Lead

I have some dental X-ray lead that’s 2% antimony, which is pert near as hard as wheelweights.
Reclaimed shot is cheap too but you don’t know how much hard shot (antimony/tin) is mixed in.
Rotometals sells certified 99.99% pure lead for $3 lb. (the purple rainbow stuff)
Plumbing / Roofing / Telco lead should be pure but I’ve never smelted any.
I’ve heard that sinkers, dive weights etc could have other alloys added to aid in mold fillout but I have enough junk piled up I don’t need any more “mystery metal”
My rule of thumb is everything they would add to lead costs a LOT more than lead (tin $16 lb) so if they didn’t have a good reason to add it they prolly didn’t.

Stony Broke said:

Sounds like something that happened over on the left coast !

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They actually found out that life can cause cancer and they are taking steps to control it, and possibly go national with it...

Yeah they do like to control your life.

Make friends with roofers. Every old house has lead soil stack flashings around the soil stacks. Some houses have two or three flashings. Each lead flashing is made with lead that weighs 4 to 6 pounds per square foot. Roofers can't get enough money for scrap lead to make it worth their while to salvage it, so it all goes in the dump. However if you offer a case of beer and a couple of $20 bills you will soon have a lot of lead.

Those irradiated round balls can be used for tank killers like depleted uranium. Can't they?

Was in the medical radiology business for 40 years. Never saw any lead w/ toxic levels of radiation. Made uncounted #'s lead balls and fired some pretty hot loads of .62 cal. @ 500 Brinnel level hardness reactive tank armor w/ no effect except the splash mark of the lead ball. oldwood

appalichian hunter said:

The lead is fine if it was a bio hazard due to radiation the E.PA. would have restrictions on it like every thing else, you know like California every thing there is hazardous to your health. What you folks do for toilet paper on the left wing of the country. The processing of it is probably hazardous to your well you know. If you have the chance to score that type of lead get all you can.

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No kidding. I bought a scope and a new soft rifle case, both had a cancer warning, from California of course. Some folks must be paranoid about living.

I had someone warn me of a California warning on toilet cakes. So I told him, don't eat them then.

i have 2 shower floor pans that are lead. they are about 100lbs a piece,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Lead????? Keep yer eyes open all the time for it. Ya sometimes find it in the strangest places.
Many years ago , was hunting deer by myself on a near by mountain In the morning was an inch of snow in the woods that melted by 11:00. I was looking down onto a bench and noticed a patch of white where the "snow" didn't melt. Went down to investigate it , thought it was a rock , gave it a good kick , and near broke my toes. Dang if it wasn't a 100 lb. block of pure soft lead. Even better , there was another slightly smaller block under it. Pulled the woods debris away from the area ,and found evidence of a third piece partially melted like some time years ago somebody had started a fire under it to melt it down for some reason. This lead find was beside a barely visible , many generations old woods road , which was slowly being swallowed up by nature. A mystery.... oldwood

mooman76 said:

I had someone warn me of a California warning on toilet cakes. So I told him, don't eat them then.

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They don't taste minty at all.

Uranium slowly degrades and becomes another element and then another until it is a radioactively stable element.
We know this stable element as Lead.

William O. said:

They don't taste minty at all.

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Of coarse, they were cherry flavored.

Get good RB lead at Home Depot in the roofing section.

oldwood said:

Lead????? Keep yer eyes open all the time for it. Ya sometimes find it in the strangest places.
Many years ago , was hunting deer by myself on a near by mountain In the morning was an inch of snow in the woods that melted by 11:00. I was looking down onto a bench and noticed a patch of white where the "snow" didn't melt. Went down to investigate it , thought it was a rock , gave it a good kick , and near broke my toes. Dang if it wasn't a 100 lb. block of pure soft lead. Even better , there was another slightly smaller block under it. Pulled the woods debris away from the area ,and found evidence of a third piece partially melted like some time years ago somebody had started a fire under it to melt it down for some reason. This lead find was beside a barely visible , many generations old woods road , which was slowly being swallowed up by nature. A mystery.... oldwood

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So did you drag it out of there? If it was in CA they would have declared the area a haz-mat zone and swooped in with legions of environmental Minute Men.

Col.......told my hunting buddy Fred Miller the story , he and I made a Sunday after noon outing to go back and get the big pieces. Next problem was to find a way to reduce the large blocks to a usable size. Easy way to melt big chunks of lead is to have a friend w/acetylene torch. Didn't have friend w/ torch , but was cruising sport shops after work. There was the answer to my big lead melting problem. Was the largest electric lead melting pot iv'e ever seen. The sales guy was a fellow I had dealt w/ before and he always came w/ an attitude. I'm a Fun loving sick-o ,and couldn't resist picking on him. The pot had a $100+ price on it , but I told him no other person would ever buy a 30 lb capacity , very dusty device that had most likely set among the rest of the old presses his family couldn't sell in the last 20 years. I couldn't believe he jumped at the $60 's I offered him.. We both walked away happy. Got my lead reduced to useful size........ oldwood

The lead I've used included x-ray shielding and lead bottles used to store and transport radioactive materials. This is pure, soft lead and very safe.