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AlvinYork
I moved this out of another topic as I didn’t want to hijack that thread. . .
Post 2
Ok I mixed up the anhydrous copper sulfate with the hydrous type.
25.47% copper, 38.47% sulfate, 36.06% water is hydrous
39.82% copper, 60.19% sulfate is ANhydrous
So maybe you can sprinkle anhydrous copper sulfate into your melt . . .
Post 1
I was wondering if anyone has used copper sulfate for the added copper. I found a post somewhere that mentions using it but not the technique. Copper sulfate is 39.81% copper so getting to 0.5% in the alloy should be easy enough. I would think it would be added first then boiled down along with some lead/tin/alloy before mixing it all in with your batch. At 36.06% water you definitely do NOT want to add it to an existing melt! The results would be explosive. Plus you’d lose most of the alloy to the wind and lose track of your percentages.
Anyway I’d like to hear from anyone who has actually done this, if it can be done.
AlvinYork-
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adamsutherland
Hugh Kuhns
I had about 100 lbs of lead that was contaminated with zinc that I used copper sulfate to remove it. The stuff I used was a granulated blue powder. I applied enough to coat the top of the melt, stirred it into the melt, skimmed it off and repeated until the powder turned white instead of gray. This made an alloy that was very strong but not brittle. I could take a bullet and hit it with a hammer and it would not crack, but would flatten out like a coin. I have no idea of the copper content. Don’t use this in your casting pot but rather in your smelting pot.
The copper sulfate I used came from a lawn and garden store…main use is to apply to ponds to keep down plant growth or on tree roots to kill the tree.
762sultan
To get the copper into the alloy I tie some copper wire into a wee besom, weight it, dip it into some bakers fluid and the stir into a known amount of melted tin, keep check weighing your copper besom ’till you get sufficient into the tin.
Dromia’s post started me thinking about copper in the first place. Without meaning to affront, I just didn’t know what he was talking about. I re-read it a couple of times and googled and I think I know the technique well enough to try it myself.
“tie some copper wire into a wee besom” – googled besom, a small basket made of twigs – so he’s putting copper into a twig basket? Nope – forming the copper wire into a small basket and dip that into the tin.
“bakers fluid” – salt, water and some milk? – wrong again – ‘a water based flux containing zinc chloride and other salts, which provide an extremely effective fluxing reaction at soldering temperatures’
The only problem is that Baker’s fluid isn’t readily available in the States. I’ve got to google some more to find it (at a reasonable price). Once I have that I’ll give this method a try also.
Apologies to Dromia if he’s perturbed with me now but I think a lot of people on this side of the pond were a little confused by his description and I hope this clears things up.Actually a besom is a brush/broom made from twigs, withies and the like, bit like a whisk.
Made my first batch of bullet lead with some copper sulfate added in. Using Mr. Lee’s hardness tester this stuff came out to a BHN of 20! I’m impressed. The only thing I would change for the next batch would be the order in which I add the ingredients. This time, I first melted everything then threw in a cup of copper sulfate. My full length welding leathers and my polycarbonate face mask protected me from the worst of the resulting fireworks. So I’m going to heat up the copper sulfate first (or do it ahead of time, now that I’m thinking about it, and add it in later in the process) to get all the moisture out of the CuSO4(H2O)5 then toss in the super hard, lead and tin. Hopefully that’ll result in a less spectacular smelt.
adamsutherland
Hugh Kuhns
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