Bolt knob inlay and rosette

A little practice

What metal is that your holding it with?

Saludos,

Carlos

Lead sheet.

Dave has tons of it from the "olden days" probably... ?

Don't be stuffing yer face with chips and dip while handling it.


Brian

Yes
Brian is right 1/4 in thick lead sheet. Been working with lead since I was a whippersnapper, my dad was a plumber and it was one of my chores to melt the scrap lead pipe and traps , then pour in to ingots. Not a problem if you use common sense. Don't eat it,wash your hands, don't breath the fumes
It is still sold on the net about $50 for a 12 in sq 1/4 thick sheet

Nice job on the inlay, engraving and checkering. Well done. Did you finally decide to hold the knob with the lead through the whole process or do you figure out a jig?-Fred

Carlos, you got a reason now to get MORE tools! Quarter inch thick lead sheet is kinda expensive. You can get scrap lead lots of places. Even for free?

Get some ingot molds (I make mine) melt & pour some scrap and run it through that new rolling mill you needed a coupla days ago to make gold wire...

You DO have a torch, right? Or two or three? One for low temp stuff, one for silversmithing, one for gold & platinum...


Then you can get started in another hobby with whatever's left over - reloading your own cartridges!

You'll need a melting pot, some bullet molds, tongs and a press and a powder scale and, and, and...

An entirely new tool porn category! Wait 'till you get hold of the reloaders catalogs! You can fill half a bathroom with 'em! (best place to contemplate how to spend yer money)


Brian


Umm... Oh, yeah... better look up what lead contamination will do to your gold BEFORE you use the mill to roll lead with... it can be done, long as you KNOW ahead of time how to handle it.

I don't allow lead to be used on ANY bench where platinum, gold or silver gets worked on in any way. EVER!

Had to "undo" a lot of damage for other folks over the years I ran the refinery. It can be a really expensive lesson - starting over from scratch.

For those whose wallet or money clip doesn't make 'em walk leaning over to one side... like Leonard... or Carlos...


Here's a relatively simple way (unless your wife catches you)


First get some clean scrap lead.

OLD tire weights - not new ones - will work. The new ones are a different alloy. You want lead.


Then run, walk or drive down to the corner store and buy yerself some crackers and coupla cans of sardines...

You want the kind that come in rectangular cans. Eat them BEFORE you start. You need empty sardine cans.


Find out exactly where your significant other is. Make sure it's far away. In the shower won't do...

Fill the cans with what looks like about right amount of tire weights to give you a quarter to a half inch thick slab after the melt.

DO NOT HEAP IT UP to over an inch above the rim! Having liquid lead spill over the edge is not pleasant.


Make sure the S/O is still far away. The other side of town will do.

Place the cans with tire weights in them on the kitchen stove burner. Electric or gas will work. Hopefully you know how to turn it on? Some guys don't...


Heat it SLOWLY... don't crank it up because you are short on patience. You should not be doing this kind of work if you lack patience.

When it starts to melt, you might want to stir it a little. Carefully. I use a wooden popsicle stick. It will catch fire.

If you don't know how to blow it out - maybe you shouldn't be trying this.

When it has all melted there will be a scum (dross) on top. This is normal. Don't worry about it. Leave it alone.


Shut off the stove. This is important. Especially to those who don't have a lot of experience using stoves.


Go away for 20 minutes. Read some tool porn catalogs. Get out your credit cards and put them to good use.


Come back and cool the tins with water.


Done right, and if the lead shrinks enough - it will just fall out of the tin.

Otherwise pry it out with a junk screwdriver, or use tin snips. (Good time to practice your French vocabulary)


Use the scum (dross) side against your vise jaws. The other side should be relatively smooth and even.

This will be the side you use to embed whatever work you are squeezin' between the jaws.


After you have marred up most of the smooth side, (usually takes a year or so) it is easy enough to go down the corner store and buy some more crackers and sardines...

Recyle your lead jaw liners as many times as you wish. Maybe even using the original sardine can mold?


If you try this, I am NOT to be held responsible in any way if you get caught!

Or screw it up, spill it into the stove or on the floor, start a fire or overheat/boil it and poison yourself...


Brian

Brian,

dont have a need for sardines just yet, but as soon as I have to consider it done. Now to find the user manual for the stove, wait ill search youtube.

Saludos,

Carlos

I forgot to mention...

You'll probably need heavy duty tweezers or a pair of long nosed pliers if the tire weights have a steel clip embedded in them.

You'll need to be fishin' those out when the metal turns molten. Leavin' 'em in kinda defeats the purpose...


B.

Thanks Fred
Yes the lead was the fix, quick easy cheap

For skimming the dross off molten lead a old SS spoon works on small melts, you can also use some old candle wax as a flux to make the dross easier to skim off. Brian you are showing your age using, old technical terms:beatup:

Don't eat it,wash your hands, don't breath the fumes

Click to expand...

Also, don't sweat or have a runny nose over a lead pot.

Even "old' wheel weights are not pure lead. They can have a crystalline structure and can be somewhat brittle when poured into sheet. However, the stick-on weights for mag wheels are lead.

Just a bit of bullet lube will flux the dross off the melted lead.

scott99

There are a lot of lead sheets inside a car battery. I had a school in one of the Delco Remy battery plants and got about 10 feet of the lead sheeting rolled up from one of the employees to make jaw pads. it is about an eighth of an inch thick or so. I would have to double it or triple it to make the jaw pads thick enough for this project. I think about every town of any size has a Diamond battery rebuilder. Might be a source of raw pure lead. We have one here in town but never stopped in. Fred

Some of my lead disappeared when I tore down a structure about a year ago. But, here are a couple of other sources. Sometime, the hospitals remodel or replace X-ray rooms, and the sheetrock walls are lead-lined. Sometime, employees can buy this dirt cheap, or for free, if they don't get a hernia lifting the stuff. Also, the telephone companies used to have lead sheathing with their underground lines, and get to know some employee when the next dig is scheduled. Old waterpipe used to be nearly pure lead, and I have some around somewhere. Also, radioactive isotopes, for hospital use, come in pure lead cylinders which are painted a robin's egg blue. Some of these, I have. If you stumble into a find, it doesn't hurt to have as much as you can get your hands on. Now, I just have to find where I put mine.

If you live in or near Los Angeles, Industrial Metal sells lead shot, ingots, and sheet (up to 36" wide). Other large cities will have suppliers that sell to battery makers and marine supply companies.

Scott, give Carlos some time to catch up with the rest of us... he hasn't got the reloading stuff yet.

Unless he ordered it in the last 2 or 3 hours? Still won't have it 'till tomorrow at the earliest...


Ron, dunno about having anything around that might have been a container for radioactive stuff... do you work a lot nights? Extra lighting?


B.

really nice. . .

Dave, one of these days I'd love to come look over your shoulder while you work.

<"Brian you are showing your age using, old technical terms">


Dave,

There were no lead pipes that I can recall in my day... lead solder for copper pipe, yes. Lead pipe, no.

I did my share of soldering copper pipe.


I believe the Romans had lead pipe first, so that would make you somewhat older than the rest of us on this forum?

Anywhere within the range of 2,000 years or so...

I'd have never guessed that when we met. You sure didn't look it.

Methuselah was probably just a puppy - comparatively?


B.

Ron Spokovich said:

Sometime, the hospitals remodel or replace X-ray rooms, and the sheetrock walls are lead-lined. Sometime, employees can buy this dirt cheap, or for free, if they don't get a hernia lifting the stuff.

Click to expand...

I got about 600 pounds of pure lead sheet from a chiro buddy's office when he remodeled. I also hauled away about 1200 pounds of lead capsules left over from the Nuclear Medicine Dept. of the local hospital I used to work at. The ones I got were just lead and weren't painted. They were about 35 pounds each and looked a lot like a big bullet.