel" a couple years ago. Most of it though was in original form which I strive to find/use above all else.

Blended into 3 levels of hardness that are destined to be components in quite a large batch of 90/5/5. There is 1083 lbs there total.

I'm sure when I get the stuff tested I'll be adding quite a bit of 4.7 Bhn soft lead from underground municipal electrical transmission cable shielding (which I have hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of) to bring it down to what the calculator deems appropriate. I have around 300 lbs of high tin content tin/lead mix also should I need any of that.

I'll likely have around a ton of #2 when it's all said and done. Random scrap gathered cheap and free over the past couple years and needing something, anything, done with it, just for the sake of saving space.

Finding GOOD lead, be it scrap or not, isn't as hard as some of you want to make it out to be. But, you can have all the sketchy boat keel you want, I won't fight you for a single ounce of it.

Thats a nice pile of lead you have there!

[Feral American]

Thats a nice pile of lead you have there!

Why thank you. It'll be even nicer when I turn it into legit Lyman #2 in uniform 400 lb batches.

Gonna be a LOT. Whatever would I do with that much. Probably share a good bit of it on the friends & family plan.

[deltaenterprizes]

When I got my first job in a machine shop one of the owners was building a steel hull sailboat and was looking for material to make a keel.
I had sold my 3 Magma Bullet Master casting machines and I had a couple of tons of 50/50 lead/linotype in 25 pound ingots and sold him 500 pounds for the keel and gave him my 500 pound pot so he could melt it.
He went out of business before he finished the boat but the point is that when someone is building a boat they are just looking for cheap material that is heavy!

[justindad]

If you got zinc in your lead, flux it out with Zep Root Kill and then you’ve got copper in your alloy (requires some Antimony). All of my COWW alloy gets the copper sulphate.

[Gtek]

And now, back to your regular scheduled programming. Got the T-shirt from a "Keel" job, spend the money on a big enough tarp to put under (you will be amazed in how much is on ground) and have a brave friend squirt that useless for most things WD-40 in slot when cutting.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve seen a lot of stainless steel on underwater parts of boats that was very pitted. Most likely due to the galvanic action from bronze propellers and through hull fittings, when no sacrificial anodes were used. External lead ballast is normally alloyed to harden it, because if it wasn’t, it would get all dinged up. Majority of sailboats are professionally built. The risk is if someone built a boat in his backyard and added who knows what, but the risk is pretty low.

[Bryan Austin]

I recently discovered that a friends sons operate a sailboat refurbishment and scrap operation. Yesterday we harvested about 250 lbs. of lead from a 1700-lb keel. We have the invitation to come get more.
Today I turned about a third of it into ingots.

Notes for those who have similar opportunities:
Boat keels contain j-shaped bolts to bind them to the boat. Be aware of them as you saw the lead apart.

We used a small chainsaw to cut pieces out of the keel. This worked well, but is a bit messy so check with who ever is in charge on the issue of sawdust (it wasn’t a problem in our rural area).

The lead seems harder than pure lead. I haven’t yet checked the Brinnel hardness, but it “thumbnails” more like Linotype.

This is good clean alloy that didn’t require fluxing to make good ingots and generated almost no slag.

We intend to go back for more.

I just cut up a Capri CP-22 with a 650lb keel. They have good quality lead, or at least mine did. Took a while to get the keel cut up but once I was done, I cast 635lbs of lead bars. I cast all of the bars at 700 degrees. A bit cool, but only the good stuff is melted while the bad stuff floats to the top and gets fluxed out.

It is a ton of work, but well worth it if you get good lead out of it.

bf778042-df29-4588-a717-4e2a3c25b3de.jpg
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c769cb0b-4299-4415-a901-c1057fc7dfb9.jpg

[jsizemore]

I just cut up a Capri CP-22 with a 650lb keel. They have good quality lead, or at least mine did. Took a while to get the keel cut up but once I was done, I cast 635lbs of lead bars. I cast all of the bars at 700 degrees. A bit cool, but only the good stuff is melted while the bad stuff floats to the top and gets fluxed out.

It is a ton of work, but well worth it if you get good lead out of it.

bf778042-df29-4588-a717-4e2a3c25b3de.jpg
e7f6e583-25c0-486c-88e2-d0433c7fa062.jpg
c769cb0b-4299-4415-a901-c1057fc7dfb9.jpg

What temp did your sailboat alloy go liquid?

[Rickf1985]

I am not a boat builder but I know a few people that are and this question has popped up several times about lead quality. On any high end sail boat the lead will be pure lead sourced from the foundry. Those keeps are designed to weigh within 10 lbs. of the specified weight. If there was zinc in the lead it would be too light and have to be discarded. No manufacturer is going to risk that cost. There was a heated canister in the boatyard I was at that when filled with lead it would weigh exactly 50 lbs. to the ounce. The canister was heated to 650 degrees so there was no sticking or cooling as it was filled. Filled right to the top and then let cool and all the tests I saw were within one ounce. They even measured the shrinkage but I have no idea if there was a spec for that. So yes, good boat keels will be pure lead. Something that was built in a backyard will not be straight from the foundry but anyone spending that much to build a boat knows the keel weight is very important.
All of my personal boats were go fast boats and I did not want even a single sinker in the boat, lighter is faster.