robbor Posted February 8, 2008 Report Share Posted February 8, 2008 There all all the question about soft lead. I have been trying to come up with a material cheap enough i can build the main ring/ flange for a vulvanizing frame with a 9" id and a 13" od, which would be about $50 for alum. I was thinking if there was anything I can add to my already hard wheel weight ingots and then pour a large ring for this project. What can I add and how hard can I get it??? any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagacious Posted February 8, 2008 Report Share Posted February 8, 2008 You don't even need to add anything to your ww alloy, as long as it was properly fluxed wheen you first melted it down. Pure lead has a BHN hardness of 5, hard lead (ww lead) is about 12-- but you can easily "heat treat" ww lead to a BHN hardness of 30. That makes for a quite hard, and tough, alloy. Read and understand the article below, and you should have what you need. It works. http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm Hope this helps, good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...