Visit to a scrap yard

As far as I can tell you introduced the "clean as a daycare playground" cleanup standard. Did I miss something that supports that as a real requirement? It's certainly not the case with cleanups in this area that I'm familiar with.

Because it might be. You don't know WHAT that might be in 5 or 10 years.

AFIK, it ISN'T the lead in the glass, its the phosphors, and the lead in the solder.

jk

It is the lead in the glass as well. A 15" computer monitor has about a 20lb tube with 1.65 lbs of lead in it. I has another couple of pounds in the other components. Leaded glass dissolves fairly easily in a caustic environment. That is why you don't run the good crystal through the dishwasher.

Oh, but I do run lead crystal through the dishwasher. It works just fine. Lead glass is very strong and stable. And I break far fewer glasses than if I hand wash them, which I did for many years.

Joe Gwinn

It is not breakage. The strongly alkaline automatic dishwashing detergent will etch the surface and they will loose their shine. It will etch regular glass to, just not as fast.

From wikipedia Lead crystal should not be cleaned in a dishwasher as the corrosive effect of dishwasher detergent is high on such types of glass-that is, it will quickly go 'cloudy'.

I've seen KOH in boiling ethanol etch Pyrex cloudy in a few minutes.

jsw

I could use some tin too, but not hundreds of pounds. Iggy / Tom - put together a joint purchase? How much do we have to buy to get the guy to sell? Any other lead casters here?

RWL

The lead does leach out of the glass in an acid environment. Acid rain is plenty acidic enough. Eric

This guy is not doing piddly stuff.

That's pretty severe, but ordinary dishwashing isn't nearly that extreme. We use the lead crystal wine glasses two or three times a week so those glasses have been washed at least a hundred times over the last year, for a few years, and they do not appear to be etched. I'm sure they will eventually dull, but it won't be fast. And, I'll surely break them by accident long before.

Joe Gwinn

One advantage of agin that I've noticed is that, as my eyes deteriorate, the glasses coming out of the dishwasher look a lot better than they used to. d8-)

Try touch... :)

I still have access to linotype metal in ingots - I can ship 60 pounds in a flat rate box - this seems to be a favored alloy. contact me via the email on my web page

Do you still have access to the Linotype separator alloy? It's richer in Tin.

How do you know they're lead crystal, any indication what brand are they. A good indication of lead crystal is it appears grey when looking through a thicker section in much the same way window/float glass appears green. The stuff certainly isn't used much any more due to the safety concerns and in art glass I've been told its use is non existent in the US and in UK/Europe is becoming much less common. A couple of blowers I know use it as they do a lot of restoration work and cold workers prefer it as its much softer and easier to work.

They are Riedel, and were marked as containing 32% lead.

I have not tried that, but will. I don't recall any green color in the base, where the glass is thickest.

When tapped, they do have a low tone.

Not much used? Hardly. Many tons of lead crystal is sold every year.

Well, that's enough links. Lots of lead crystal is sold.

Joe Gwinn

That is good, IIRC in Europe it can only be called lead crystal with 24% PbO and above. IIRC a friend uses around 30% lead crystal for what she blows in her studio.

The green colour is in float glass and is is due to iron impurities and you see it through thicker sections. Lead crystal has a grey cast to it when viewed through thicker sections although sometimes not obvious unless compared against a clear item.

Yes lead crystal is supposed to ring better than more common soda lime glass.

Lots of lead crystal sold but is any of it made in the US. I've been to the Dartington factory and they don't make as much there anymore due to cheaper competition from abroad, also health and safety with the lead. Some years back they installed an enormous extraction system to pull off the fumes from the furnace and collect the lead oxide.

Yes. That seems to be the sweet spot for lead glass.

They do! For a given thickness, lead glass will have the lower tone. The resonant frequency is the square root of the mass density and the mechanical stiffness. Lead glass is very strong, so the sections can be thinner, which confuses things a bit.

I don't know how much is made in the US, although lots of people buy Reidel, which is made in Germany. It's certainly the case that people have gotten crazy about the dangers of lead. And mercury. And life.

This makes sense. While the glass isn't such a danger, the process to make it may require containment.

Joe Gwinn

Ned Simmons on Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:37:07 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

I probably over spoke, but that does seem to be - if not a stated goal, an unspoken one. (Yes, IOW: I have no cites for such a position, other than Rhetorical) But, there does seem to be a enough documented nuttiness by the EPA, that one could believe they do insist on such a goal for industrial remediation.

I recall a case where the EPA was after the mining company for their failure to file a remediation plan a for patch polluted by spilled fuel on their property. The reason no plan had been filed was that the fuel spill had been in the open pit mine, and the patch which had been so polluted was now fifty feet in the air, the "soil" having been dug up and run through the smelters.