Wolverine Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 I found someone selling both lead and antimony. I asked him how to alloy the antimony and he said just add the antimony to the molten lead, and keep it molten until the antimony dissolves. I don't know if it's as simple as that.You need to flux the molten alloy to keep the mix.... well mixed I've been using beeswax. Paraffin, old candle stubs... and lots of other cheap handy things will work quite well.
Mumbles Posted November 29, 2013 Posted November 29, 2013 Yep, it's that easy. At least that easy in theory. You need to get the mixture quite a bit hotter than is just required to melt the lead in order to get the antimony to alloy in. The easiest way to to alloy in high antimony lead with normal soft lead to get the mixture you want. That's probably not an option for you though.
taiwanluthiers Posted December 1, 2013 Posted December 1, 2013 How much is antimony supposed to cost per kg? Over here it's 30 dollars per kg. Lead is significantly cheaper. How much is quite a bit hotter? Is 800F enough? It doesn't seem hard to get lead really hot especially on a gas stove.
Novacastrian Posted December 2, 2013 Posted December 2, 2013 Melting point of antimony is 631 C or 1168 F. You will need 368 more f's.
Wolverine Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 How much is antimony supposed to cost per kg? Over here it's 30 dollars per kg. Lead is significantly cheaper. How much is quite a bit hotter? Is 800F enough? It doesn't seem hard to get lead really hot especially on a gas stove.I found it much cheaper and easier to heat/cast something that already has the antimony added like lead wheel weights, linotype print blocks, etc. if you can find something like that it's the way to go.
FlaMtnBkr Posted December 12, 2013 Posted December 12, 2013 I like my cylindrical media. It seems to work well and has held up well over the years. I used wheel weights and dropped the hot cylinder into cold water, changing it as it got hot. I used a brass candle stick holder as the mold. If I remember correctly it is about 0.75" in diameter with a slight taper to make removing easy and about the same 0.75" deep. As the lead cools and hardens it makes a little indentation in the end. If you fire up a propane torch it is easy to smooth it over. Over time the edges have rounded over from banging together and probably some wear but they still work great. I wish I had weighed them way back when to see how much they have lost. But 30 lbs ended up making about 120 cylinders which went fast. I'm not sure if more smaller/lighter media is any better/worse than bigger/heavier media, but 30 lbs will half fill a 1 gallon jar in either size which is optimal. And 2 or 3 hours makes some hot BP. Does anyone know what % of silver solder to add and how much harder it makes it? Mine seems hard and I can't dent it with a finger nail which is easy to do with soft lead. But I'm sure it could be hotter.
PyroPadawan Posted January 2, 2014 Posted January 2, 2014 Lol ok...you might find this disgusting. But I just recently found another source of lead. You better get some old over-alls on because we are heading to a old drainage field. That's right, old school septic shit pipe! Solid lead. Pressure wash then just use a sledge to collapse it. And if you want quick ingots, grab the splitting maul or splitting(a lot more control) to split it width wise. I bet there are LOADS of this stuff in the UK and Europe. Check with ol' timers who have owned the property since the 60's. Lol I was quite proud of myself when the stroke of genius hit me! Haha gloves are a must unless you have a freaky fetish with poo.
Eagle66 Posted January 21, 2014 Posted January 21, 2014 I've taken the plates out of old car batteries on occasion.Father in law, ex-commercial fisherman, gave me two 45 lb spheres this year, just got them into ingots this week. SLABs are a wonderful resource for lead but it is dangerous, toxic and messy to melt them down and reuse the lead plates and you get a whole lot of lead oxide (Litharge) that you need to convert or dispose of. A turkey deep-fryer works well to melt off the plastic but evaporates the acid off too. -dag Please, please, please, never do this. Many of the chemicals produced while salvaging battery lead can kill you! Please check out this thread from a cast bullets forum http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?138362-Why-Car-Batteries-Are-Dangerous Maybe I'm out of line, being new to this forum and just beginning to start down the road to being a skilled pyro. But, from my reading so far, there are a lot of ways to mess yourself up while enjoying fireworks. Let's not add another one so we can save a few cents making milling media. Like I said, as a newbie, I'm probably out of line, but I've been lurking this forum long enough to start to like some of the people here. I'd like to have everybody around long enough to learn pyro from them. Mark
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