[Green Lizzard]

sgtdog brought some lead over for me to play with yesterday. i melted a couple of pounds and cast up up a few with it, water dropped some air cooled some. checked them for hardness, yesterday 2 hours after casting, water dropped 27.2 bhn air cooled 8.6 bhn. checked again this morning, water dropped 33 bhn air cooled 11 bhn.
i expect the air cooled to continue to age harden and the water dropped not so much, but man these things are harder than super mans knee cap. i think they are 4% antimony, but not sure yet.

 

[twodot]

33 bhn! Whee-Oh, that's plenty hard alright.

I don't have a clue what your alloy is, but I would treat it like type metal and add it to a bunch of "pure" lead for making bullets.
..

 

[Green Lizzard]

twodot
next step is a 50/50 mix with lead and a dash of tin, also be nice to know what it ages up to in the air cooled sample. the bases were all square and the grooves had sharp edges so it may not need tin. this is a very good mold its a four cav. saeco 30 cal drops at 184 grains near 190 with a check, perfect at around 1850 fps in my 30s

 

[myflatline]

Wow, All I got is pure lead, well almost. Any way would like to know the mystery myself.

 

[Green Lizzard]

jim
they are straps or lugs from the top of batteries, what i have found so far is 4% antimony. right now just working with small batches till i find out more. dont want to mess up my whole stash

 

[Green Lizzard]

today is day three
water dropped is still at 33 bhn
air cooled is up to 16.4 bhn

 

[P-bass]

To paraphrase an old saying ... that's harder than Chinese arithmetic!

 

[ia1727]

Green Lizard----

You should contact WetDog about using battery lead. He used what he finally decided "may have been" battery lead in his WetDog mold and ruined it. Just a word of caution--hate to see you ruin any of your molds if you can prevent it. Good luck.

Steve--:tee:

 

[Green Lizzard]

ia
thanks for the info, from what i have found out so far the outside components are made from a different alloy, but this seems much harder than i would expect from 4% antimony (still researching)

 

[SgtDog0311]

Green Lizard----

You should contact WetDog about using battery lead. He used what he finally decided "may have been" battery lead in his WetDog mold and ruined it. Just a word of caution--hate to see you ruin any of your molds if you can prevent it. Good luck.

Steve--:tee:

Steve, We've talked about that at length and I even searched a bit... some over on Castboolits for advisability vis-a-vis the battery connection. Good caution though and I remember that thread well. Pinged Wet Dog back then - as it scared the dickens out of me, being fairly new to casting.

These are intercell connectors... exterior to the battery and mearly connecting each to a larger array. The mystery for me was in 'not having any luck' with Google in finding composition. I knew I wouldn't get a chance to dig deeper till way later in the summer and besides, Green Lizzard has forgot more than I'll probably ever learn about alloy and casting so figured I'd get some in the right hands. Once he gives the a-ok I'll persue getting more of it.

Your caution was originally my only concern... i.e., lead soaked in battery acid or something saturated with zinc. But Green Lizzard brought up one I hadn't thought of and that was about fumes from ingredients that might be truely harmful for a caster.

I was hoping to find some sort of MSDS sheet but think my next searching around will be for manufacturers of intercell connectors and see if that might lead to something that talks about composition.

 

[Sparky civil]

Are these the jumper straps for a stackable battery system for reserve/backup power?

 

[Sparky civil]

With the bolt hole in each end say 6-8" long?

 

[Green Lizzard]

yes sparky the long ones weigh a little over a pound, short ones a little under

 

[Green Lizzard]

fork lift battery

 

[Sparky civil]

I've installed several of these on light rail comm stations and I'm going to do another pretty soon. Let me dig a little.

 

[Sparky civil]

Ah maybe a little different but best I recall those didn't even bend all that easy and you could tighten a bolt on them without much damage either.

 

[Green Lizzard]

with a name like sparky, i am feeling optimistic

 

[Green Lizzard]

maybe sarge can do a picture

 

[Green Lizzard]

the only way you could bend one of these is with a vise and a four pound shop hammer

 

[SgtDog0311]

Glad I peeked in this morning. Just took these: