Sweet sound....surprise


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Was hunting a while back and I got this sweet mellow low high sounds. Started diggin and realized it was pretty deep, my heart full of excitement of the anticipation of a monster nugget a life changer....just a few inches deeper :D and my life would change.. i could finally buy my dream truck, the prospectors dream machine to  take me to the gold fields. Than I awoke out of my dream and realized it was something I have found before...lead Sheets !!  Heavy lead used for god knows what...bullets maybe? Anyone find lead sheets before...whats your take on what it was used for. 

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Son of a gun! Thats a deep hole.....you can be proud of the hole anyway :)
You just have to wonder how some trash got so deep in the middle of no where?
Only lead ive found are bullets.

Tom H

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Lead was used quite a bit around mines.  Easy to repair things with as it took a low heat to melt it.  Check and see if it isn't Babbitt material, they used it for making bearings in the big motors that ran the mines.  Also all automobiles before the fifty's had Babbitt bearings. 

   Old Tom

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I am so glad you can dig so well. I can not express to those who have never had the experience to dig sweet deep ones, what its like. However, I am happy I'm not the only one getting lead that deep. 

   John

 

ps, nice hole 

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The hole was around 24-28" deep the pick is two feet and it went all the way down to the end. 

OldTom, your right on the old mining equipment, as Ii recall i found some huge gears and found lead packed in some spots. So it may have been intended to be used for equipment. I have found lead sheets like that in a few places, and thought the thinner it was the easier it would be to melt for bullets also. I have found small cut lead bar ingots also. They all sound so sweet....:angry: most of the time its lead. The hole took me at least a half hour to dig and 5 minutes to refill....It was a great work out....

 

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Hey AuW, take a knife to it and see if it is a little harder than soft lead.  Babbitt material won't cut or peel like raw lead, its a lot harder so it wouldn't swage with the rotation of the shaft.  Oil groves were cut into it to hold the oil to lube it. 

I think that I would have peed in that hole before I filled it or maybe even worse.............

   Old Tom

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 7/19/2016 at 0:29 PM, Old Tom said:

Lead was used quite a bit around mines.  Easy to repair things with as it took a low heat to melt it.  Check and see if it isn't Babbitt material, they used it for making bearings in the big motors that ran the mines.  Also all automobiles before the fifty's had Babbitt bearings. 

   Old Tom

Actually Babbitt is still used for bearings in engines today, albeit in a thinner layer and applied to a bronze coated steel 1/2 shell to create the crankshaft and rod bearings, etc. we're famililar with today..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(alloy)

"Modern Babbitt bearings[edit]

Until the mid-1950s, poured Babbitt bearings were common in automotive applications. The Babbitt was poured into the block or caps using a form. Tin-based Babbitts were used as they could stand up to the impact loads found on the connecting rods and crankshaft. The poured Babbitt bearings were kept thin. The rods and caps would have shims that could be peeled off as the Babbitt wore. Ford was known to use two .002" on each cap and Babbitt that was 86% tin, 7% copper, 7% antimony (see the KRW catalogs for the Model T). Steel shims were used as the brass shims used today tend to compress over time contributing to shorter bearing life. The poured Babbitt bearings commonly get over 50,000 miles of use before needing replacement. Poured Babbitt bearings are also known to fail gracefully allowing the car to be driven for extended periods of time. The failed bearing is not likely to damage the crankshaft.

In more modern practice, the crankshaft and connecting rod big end bearings in a modern automobile engine are made of a replaceable steel shell, keyed to the bearing caps. The inner surface of the steel shell is plated with a coating of bronze which is in turn coated with a thin layer of Babbitt metal as the bearing surface.

The process of laying down this layer of white metal is known as Babbitting. "

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

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