Casting lead

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

My Dad was a Chatham dockyard apprentice round about 1920. He related that after scraping barnacles etc off the bottom of ships, the workers drank a very dilute sulphuric acid. Was this to convert the lead paint/antifouling into a lead sulphate ? I guess they don't do it now and in no way do I endorse doing it now!
BobH

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

I worked at a company that made steel wire products (rolling, shaping and drawing) and we had a lead bath on the end of one furnace to quench with – it had a fair few tonnes of molten lead in and was open to the atmosphere but the temperature was reasonably low and I tended to stay well away! Living in Yorkshire, the biggest threat to my brain cell was beer….

Mark

PS. That was not it Michael

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Mark C on 22/12/2015 15:41:07:

PS. That was not it Michael

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Another guess, Mark … Was it 'compo' [see the second post, here] ?

… and the rather cryptic mention here.

MichaelG.

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/12/2015 16:00:11

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I've melted lots of lead with no mishaps, not since I was 10 anyway. If just melting general scrap to keep I use a bit of corry. sheet for a mould. If there's a lot leave some molten in the pan, the next batch melts quicker. Milk used to be issued to workers with lead, never sure why. Better was glass blowers- they got beer.

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

Just come in from the workshop this afternoon after casting some small yorkshire roses in type metal in plaster of paris moulds, good sharp definition as you would expect from typemetal, given to me years ago from a friend who worked at the local newspaper, I open cast larger roses in lead from old flashings etc in petrobond sand, the beauty of it is that it doesn't burn the sand so it can be used indefinitely, I use flashing lead in the fusible plug on my foster T E. In the glass trade we used roses metal to set the rails in "armourplate" glass doors as it has the property of expanding on solidifying thus holding the glass to the rails, later replaced with rubber pressed in on a hydraulic press.Our cottage is about 350 yrs old so it will have lead somewhere along the supply but Grandad lived till his 90s so I'm not too bothered,my grandchildren being the 5th generation to live here when thy lived with us.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Calcium may form some sort of compound with lead that will help it pass through the body. It has been thought to relate to this type of therapee.

**LINK**

I can't remember what the bought out at the factory I worked at if they thought blood levels were too high but it did reduce them. As to levels if I remember correctly they started to get concerned if levels exceeded 5 – ug/dl I assume.

There was a in infants school right next to the factory so the area was monitored for a long time. No concern at all around the factory. The nearest main road had lots more in the air.

There are some dodgy graphs in the report Neil linked to. I mostly grew up on a B'ham overspill estate so am a sort of country bumkin in some ways. Maybe that explains my IQ.

John

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[Bodgit Fixit and RunParticipant @bodgitfixitandrun]

Lead used to be used in paint which was highly toxic. My cousin unfortunately developed lead poisoning as a result of plying with lead painted toys as a child. It took him a long time to recover apparantly.

it's now banned in paint products because of its toxicity.

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

"Compo" that is the name I could not remember!

You must have spent ages searching to find that Michael….. I still don't know the alloying elements but A knowledgeable scrap dealer might?

Mark

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Mark C on 22/12/2015 17:34:27:

"Compo" that is the name I could not remember!

You must have spent ages searching to find that Michael…..

.

Something less than five minutes total

… Must have just hit lucky.

MichaelG.

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Edit: … and since typing this post, I have just found this page, listing several "COMPO" alloys … so we may not be much closer. 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/12/2015 18:21:52

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

There is generally silver mixed into it as well and it can be separated.

John

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[DMBParticipant @dmb]

Robin,
Whats a C19 house?
John

[the artfull-codgerParticipant @theartfull-codger]

Forgot to mention, the stained glass/leaded light dept at work used to get free milk to drink with working with lead.

[Mark CParticipant @markc]

The milk would be for extra calcium to make stronger bones with all the extra weight from the lead?

Actually, it was supposed to help line the stomach to prevent it getting into your system if I remember my training correctly – whether it was "science" or not is any ones guess……

Mark

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

John (DMB) – C19 = ninteenth century, sorry about that, thought it was a standard abbreviation. The house dates from around 1840.

Thanks for all the advice, H&S info and lead-melting anecdotes. Took me back to the crazy things I did when I was a kid. Possibly the stupidest was at the age of 13 grinding red phosphorus and potassium chlorate together in a pestle and mortar in the hope of making a sort of super-gunpowder. You can guess what happened. I survived and learnt something about risk assessment though!

Sounds like my plan to use cheapo cookware will be OK, I've got the PPE stuff, and as it's more or less a one-off I'm not too worried about lead poisoning. it was more the concern about the molten lead eating the 'crucible' that prompted my post.

Happy Solstice, Yule, Christmas or whatever to you all, Robin.

[frank brownParticipant @frankbrown22225]

When I was a baby (about 12-18 months old?- 1949) I chewed the paint of my cot and came up in a red rash. In retrospect we reckon it was the lead that dun it. left me as mad as a hatter even though I have never touched much mercury (except for the stuff we nicked from the chemmy labs).

Frank

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Actually lead water pipes in the uk go well into the 20th century. It varies as mentioned here

**LINK**

John

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