Looking for Useful uses for lead

[justin1]

From my research skin absorption is possible, but even more so through your mucus membranes than through hand/skin contact contact.

Ye a lot of silver mines with high lead content make you shower before you can go to break and ban smoking. Working with lead sucks for the guys who like to touch there face with dirty hands and people who don't wash there hands enough. Which you can really tell who those people are when you work with them even in a clean area that just has bit of dust around they seem to end up with it all over there face lol.

@Mcgyver

Ye I've heard similar stories like that and even read from a few places that some people are "lead sponges" but I feel like it boils down to poor hygiene and miss handling of lead. But it is good to treat it with respect.

I'm gonna pick up lead cartridges for my half mask if I'm gonna mess around with it more as even outside it's hard to keep out of the smoke as much as a guy would like.

 

[Janger]

The lead (NOT Zinc) wheel weights are prized by bullet casters. I'm surprised they are having a hard time giving it away unless it's mostly zinc which most wheel weights are these days.

I thought lead was really bad in the environment as it gets into the food chain and causes problems. We banned leaded gasoline, paint, pipes, leaded glazes, leaded pots pans & plates, .... Were leaded fishing weights banned? Wash hands after handling, don't breathe the fumes. Lead bullet casting? is that a good idea? I know we do that and have for years - peace - I'm not trying to start a flame war.

 

[justin1]

I thought lead was really bad in the environment as it gets into the food chain and causes problems. We banned leaded gasoline, paint, pipes, leaded glazes, leaded pots pans & plates, .... Were leaded fishing weights banned? Wash hands after handling, don't breathe the fumes. Lead bullet casting? is that a good idea? I know we do that and have for years - peace - I'm not trying to start a flame war.

Ye lots of lead has been banned in alot consumer goods but bullets still are lead for most part but I believe you can buy lead free bullets but are not as easy to find. And they still sell large lead fishing weights I think. But I think most small weights are zinc or tin now a days. I also heard they are trying to phase out lead wheel weights as well but as long as there cheaper probly won't go away anytime soon.

You can definitely get political when it comes to environmental policies as I'm sure everyone has various opinions regarding that stuff. I'm not a fan of save the world taxes that seem to vanish into thin air?? but can't see them going away anytime soon.

 

[Johnwa]

Most of the lead in the environment is inorganic (isn’t compounded with carbon) and is pretty benign. Organic compounds like in leaded gasoline are easily absorbed even through the skin and are dangerous. In bullet casting and lead soldering you’re dealing with inorganic lead which is actually pretty safe.

 

[Janger]

Lead alternatives for fishing weights:
You could print these 3d steel bar holders. https://www.printables.com/model/252706-fishing-weight-slider/files
Is the plastic worse than the lead? nothing's perfect is it?

Lead bullet alternatives:
a. On your lathe make a custom form tool from an HSS blank and cut out bullets (er are they called bullet heads?) from steel rod.
a1) do the same on the mill or drill press. not sure how exactly but I suspect @johnnielsen would have ideas.
b. Good excuse to buy an ELS - program your lathe to carve out the bullet head. (@jcdammeyer can you program your unit to make complicated curving shapes?) Honey I need to save the environment and buy an ELS.
c. Adapt your taper attachment to follow a curved path and curve them out semi automatically.
d. beg your buddy with a CNC to make a bunch for you.

 

[justin1]

Lead bullet alternatives:
a. On your lathe make a custom form tool from an HSS blank and cut out bullets (er are they called bullet heads?) from steel rod.

Not sure if steel is good idea as you need bit of softer material going down your barrel or it would just gull up rifling maybe copper coated steel bullets would work but cost is probly a factor to why it isn't done. And probly weight of bullet is probly factor as well.

 

[thestelster]

Most lead shot for waterfowl hunting has been banned in Canada, and I think all of the USA, because it was killing many ducks....but not from direct hits, but from the ducks diving down to forage and injesting the errant lead pellets. And then the health concern for hunter's killing and eating ducks that were slowly poisoned by the lead.

You must use non-toxic: steel, tungsten, bismuth.

And as an aside. When lead was banned, the first product to replace it was steel shot. But since steel is much less dense, they had to utilize pellets that were 2 sizes larger for the same striking energy, but they couldn't fit enough pellets into the shells, therefore they created the 3 1/2" shells.

Also, they had to copper plate the steel shot to prevent them from rusting into a solid mass and blow up your barrel, which I understand happened.

 

[jcdammeyer]

b. Good excuse to buy an ELS - program your lathe to carve out the bullet head. (@jcdammeyer can you program your unit to make complicated curving shapes?) Honey I need to save the environment and buy an ELS.

No. My ELS was designed to replace gears on old lathes where threading wasn't possible because of that one missing gear. This was all before 3D printing gears and multiline encoders for $5. Also metric threads on an imperial lathe. And I didn't want to make gears for my Gingery Lathe. Then the group talked me into adding cross slide for automatic operation and tapering. The X is slaved to the Z by a ratio (much like gears) and can't do complicated curves.

But, because the connector on the back matched the parallel port on a PC and MACH2/3 used the same 1PPR spindle sensor moving the cable from the ELS over to a PC for that one time CNC curved piece seemed a simple solution. Mostly a manual lathe with automatic threading (no gears) and CNC if you wanted it occasionally.

The new 32 bit processor plug in replacement (Project #42) will have the ability to read G-Code and do trajectory planning. A USB stick for importing G-Code or firmware upgrades. But the industry passed me by with Pi4 and MESA boards to do full Linux CNC. Add cheap keyboards etc from China and $35 worth of switches and buttons on my ELS compared to a $15 keyboard from AliExpress...

Seems almost pointless to finish Project #42.

 

[Ironman]

Most of the lead in the environment is inorganic (isn’t compounded with carbon) and is pretty benign. Organic compounds like in leaded gasoline are easily absorbed even through the skin and are dangerous. In bullet casting and lead soldering you’re dealing with inorganic lead which is actually pretty safe.

The voice of common sense. Just don't breath the vapors which hardly occur til lead is overheated, and people do heat beyond the melting point

 

[cuslog]

I'm with Johnwa.
I'm a life long target shooter / lead bullet caster (73 Y/O).
Lead becomes hazardous when its vaporized - like at an indoor shooting range - small amounts are vaporized by the blast of the burning gunpowder. Most modern indoor ranges have very advanced air filtration systems to filter out the lead (and quite high air exchange rates).
I don't see bullet casting as exceptionally hazardous, I cast @ 820 deg. f., I understand that the vaporization point of lead is somewhere north of 3000 deg. I do cast with good ventilation because fluxing the pot can be rather smokey.

 

[justin1]

Fluxing

Curious what you use for flux and does it help with making it softer or just to help lift impurities?

 

[YYCHM]

Curious what you use for flux and does it help with making it softer or just to help lift impurities?

lift impurities

 

[Dan Dubeau]

What do you guys use? I've been using paraffin candle wax, seems to work ok, but am open to learning about better things?

 

[YYCHM]

What do you guys use? I've been using paraffin candle wax, seems to work ok, but am open to learning about better things?

Paraffin, sawdust..... Lately I've been using MARVELUX (less smoke).

 

[Ironman]

I'm with Johnwa.
I'm a life long target shooter / lead bullet caster (73 Y/O).
Lead becomes hazardous when its vaporized - like at an indoor shooting range - small amounts are vaporized by the blast of the burning gunpowder. Most modern indoor ranges have very advanced air filtration systems to filter out the lead (and quite high air exchange rates).
I don't see bullet casting as exceptionally hazardous, I cast @ 820 deg. f., I understand that the vaporization point of lead is somewhere north of 3000 deg. I do cast with good ventilation because fluxing the pot can be rather smokey.

I'm in the same game, but your number needs to be adjusted. Lead melting point is only 621 °F (327 °C) and is a bit higher if mixed with zinc and antimony. At 510 deg C before I learned better, I have watched lead vapours coming out of the pot.

 

[Ironman]

I thought lead was really bad in the environment as it gets into the food chain and causes problems. We banned leaded gasoline, paint, pipes, leaded glazes, leaded pots pans & plates, .... Were leaded fishing weights banned? Wash hands after handling, don't breathe the fumes. Lead bullet casting? is that a good idea? I know we do that and have for years - peace - I'm not trying to start a flame war.

Have you ever read about disposing a compact fluorescent or cleaning up after breaking one? I used to work in the largest lead zinc underground mine in the world, I'm thinking I should be dead a few times over. All I can say is don't believe everything they tell you.
Dan, I'm a sawdust guy myself. When refining silver I used Robin Hood flour. Any wonderful carbon material will consume oxygen.

 

[Dan Dubeau]

Have you ever read about disposing a compact fluorescent or cleaning up after breaking one? I used to work in the largest lead zinc underground mine in the world, I'm thinking I should be dead a few times over. All I can say is don't believe everything they tell you.
Dan, I'm a sawdust guy myself. When refining silver I used Robin Hood flour. Any wonderful carbon material will consume oxygen.

I tried sawdust, but didn't really like it in my lee bottom pour. I'd give it another try if I did a big refining melt again though. I have a big pile of flashing to melt down into ingots that has been waiting for the right motivation for a while. Always something else more pressing, and considering I already have a few years supply in ingots at my current casting rate, it hasn't really been pushed up the list.

 

[jcdammeyer]

I tried sawdust, but didn't really like it in my lee bottom pour. I'd give it another try if I did a big refining melt again though. I have a big pile of flashing to melt down into ingots that has been waiting for the right motivation for a while. Always something else more pressing, and considering I already have a few years supply in ingots at my current casting rate, it hasn't really been pushed up the list.

Project #42?

 

[cuslog]

For fluxing, I like Pine rosin (that'll clear out your sinuses).
I source pure lead and add ~4% pure Tin (helps to fill out the mold). I cast at 820 deg F because that's where I get the best mold fill-out.
A couple years ago I abandoned bottom pour and bought a ladle, also added in a PID temp controller (thanks for the help Craig). The PID holds temp +- 2 or 3 deg. Now my bullet weights vary only +-1 grain.

 

[Ironman]

I would love lead flashing. I play in the subsonic world and soft lead is much preferred for projectiles at that speed.