Billnpatti
Cannon
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
- Messages
- 7,340
- Reaction score
- 44
I decided to cast some balls today and got out my electric pot, got all set up and was ready to start melting. I went to an old box of lead ingots and pulled out a few pounds. I don't even remember where the lead came from originally. I have gotten lead from many sources and melted it down and cast it into 1 pound ingots and stored it away. These ingots were probably some that I cast 20 or 25 years ago. Anyway, as I was melting it, I stuck the corner of my mould into the pot to start heating it up. Often, lead will adhere to the corner but will melt away as the mould comes up to temperature. This time the gob of "lead (?)" seemed to grow into a bigger and bigger gob. 
I removed my mould from the pot and scraped the gob (close to a half pound) off it and noticed that it had a granular appearance. I tossed it aside and put the mould back in the pot. Again a gob formed on the relatively cool mould and again it was granular in appearance. I scraped it off and waited for it to cool so I could pick it up and examine it. When I did, I could break it apart. It was granular in appearance and had want appeared to be a fibrous structure as though whatever the metal was, it had crystalized into the fibrous appearance. I kept removing the metal as it rose to the surface until it no longer formed a crust on my mould or dipper. At that point, the metal left in the pot had the appearance and flowed like pure lead. I cast several balls from the cleaned lead in the pot and the balls looked fine and were soft enough to be scratched by my thumbnail. So, can anyone tell me what the contaminant in my lead was? :idunno: Possibly zinc?
I removed my mould from the pot and scraped the gob (close to a half pound) off it and noticed that it had a granular appearance. I tossed it aside and put the mould back in the pot. Again a gob formed on the relatively cool mould and again it was granular in appearance. I scraped it off and waited for it to cool so I could pick it up and examine it. When I did, I could break it apart. It was granular in appearance and had want appeared to be a fibrous structure as though whatever the metal was, it had crystalized into the fibrous appearance. I kept removing the metal as it rose to the surface until it no longer formed a crust on my mould or dipper. At that point, the metal left in the pot had the appearance and flowed like pure lead. I cast several balls from the cleaned lead in the pot and the balls looked fine and were soft enough to be scratched by my thumbnail. So, can anyone tell me what the contaminant in my lead was? :idunno: Possibly zinc?
