Cleaning some round balls

[Howard Pippin]

After more than thirty years as a licensed plumber in the service and repair industry this information is 100% correct.

The house that we bought in 67 had a lead service line. I didn't know anything about them at that time, but in 69 it started to leak. City crew dug it up and patched it, three days later it leaked again, so I hired a digger, bought a roll of K copper and replaced it. Probably the smartest thing I've ever done, all by accident. I did notice that the part of the line that I could see was coated on the inside with a lot of white stuff, either calcium or alkali, so I'm sure this protected the people that lived here as long as they didn't disturb it.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

The house that we bought in 67 had a lead service line. I didn't know anything about them at that time, but in 69 it started to leak. City crew dug it up and patched it, three days later it leaked again, so I hired a digger, bought a roll of K copper and replaced it. Probably the smartest thing I've ever done, all by accident. I did notice that the part of the line that I could see was coated on the inside with a lot of white stuff, either calcium or alkali, so I'm sure this protected the people that lived here as long as they didn't disturb it.

All is well until you disturb the line exposing the raw lead, at that point it is open to leaching, that being said, as long as the water supply is not caustic/acidic any exposed lead will just scale over again and it's business as usual. Worked for a plumber in SW Wisconsin for a spell and we did the heavy lifting for the city, all of the city taps were lead wiped lead pipe, that was in the early nineties.

 

[Bighorserider]

I live in an old house in Denver. The water company recently gave us a Brita pitcher and directions to not drink or cook with unfiltered water due to our service line being lead until they could replace it. I've lived here 30 years with no apparent ill effects, but we use the pitcher. Water does taste better.

 

[JCKelly]

I do wonder about lead, yeah I know it is poison but lead water lines are lust fine, provided the lead retains its oxide coating. Rome still uses some o-l-d ones.
About 70-odd years ago a favorite toy was my lead soldier casting kit. Also cast round balls from Grampa's rifle mould.
Somehow I knew not to taste them.

 

[pretty]

WOW! Sure am glad I read all your comments I got a bunch of 50 cal balls that are old and white, Am waiting on a 50 cal flint lock to get here, SO I am going to do the WD 40 thing tomorrow.
Thanks a lot you might have saved my life, or whats left of it I'm 83.

 

[nhmoose]

Big cities in the North east still have lead water mains feeding most everything in the cities. Yet the water does not contain lead. PH control and coatings in the mains keep it fine.

 

[SmokepoleSam]

Some water mains in lower Manhattan are original wood.

 

[ohio ramrod]

someone on this forum did some research on that white oxidized lead and found that the Romans used it as a sweetener on food and if you notice there aren't any Romans around.

The old time name for lead oxide was "sugar of lead". The Romans stored wine in lead jars to sweeten the wine which is one of the reasons the wealthy Romans ended up in poorer health than their slaves. Plus the wealthy Romans had water piped into their villas with lead pipe while the common people got their water from the stone fountains. People replaced lead pipes with soldered copper and had no problems until they started using water softeners, now you use lead free solder on water pipes.