Homemade lead tester.

[Howard Pippin]

Greetings. For years my thumbnail has been my lead tester. Different threads here made me wonder if this was good enough, so I thought, I need a lead tester, but I'm not interested in paying $80-$600 for a tester. Well, I made one set up under the idea that a sharp point would penetrate further into pure lead then it does into mixed lead. Using a dial indicator and they idea that if the point pushed in further I would have a lower number. It seems to work. A Hornaday 45 caliber round ball tested .070 while printer's lead tested .090. Wheel weights test between .078 and .081. If I can figure out how to attach a picture on this site I will do so, otherwise somebody tell me how I will sure send a couple of pictures. I had a good friend make one small part on a lathe, otherwise it's strictly off-the-wall.
Squint.

 

[RHensley]

If you take the photo with your phone send the photo to your computer through email. Then save the photo to the computer in pictures.Be sure to give it a name so you can find it easily. Now when you go to the thread that you just started go to the bottom and you will see three things. one is post reply the next is upload a file the other is more options. click on upload a file. after that it's sort of self explanatory. good luck. it took me a while. I still can't put an avatar under my RHensley so folks will know I'm real.

 

[Idaholewis]

Sounds like a Home made Cabin Tree

This is my Cabin Tree Tester, as i was putting it together

 

[necchi]

so I thought, I need a lead tester, but I'm not interested in paying $80-$600 for a tester. Well, I made one,,

Great job, let's see it,, honest. Can you email photo's? Cause I'll catch'm and post for ya. send a message,,
We're all interested how you've beaten the decades old system with cheap off the shelf items. None of us want to spend big money on testers!!

 

[Howard Pippin]

If you take the photo with your phone send the photo to your computer through email. Then save the photo to the computer in pictures.Be sure to give it a name so you can find it easily. Now when you go to the thread that you just started go to the bottom and you will see three things. one is post reply the next is upload a file the other is more options. click on upload a file. after that it's sort of self explanatory. good luck. it took me a while. I still can't put an avatar under my RHensley so folks will know I'm real.

thank you. I had already done part of that so the rest was easy, thank you and you can see, I don't have a machine shop but I do know how to weld and I have things like grinders so that's how I built it seems to work well on what lead I've tested. I already owned dial indicator from being a mechanic so my actual cost was zero.

 

[Howard Pippin]

Great job, let's see it,, honest. Can you email photo's? Cause I'll catch'm and post for ya. send a message,,
We're all interested how you've beaten the decades old system with cheap off the shelf items. None of us want to spend big money on testers!!

 

[Howard Pippin]

I am surprised that the cabin tree tester look so much like what I did. I guess actually it doesn't tell me how much of any kind of metal is in the lead, it just tells me if my sample is harder then soft lead. I am not aware from the years I've played with this's sort of thing that lead round balls has to be completely pure to work. My problem was when I started to make mini balls, I couldn't get them down the barrel if they were anything more than soft lead. As soon as weather permits and my new shoulder heals up I plan to experiment with balls that are a little harder and test the results. I weigh all my balls and separate them by about 5/10 of a grain. I've enjoyed the other post on removing the sprue or not, I've never tried removing them, I always use them to know which way the ball was seated. Though I have been a member here for years, I wasn't a contributing member as I am now. If anyone is interested doing what I did, it's pretty self explanatory but I did already own the dial indicator and I can see you would have to have one because the difference in readings are quite small. If anyone would like I will surely list all the components that I used.
Squint

 

[M. De Land]

Greetings. For years my thumbnail has been my lead tester. Different threads here made me wonder if this was good enough, so I thought, I need a lead tester, but I'm not interested in paying $80-$600 for a tester. Well, I made one set up under the idea that a sharp point would penetrate further into pure lead then it does into mixed lead. Using a dial indicator and they idea that if the point pushed in further I would have a lower number. It seems to work. A Hornaday 45 caliber round ball tested .070 while printer's lead tested .090. Wheel weights test between .078 and .081. If I can figure out how to attach a picture on this site I will do so, otherwise somebody tell me how I will sure send a couple of pictures. I had a good friend make one small part on a lathe, otherwise it's strictly off-the-wall.
Squint.

The problem is being able to correlate to a transferable scale. You can measure a difference in relative hardness but cannot relate in a known scale what you have found. A ball bearing of say 1/8th diameter would be a better penetrate-er and more accurately measurable (cross section rather than depth). I have and use two lead testers. One from LBT and the other from Lee. The LBT measures depth with a ball tip penetrate-or and the Lee measures diameter of the imprint in the test piece. I compare the two to get a BHN (Brinnel hardness number) scale number.

 

[Melnic]

I just got in my Lee Hardness tester yesterday. (Amazon Prime delivered same day $68).
It opened my eyes to how hard the lead I was using.

It uses a spring and has a little indicator to tell you that the spring is pressed to the calibrated pressure. Looking at it I was not sure it did not just have a hard stop to tell you when its at the end.
Not clear to me how your device is set up to give a consistent pressure on the spring and thus a consistent test pressure to the pin.