Backplate / Oxycheck questions

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Can just see 150# of lead in the air at FredT's shop. I am a blacksmith and have poured alot of lead and lead based babbit over the yrs for bearings and tools. The closest I have been to a mishap was driving up to a friends shop as he came flying out of it with a pound or so of lead in his beard and more on his glasses and the big eyed look they told me to watch for in my ymca rescue diver class. (BTW I have dove several times with a woman everywhere from South Dakota to Ginnie Springs who can maintain this look at all times while underwater). He was melting old lead water line and hit a pocket of water, ounces maybe, in a kink in the pipe.

Do it outside, or has been said with the garage door open. Take the lead somewhat past the melting point to get a good pour. There will be oxides/dirt/garbage on the surface of the lead by this time so have a spoon or something to skim this off. Leave this spoon in the shop LOL. I have a long handled plated one with strainer holes in it but anything will do. If you plan to do alot of this there are ladles that pour through a spigot fed from a hole in the bottom of the ladle. WASH YOUR HANDS before eating, smoking etc. It is not actually the pure lead that is harmful it is the lead oxides.

Only my second post since I stumbled on to this site several weeks ago. What a fount of knowledge is accessible here. Thanks to you all.
 
It's great, isn't it?

Word of warning: Sometimes people get on here and spout about things they THINK they know about, but don't really. So not everything can be taken at face value all the time...

Just beware. If you hear the same thing from several different people, then it's worth investigating. But don't make decisions about what's right or wrong on this board until you've tried it out for yourself.

Also, there are flat-out differing opinions expressed here, and often times the meeting of those differing opinions can get heated. It's hard sometimes to know what to believe and what not to believe.

Nonetheless, I've found that most of the time, the knowlege is here for the taking. There's always someone with more knowlege and experience than you... Or me... Or whoever you choose to believe.

...But many of us have their own individual piece of knowlege that they can share. You, for example, know all about the metalworking that we're seeking to understand now. FredT's a fantastic resource for that, too.

...Which leads me to the question about the lead oxides... Should I wear a face mask? Will that help, or is simple ventilation going to do it? Can I do both, or is the face mask pointless?
 
Have never seen or heard of anyone wearing a mask and pouring lead is a common practice in the blacksmithing community. The handwashing is always stressed. Instead of buying a mask spend some money on a full face shield. Relatively cheap, and accidents do happen. It literally takes just one drop of water or sweat to make things real interesting in a hurry. This ain't like frying bacon nekkid LOL. Wear a long sleeve cotton shirt and gloves. Do it in a large building or at the edge of a garage with the door open. Where I come from this is all DIR :)

Wheel weights from a tire shop are a good source of lead. Too hard for bullets (contain some antimony) but fine for ballast. When they melt you get to see the steel clips float...way cool.
 
SeaJay once bubbled...
Word of warning: Sometimes people get on here and spout about things they THINK they know about, but don't really. So not everything can be taken at face value all the time...
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Ok, I've had lead poisoning, so a little advice:

If you're not going to do this a lot, there's no need to worry, just do it in a well ventilated area and make sure there's no cooking utensils in the area.

Even worse than the oxides are the lead salts. And even worse than the salts, some people appear to be genetically predisposed to soaking up lead (and there's no way to tell except by exposure). They're "lead sponges" and this is the doctor's best guess as to what happened to me.

I did a lot of shooting indoors, which included going downrange where a lot of the dust and primer smoke hangs out (we ran IPSC matches indoors). On a whim one year I asked my doctor to run a lead level on me, though I didn't suspect anything. It came back as a 47 (in whatever units they use), at 50 they panic.

This needless to say caused a flurry of friends that did exactly the same thing as I did to get tested. The absolute highest among them was a 3, yes, three, and this guy was a bullet caster, which I didn't do, so he had an even higher exposure than I did.

Metallic lead itself is very hard to metabolize, so unless you're going to start casting weekly, take a few common precautions (the water explosion warning is very pertinent) and have fun. Molten lead is fun stuff to play with as long as you assure it won't bite you.

Roak

Ps. 47 is high enough to require the doctor to report you to the State of Colorado, and you get this nice letter saying that they'll take away your kids unless you fix the lead problem in your home. Not having kids I thought it was funny, but if I did have kids I wouldn't, even though the problem was not in my home.

PPs. I stopped shooting indoors (still shoot outdoors) and my level is back to essentially zero now, though there's some debate if you ever really get rid of it. Some think it just stops circulating in your bloodstream so they can't "see" it any longer...
 
Lead levels of 100 ppm (parts per million) are immediately dangerous to your health. NIOSH exposure limits are 0.1 ppm, OSHA is half of that at 0.05 ppm! Recommendations for respirator use depend upon the maximum concentration. At 0.5 ppm any air purifying respirator with a high efficiency particulate filter will do it. Greater than that and you start talking about positive pressure masks etc.

I use a Coleman stove AND a propane torch to get things melting and I just stand up wind when I do it outdoors.

omar
 
omar once bubbled...
Lead levels of 100 ppm (parts per million) are immediately dangerous to your health.
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Just to be clear, your post and my post is apples and oranges.

My "47" was something like milligrams per deciliter or somesuch, where you're talking exposure (PPM).

Roak
 
SeaJay once bubbled...
Hey, about this "poisionous vapor" thing... What do I have to do to prevent toxicity? Will a simple breathing mask work?

I've also heard that if there's moisture, your lead can "pop." How bad is it? What do you do to prevent the problem?
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hahahaha.. thats funny. (Im not making fun of you, you have some good points.) Im sure OSHA wouldn't have been impressed with my 3am trying to scale the race car and dont have the right size piece of lead scenario where I welded up a steel box, grabbed the lead, fired up the oxy-acetalyne torch with the rosebud tip inisde my shop and made my own. :) As far as moisture, ever put a torch against a concrete floor and watch it explode? Sort of the same idea. Keep the lead away from moisture points (ie, concrete floor, any liquids , etc.)

As far as fumes, ive killed more brain cells than I care to remember, but I do remember metal shop in high school where someone was gas welding some sheetmetal together that happened to be galvinized (zinc in it) and breathed the fumes, got sick, had to go to the hospital. Not fun for him. If you want a respirator, go ahead, but Ive never used one.
 
Never heard of this line of equipment. Any links?
 
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https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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