lead hardness tester

norland

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
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Location
oshawa ont.
hi all, can someone recommend a tester that can be used on ingots or any home made devices?? what im doing is blending antimony to LB in a large quanity lg. pot want to test as i go so not to soft.
 
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There are a heap of better ways, but for the casual Kijiji lead buyer, the sound test is pretty good. Seems that lead is usually only alloyed with other easily meltable metals, so once you tap them together it is pretty evident if is pure or not. Lead has a very unique dead thump (and can be deeply scored with thumb nail). By the time you hit 10% tin it is audibly 'ringing' (and scorable with thumb nail), 20-50% (like solder melts) really ring (and are barely scorable with thumbnail). Zinc that someone is passing off as lead sounds like 2 steel bolts hitting each other.

Of course if you want an actual hardness test, I cant help you :). But by the time you actually need to know whats in it, you are likely buying from a vendor anyways.

Cheers
C
 
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Glad to know the Lee one works well, I bought one about two years ago and haven't had time to play with it yet! lol
 
I made a 1/2 x 4 piece of rod with a decap pin sticking out of one end. Dropped it down a copper pipe to get a comparative reading on different allows. Now I have a Lee tester and then there is the Rockwell machine that I have not actually tested any lead with yet.
 
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