Melting Practice For Lead And Lead Alloys

LEAD is an inexpensive metal produced and consumed in large quantities with certain chemical and physical properties that permit handling the molten metal in bulk. These properties are its low melting point, resistance to oxidation, and its negligible solvent action on iron and steel. Thus, lead is almost always melted in large iron or steel kettles, heated from beneath, and is seldom melted in either directly or indirectly fired furnaces or electric induction or arc furnaces. Even with a modest operation a kettle holding 2 or 3 tons is employed, and the size will range up to 215 tons in the large lead refineries. The methods of handling tin and its alloys are essentially the same as for lead because of the similarity in melting point and resistance to oxidation, although because of the cost of the metal the scale is more modest. In melting lead and its alloys preliminary to a casting operation it is seldom that the melting unit is completely drained of its contents. The usual procedure is to continuously charge solid metal and continuously remove small amounts of liquid metal, so that the kettle is maintained essentially full at all times. For type metals, linotype machines usually employ automatic means of adding the solid alloy to the melting pot in proportion to the removal of the liquid metal in casting slugs of type. In the casting of grids for storage batteries, frequently automatic means of charging solid metal in direct proportion to the consumption of liquid metal in the casting is used. In the manufacture of bearing alloys, new alloy is charged in direct proportion to the consumption of metal in the bearings being cast, so that at no time does the level of the metal in the melting pot lower to any great extent. Even in the manufacture of bulky commodities such as pipe, cable. sheathing, and slabs for rolled sheet, it is the practice to employ a melting kettle of several times the capacity of the casting being made. A substantial level of liquid metal in the melting kettle is thus maintained even after the casting is poured and the original metal level is quickly restored by promptly charging new metal, even though there is no immediate need to proceed with additional casting. This procedure is permissible because the amount of fuel consumed in keeping the lead molten and immediately available for use is negligibly small and the cost is more than offset by the convenience. However, this convenient procedure necessitates study and control of certain properties of lead and tin alloys that are not of serious consequence in most other alloys and for that reason are not well known. These properties are "drossing rates" and "melting segregation." DROSSING RATE Users of lead long ago observed that the rate of dross formation on the surface of the lead in their kettles or pots varied greatly from time to time. This was particularly common in places where both antimonial lead alloys and commercially pure lead were being handled.