Zinc contaminated lead

[fiver]

tell him to mail it to me.

 

[Mitty38]

am I the only one here [besides Popper] that intentionally adds zinc to their alloy?

you use zinc to get copper sulphate into the alloy.
it's also fairly easy to remove through temperature and sulpher scrubbing.
you hold it in solution with tin.

I made my decision not to take it, based on my lack of experience and storage space.
I gotta keep focused or I will get no where, trying to go everywhere. It is in my nature.

 

[fiver]

one thing at a time.
we'll be starting on your 0-6 here pretty quick.

 

[Mitty38]

tell him to mail it to me.

I turned him down. But if it is offered again, or I mess up any once I start melting ww,I will mail it your way.

 

[JonB]

Fellow just asked me what he should do with it, after I just turned him down.
I told him, why don't he fasten it somehow it to the rear axle of his 2wd work truck, to help with traction in the winter.
I was being sarcastic, He thought it was a pretty good Idea. Go figure.

My 2000 Chevy C2500 (one wheel wonder due to open diff) has two 20mm ammo boxes full of lead alloy ingots, one strapped on each side, inside the box, behind the rear fender well. I believe total weight is around 425 lbs, it makes a big difference, now I rarely get stuck on nearly flat ground (slightly incline) that is covered with wet grass when pulling a trailer load of firewood.
...Yes that actually happened once

 

[Ian]

Is that the semi-floating 14-bolt? Funky looking rear cover and non-removable carrier? After many years of ignoring that unit, Powertrax is finally offering their Lock Right lunchbox locker for those. Spendy at $450 but if you can replace brake pads and change your oil you can install one of these in a couple of hours. The only issue with lockers is I hear they are dangerous on ice. They will also give you "locker weave" on long, sweeping highway curves as the locker ratchets in slow motion. But for traction in slippery stuff a locker has no equal.

 

[S Mac]

Boy,did this thread drift! Pun intended.

 

[Walks]

My Dad did the same sorta thing with our old Chevy '55 Nomad. Four .50 cal cans with 2 bags of shot each onon each side. On each side just ahead of the tailgate. That a full (20box)case of 12ga/20ga/410 shotshell, 6+ shotguns, 4 boys 16-6yrs old. Ice chest with lunch/drinks. And 2 Big Dogs (+2 Little ones on Rabbit Hunting trips).

Forgotten all about that. 60yrs ago.

 

[JonB]

Is that the semi-floating 14-bolt? Funky looking rear cover and non-removable carrier? After many years of ignoring that unit, Powertrax is finally offering their Lock Right lunchbox locker for those. Spendy at $450 but if you can replace brake pads and change your oil you can install one of these in a couple of hours. The only issue with lockers is I hear they are dangerous on ice. They will also give you "locker weave" on long, sweeping highway curves as the locker ratchets in slow motion. But for traction in slippery stuff a locker has no equal.

14 bolt...maybe? too cold to go out and crawl on the ground to check.
It's been over a year, but I've read about "lockers" that I can install myself, and figured if I were to go in that direction, a manual locker would be the way to go. They were a lot more than I wanted to spend on a $3500 truck. Maybe I need to look at this automatic lunchbox thing, which seems much cheaper than what I was looking at prior. I'm ok with Spending $400...but not $1K+ which is the number I recall the manual locker was.

 

[fiver]

if you wanna be cheap you could just reach up in there with the stinger end of the stick welder and zap all of the spider gears in place.

 

[RBHarter]

None of that is humbling stuck . Slick grass , wet clay , marble sand ? Yep . Ever dug in 3 wheels with the 4th on the asphalt ? That just sucks .
When it snowed , we'd just shovel the p'up bed full of snow .
Never had a winch , a posi , or lockers . Splattered the spiders in 2 Ford Track-lok rear ends .
I always had a handyman/hi-lift/farm jack , 50+ ft of chain and 50-100 ft of straps . Add a tool box and 6 pairs of chains and an extra spare there's not much call for extra traction weight .

 

[Mitty38]

Allow me to "drift" also...
In college I had a 76 Maverick with a hitch to pull my pee wee mini jet boat.
In the winter I would put 2- 50 lb bags of steel shot in the trunk, a bag of rock salt and a 25ft chain. I would also put very aggressive snow tires on the back.
Never got stuck.
A guy In my Auto Transmission class was a strait up chevy guy. He had built a mellowed out street legal copy of The Bear Foot pulling truck.
Needless to say when the plow trucks had left a hill in the middle of the parking lot. He had to try and jump it to show off to all his class mates. He ended up stuck in a snow bank. The only other guy that had a truck, had a brand new 2wd Silverado, he tried, but could not get traction, so unhooked and left. My little 6 cyl 2wd Ford Maverick car, pulled him right out. Those two Chevy truck guys, never did hear the end of that one.

 

[Mitty38]

Just made 6 lb of zinc contaminated lead.
Had a bunch of nasty wheel weights in the bottom of a bucket.
Just for kicks, since we are slow. I am here, mainly for decoration, tonight, and to let the Oxygen guy in and out. Figured I would melt them down . Give me something to do. Asked the boss he said ," I don't care."
So dumped them rust, dirt and all into an old kiln pot. thru them in my little sample furnace.
Figured I would use them for sinkers.
Re calibrated the no longer used old spectrometer, in the corner to global. (Its not very accurate and has issues but good enough for an approximation.) Milled a puck and burn tested it. Here is what I got.
Kinda explains the heavy green oatmeal looking stuff that kept floating to the top.
PB 56.2%, Zn 31.34%, Cu 3.007%, Fe 3.1%, SB 1.2%, SN 1.18%. SF(other stuff)~4%
Kinda thinking I might use this batch to experiment with fluxing a bit.
Or I could just get it screamin' hot and make sinkers with it, as was the original plan.

 

[RicinYakima]

On the board from the people who can't spell, they say fluxing with Sulphur will take the zinc out of the melt. Please try it. I have no spectrometric data since I retired 8 years ago.

 

[Mitty38]

On the board from the people who can't spell, they say fluxing with Sulphur will take the zinc out of the melt. Please try it. I have no spectrometric data since I retired 8 years ago.

I just may.
Sometimes they let me play a bit when it is slow, as long as I hustle when we are busy.
Not allowed to use the good stuff for personal use, it is set up calibrated, globalized, and certified for Aluminum Alloys anyway.
But they do not care about the old Spectro Lab in the corner. It is set up to test over a broader range. So just in case we get some material out side of our parameters, it can give us a good idea at what the material is composed of.
They let me play with it every once and a while, as long as I clean it well and put it back to "house settings". It might be off a half of a percent or so, but it works well enough to let me know what is going on.

I WOULD LIKE TO DO A BIT OF RESEARCH OUT OF THE BULLET CASTING BOX. Seeing as how we are sister-ed with a big Zinc conglomerate,( to remain nameless) maybe I could find out how the big boys do it, then downsize the process and work backwards from there.

 

[trapper9260]

I had hear about use of sulphur to take the zinc out also and read about it. I normal do not get zinc in my alloy mix when I smelt . I use a wood fire to do my smelting and then the zinc WW will float with the rest of the junk in the alloy I use ground up corn cobs to flux with or just the wood ashes to flux. It works all these years for me. Just to give a idea. I do take what is melted that is clean and pour it in ingots to empty the pot .then I start over and melt it slow like the first time and keep the temp that just the lead alloy will melt but too low for the zinc will not .

 

[Mitty38]

I had hear about use of sulphur to take the zinc out also and read about it. I normal do not get zinc in my alloy mix when I smelt . I use a wood fire to do my smelting and then the zinc WW will float with the rest of the junk in the alloy I use ground up corn cobs to flux with or just the wood ashes to flux. It works all these years for me. Just to give a idea. I do take what is melted that is clean and pour it in ingots to empty the pot .then I start over and melt it slow like the first time and keep the temp that just the lead alloy will melt but too low for the zinc will not .

Normally I mind the temp, also. Probably the top thing to mind while doing anything wit melting lead.
But this was just bottom of a nasty water filled bucket that I had plans to make large river sinkers from. So I dumped it and cranked up the heat. Figured I would post the spectro results so people could see just how much junk they can get in their melt if not careful.
Think I am going to put 3 lb in sinkers and put the other 3 lb back, for when I get a chance to play a little.

This will be a ladle pour sinker session. This stuff is NOT going in my Lee bottom pour pot, as sink is highly reactive with the high carbon steal the pot part is made of.

 

[fiver]

the green could have been the copper too.
it doesn't like to play nice with lead at that high of a concentration either.
you'll get a sheeting action and weird stalactites from the spout.

 

[Mitty38]

the green could have been the copper too.
it doesn't like to play nice with lead at that high of a concentration either.
you'll get a sheeting action and weird stalactites from the spout.

I was thinking copper sulfate myself. Definatly something to keep out of the Lee pot for now.

 

[fiver]

maybe, it generally shows up as a green/blue color but can change over to a white if it has water to work with.
as the water cooks out it clears up from the blue like color to white.
as the sulphate worked in it would try to exchange into the alloy and remove zinc as part of the process.
I'd bet that was what you was seeing
[oatmeal is a high indicator of zinc, unless it's accompanied by a grey foam, then it's generally the antimony trying to separate]