Dental X-Ray lead

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  • Last Post 12 May 2008
Crooked Creek posted this 18 April 2008

Anyone know anything about this stuff...composition, etc. ?

About 25 years ago I came into about fifty pounds of the “lead” backing from dental X-Rays. I assume it's there to block, and thus limit, or minimize one's exposure to the X-Rays coming out the back side of the film (?). My dentist would throw the backing (1,000's) into a box when he developed the X-Rays. I saw the box one day during a visit and asked him “What gives?". He said he didn't really have a reason for saving them...he just did. I think he did say that one of his patients “melted some down into fishing sinkers". I told him I cast bullets and was always on the look out for a source for material. He said I could have it. They are small squares (about an inch) and thin enough that they melt by “waving a torch at them". I thought they were simply lead (pure?), since the little sheets were so soft “feeling” and flexible. I melted the stuff into ingots and cast some 50 cal. Maxi Balls in a T-C mold and you could not start them in a barrel. So, apparently, it is an alloy of some sort. It's definitely softer than wheel weights, but harder than lead. I didn't do a hardness test, so I don't have numbers to relate to for reference. I still have those ingots lying around somewhere, and am thinking about putting them to use. Anyone ever use the stuff, or know ( or think?) of a reason why it should not be used ?

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Ed Harris posted this 18 April 2008

Lead is toxic, so they may not use it for something inserted into the mouth.  I expect the backing in dental xrays is probably pure TIN!  The little bit I got once sure acted that way. I never sent any out to the lab, becuase I had only a few ounces, but I  used it like solder to sweeten some alloy and it acted that way. 

If you still have a substantial quantity it would be worthwhile to send some to a lab for analysis. It if does turn out to be tin you have quite a nice windfall.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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linoww posted this 18 April 2008

My mom gave me a pile about 18 years ago from the dental office she worked in.The ones I had were a strange semi-hard alloy and had a golden appearance on top of the melt.I never got hem to cast well.The fumes they let off also got me nauseous so I never used them again.I am not sure if the fumes were from a coating on the lead related to the film strip,or the alloy itself.

Thats my only experience with dental x-ray sheets,probably not much help.

George

"if it was easy we'd let women do it" don't tell my wife I said that!

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RicinYakima posted this 18 April 2008

Nope, it's lead, plastic coated on both sides. However, a five gallon plastic bucket tamped full, will yield 3 lyman ingots of 99.9% pure lead. If it is worth the effort, only you can determine that. The lead poisoning risk is zero compared to the amount of X-rays they are shooting through your cheek! Ric

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NORMSUTTON posted this 18 April 2008

I've it for 30 years  mix with wheel weights its a nice source for clean lead   NORM

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Crooked Creek posted this 19 April 2008

 Thanks for the input guys. I did a little searching and found that I had not melted all the stuff into ingots...the years are taking a toll on the memory, and the stash was hiding pretty good. I found a 5 gal. bucket ( standard 12” dia. x 14 1/4” high +- ) with about 6 1/2” of this stuff, loosely packed only of it's own weight. Ric, apparenly my dentist did me a big favor by peeling any plastic off before tossing into the box. What's in the bucket is pure....whatever it is, and the bucket weighed 64.5# on a digital bathroom scale (twice to check repeatability) and a like bucket weighed 35 oz. on an RCBS trigger pull scale. So I've got about 61.5# of something that melts and looks like lead, but is harder. I wish it were tin as Ed suggested it may be, but it's not as shiny as what I'm used to seeing as tin ingots. Also, from what I recall it did not have a gold tint on top of the melt nor an unusual order as George experienced, but then again my memory thing comes into play here ! I tried taking some photos, but they are a little fuzzy (tried to get too close) and I can't figure out how to attach them here anyway ! Any instructions on that ? I saw some comments regarding photos from Jeff Bolwes a week or so ago, but I couldn't locate it again.     

Yeh, you would think they would not be putting lead in something that (even temporarilly) ends up in your mouth, but then how many of us baby boomers have amalgam fillings have mercury as a chief constituent of the mix...?

Roger Allen

 

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454PB posted this 19 April 2008

My daughter works as a dental assistant and has been gathering those lead squares for me for about a year.  Man it takes a lot of them to make an ingot! I also assumed they were pure lead, but I guess I should do a hardness test.

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RicinYakima posted this 19 April 2008

I think the yellow tint is the micro-thin film of plastic on the back side of the lead foil that leaves a residue on top of the melt. Yep, I had to pull all of the plastic fronts myself. And I used latex gloves, you know what dirty places those things have been?

What I did score on was the old lead “robes” they put over the victims, I mean patients, and the Teckies lab aprons.

Ric

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Crooked Creek posted this 19 April 2008

What 454PB said about his daughter saving them for about a year and that it takes a lot of them to make an ingot got me to thinking (probably a little more than I should have).

While waiting for my wife to get ready to go out, and having nothing better to do, I took on a little math project. I measured and weighed a number of those little puppies and found: Other than a few smaller ones I saw in the “hand full", they are 1 5/8” x 1 1/4” and .0025” thick. Average weight was 13.12 grains each. Thus: Roughly 533.54 of them in a one pound ingot and 32,813 of them in my 61.5 #. This got me thinking even more (I need to find yet another hobby to occupy my thoughts, I guess).....When I got the stuff from the dentist, he was in his early to mid thirties......32,813 X-Rays, not counting what he had previously given away the “sinker man” and how many he pitched before deciding to save them ! I probably won't get a wink of sleep tonight for thinking about how many dentists there are out there and that I should have chosen a career as a “Dental X-Ray Film Salesman", hmmm, even has a pretty good ring to it. I'm now thinking about carrying the math exercise a little further....let's see, how many patients a day, how many days, how much time per patient, how many “bad X-Ray do-overs", etc., etc. to get just my 32,813 ? Do you guys realize that at one X-Ray a day (everyday!) it would take 89.9 years to amass just mine! This is getting painfull, I have a headache, my eyes have blurred (wait, it may be tears), where is that guy that said “Just do the math", if I could just get my hands on him. I think I'll quit thinking for the night and just go watch something on TV that's senseless and requires no thought to be entertained. Peace to all and have a good night.

Rog

On a serious note....454PB, if you do do a hardness test, I think it would be interesting to post the result. Who knows, it may get me thinking again !

 

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NORMSUTTON posted this 20 April 2008

Crooked Creek   4 to 6 x rays per patient ,6 to 8 patient's a day per Hygienist   NORM

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454PB posted this 23 April 2008

I just returned from a visit to my daughter (she lives 100 miles away). I told her of this question, and asked her to check the MSDS at work to see what the foil is. They have no MSDS, so she called the supplier to find out what it is. This surprised me, when I was still working, we had to have a MSDS for everything, including distilled water. The supplier said it is lead. When asked why it was OK to put lead in a patient's mouth, she was told that the lead is fully encapsulated and no danger to the patient. The supplier then stated that the user had to “properly dispose” of the used packets, and asked what they were doing with them. My daughter told her that her dad uses then for bullets, and she said that was a good disposal method:D

 

Before she started saving these for me, they all went in the trash can.

 

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argie1891 posted this 24 April 2008

i have  some dental x-ray lead it is kind of a pain as it is so thin. the best way to melt is to take it and compress into a ball and put into the lead pot. another good thing you can get for free from some dentist offices is old x-ray aprons. these make good mats to cover your chooting bench. heavy enough the wind dosent blow them off and they hold up well. also they make good mats to put over car fenders while working on them, again they stay put. joe gifford aka argie1891

if you think you have it figured out then you just dont understand

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gussy posted this 24 April 2008

I have several ingots and tested them sometime back.  They are NOT pure lead.  I'm not sure what's in them but they are much harder then pure lead.  Could also be there is more than one supplier and what they use might vary??

:coffeeGus

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CB posted this 27 April 2008

A shootin' friend of mine, who just happens to be a radiologist told me when the hospital he was working for, redid his department, he gots lots of lead from the olden days type of shielding.

Is said he has been casting it, alloying it, swaging it and shooting it for 27 years now.

 

Jerry

 

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whofan posted this 07 May 2008

Jerry,

Several years ago my father-in-law gave me several hundred pounds of sheet lead that had lined the wall of the x-ray room at a hospital that he worked.

I still have most of it.  I am thinking of trying to use it straight up in .45 ACP loads. Up until now, I have only used it to cast balls for my muzzle loading rifle and my Ruger “Old Army” revolver.

Wheel weights are impossible to score around here lately, so I thought about the .45 ACP project.

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CB posted this 07 May 2008

Whofan,

 

You can buy tin for $5 a pound from some person in Philly area and you can get antimoney from shot for reloading shotguns.

I have done this formulation in the past. But check Gunbroker.com for WWs, there is a guy who sells then in ingot form for about $2 a pound, a little high for some people, but when you can't get them cheap you have to buy them at no so cheap prices.

The alloy of lead they use for X Ray shielding is too soft for modern bullets, will cause a lot of leading in your barrel.

 

Jerry

 

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Lloyd Smale posted this 08 May 2008

my brother in law is a dentist and recently switched from xray to some kind of computer imagining and gave me the remainder of his lead. It was tested at a local paper mills lab by my buddy and the stuff he have me was pure lead with 1 percent tin.

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454PB posted this 12 May 2008

Well I cast some Lee .452 255 gr. SWC from this stuff today and did a hardness test. It's 8.7 BHN right after casting, the bullets measure .454” and weigh 258 grs. It casts very well, and I think Lloyd is right, it must have some tin in it.

 

I'll retest for hardness is a week or so.

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