Well that was a waste

ChiliDawg

ChiliDawg

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
42   0   0
Location
Niagara Region, Ontario
A friend dropped off a five gallon pail of WW for me. I tried to sort it out but I still managed to get zinc in the lead. What a mess.

Is there an easy way to tell the difference between lead and zinc WW?
 
If you keep the temperature down when melting to the point when the lead just melts, the Zinc wont melt and can be scooped off the top. Just processed 500lb in that fashion, pulled out the ones that had ZN on them and let the rest float to the surface. Used a turkey cooking propane burner with a cast iron pot on top, very controllable heat that way.
 
I started with a small batch 2 or 3 pounds initially and was going to add more as I went but things went awry.

I did the stick on WW yesterday and only got 15 pounds of soft lead from about 30 pounds of scrap.
 
ChiliDawg said:
Is there an easy way to tell the difference between lead and zinc WW?
Click to expand...

It's too late for this batch . . . but a quick pinch with a pair of sidecutters will weed out any zincs (they are way harder than lead). Not a very practical method if you have several buckets to deal with, but doable if you only have one bucket.
 
You can remove the zinc by fluxing with sulphur (really smelly) or by fluxing with copper sulfate (root killer). The copper sulfate will remove the zinc and replace it with copper. You will have a very tough alloy that will be hard but not brittle. Just put the copper sulfate into the lead and mix it around until it turns from blue to white. Then scoop it back out. Done! However, it will take tin out as well once the zinc is all gone, or if there is no zinc in the mix it will take the tin out instead. You can add tin back in later for good fill out if necessary.
 
Otto V said:
It's too late for this batch . . . but a quick pinch with a pair of sidecutters will weed out any zincs (they are way harder than lead). Not a very practical method if you have several buckets to deal with, but doable if you only have one bucket.
Click to expand...
The side cutters work great. After about two or three buckets you will be able to sort by eye.
What a pain in the a*s those zinc WW are!
 
Otto V said:
It's too late for this batch . . . but a quick pinch with a pair of sidecutters will weed out any zincs (they are way harder than lead). Not a very practical method if you have several buckets to deal with, but doable if you only have one bucket.
Click to expand...

This. A quick test as your sorting. You can also look at the stamping, which will be pressed in on zinc as opposed to being raised on lead because lead fills out better. ZN is zinc. P or PB is lead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom