Thread: Shiny jig head alloys

I too have antimony in my lead. I have jigging spoons that have been poured for more than 5 years and are still shiny.

I would have to get an alloy because my pot won't melt antimony. Only need %5 so the 30% antimony, 70% lead should be easy enough to figure out how much lead to add to get 5%.
I also have wheel weights I melted down years ago that stayed pretty shiny, I think they are tin alloy.

Never used antimony cause I read it melts at 1156 degrees. That lead is going to be be way hot , cook out some and get hard. I can melt antimony on my propane set up and add to lead hot but I just don't want shiney jigs that bad.

Some of the lead I got is a high alloy of some kind. Tried to cut it smaller with a hatchet and a hammer and it broke instead of cutting through. I think I will just try to find tinny wheel weight type lead for my shiny stuff and use the purer stuff for painted head.

Wish there was an easy way to figure what alloy I have.

I’ve used both 10 and 20lb lee pots no problem melting lead with it. Current 10lb pot I have set to 6.5. I can tell no difference melting times than when I used pure lead. Not having to get my lead any hotter than normal.

You can get 95% lead 5% antimony ratio at rotometals which is where I get mine. I don’t pour like I use to or I’d mix it myself. I do have antimony by itself in the event I ever clean the bucket of lead I have in the garage.

Back in the day when dentists took x-rays with that hard cardboard thing the girls would get jammed in your mouth and felt like a hubcap off a Desoto it had a small wafer of lead over the film that they had to remove before use. They could not legally throw them away so they put them in a dedicated trash can and store them. I was doing a remodel at an office that had a dozen of these storage containers. I got them from them and have some 200 or so pounds of that left. Not sure what alloy it is but when I mix it with my sheet lead it gets a shine to it. Your local dentist may have a back room with this stuff. They don't like to pay to have it hauled away.

Yep Doc I use rotometal for my lead purchases. Normally I go to the detached garage to melt down large quantities of lead in in a cast iron pot and ladle into an old muffin tin to make ingots, it is also a good way to mix alloy materials and clean scrap lead I get from roofers and wheel weights.