Crow-Feather
32 Cal.
Mine was from lead shielding from an old hospital x ray room. Used to stack wounded deer with a geiger counter.
What is the oddest lead item you've made ammunition from?
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Lead water pipe off my Grandparets old farm.
Nit Wit
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Don't need a geiger counter. Wait till after dark and the deer glows. Mark
GomezMunoz1951
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Dang it lost half my post so had to edit.
Anyway when I first got here in Vegas, I went to a local scrap yard and bought about 500 lbs of lead casino chips. They were cut in half so no longer usable as chips.
A couple of years ago my second son came out here to help someone he knew move to Texas. The guy had a huge pile of lead in all sorts of sizes and shapes. I wager there is about 8 or 900 pounds of the stuff. The guy worked in a hospital and picked it up over the years. Since I don't have a Geiger counter not sure if any of it is radio active. Anyway that will keep me in lead for the rest of my life...
Anyway when I first got here in Vegas, I went to a local scrap yard and bought about 500 lbs of lead casino chips. They were cut in half so no longer usable as chips.
A couple of years ago my second son came out here to help someone he knew move to Texas. The guy had a huge pile of lead in all sorts of sizes and shapes. I wager there is about 8 or 900 pounds of the stuff. The guy worked in a hospital and picked it up over the years. Since I don't have a Geiger counter not sure if any of it is radio active. Anyway that will keep me in lead for the rest of my life...
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The lead from an Xray room is not radioactive.
DON"T TEL HIM THAT! Gheesh tell the junk yard it is and charge him to dispose of it.
Goody 2shoes ruin it for the scroungers.
Goody 2shoes ruin it for the scroungers.
Got some lead sheets from old power plants that we were salvaging they had 36"x 10' sheets rolled up stacked everywhere. And they had a lot of
Babbit ingots. They made all of their own bearings on the giant submarine engines that ran the power plant generators. These plants were put in around the early 1900's. We had one that was dismantled that was steam driven.
Also some lead water lines that were to foundations where old homes that was built in the early 1900's that were taken down for High Rise buildings from a 12 square block area where we dug trenches to install electrical duct runs around the early 70's when Lady Bird Johnson got some law passed that was called "Clear the Air" of electrical and phone lines in down town areas.
I even stripped some old phone lines that had been taken down when my Dad worked for the phone company.
Mike
Babbit ingots. They made all of their own bearings on the giant submarine engines that ran the power plant generators. These plants were put in around the early 1900's. We had one that was dismantled that was steam driven.
Also some lead water lines that were to foundations where old homes that was built in the early 1900's that were taken down for High Rise buildings from a 12 square block area where we dug trenches to install electrical duct runs around the early 70's when Lady Bird Johnson got some law passed that was called "Clear the Air" of electrical and phone lines in down town areas.
I even stripped some old phone lines that had been taken down when my Dad worked for the phone company.
Mike
Griz44Mag
70 Cal.
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LOL,,, Never give up eh???DON"T TEL HIM THAT! Gheesh tell the junk yard it is and charge him to dispose of it.
Goody 2shoes ruin it for the scroungers.
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window weights before they were made out of cast.
Cat knocked a beer stein off the shelf and broke, so the lid went into the pot!
Griz44Mag
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Beer stein lids are made from pewter, which has a high tin content in it. (90% or more)
Use it sparingly to mix with pure lead to make some very shiny and very smooth balls!
It's too expensive to use for casting just balls!
Back in the 70's my wife's aunt belonged to a small church in the SW corner of Pa. near the West Va. line. When it was torn down lead from the pipe organ was melted into small ingots and marked West Side Methodist Church pipe organ . Aunt Grace had several that she gave to me. I kept one for sentimental reasons.
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I've had an ingot of Babbit for a long time.I Never got around to melting it down. Would this stuff work?
Griz44Mag
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Babbit is a high tin content (60-80%) mixed with several different other metals depending on it's use.
Copper, lead, silver and bronze are commonly used to control hardness. Some alloys of babbit have fairly high melting points.
My Grandfathers home business was casting and machining babbit bearings for large diesel engines.
I do remember him using an oxygen supplemented furnace to get more than 1,000 degrees of temp for some of the bearings he was casting. If you are casting round balls, you would probably be better off finding a source of pure lead.
Copper, lead, silver and bronze are commonly used to control hardness. Some alloys of babbit have fairly high melting points.
My Grandfathers home business was casting and machining babbit bearings for large diesel engines.
I do remember him using an oxygen supplemented furnace to get more than 1,000 degrees of temp for some of the bearings he was casting. If you are casting round balls, you would probably be better off finding a source of pure lead.
I think you're right on the Babbit thing. Wheelweight lead is plenty hard enough without adding tin, babbit, or anything else to make it even harder.
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Moved to our place in 1979. 1840'sish farm. There was a hand pump mounted next to the kitchen sink with the lead pipe leading back to one of three wells. Redid the kitchen, removing the pump and lead pipe down to the ground and then the part in the well. Made great Minies.
I have a friend in the plumbing business. He collects all the used lead seals from old installations for me. About 80# per year. Also have another contractor friend that occasionally gives me the roof boot cutoffs, not so weird there I suppose! Fun thread!
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