What was lead used for?

T

Taribor

Tenderfoot
Jul 14, 2014
5
6
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I keep digging nugget shaped lead. I know it is man made, but what was it used for back in the day? I live near Sacramento and dig a piece or two almost every time I go out. Yesterday, I dug a pretty large piece:

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Depends on where your digging homes schools parks ect lead was used to seal drainage usually melted and poured in place pipes, roofing flanges
 

The water pipes were back before people knew better as it is toxic. Paints were another product that had lead in it at one time. In ancient times they also made cups and plates out of it as it molded easily. One other use today is for seals on meters like your electric or water meter. Do yourself a favor and only handle it with gloves and keep it away from food, children, or pets. If you keep it then confine it to a non-metallic sealed container. Your best bet is to find a salvage yard and get a few cents for getting rid of it to them so they may reuse it. Also note that lead is a metal and is not man made as it occurs naturally in nature.
 

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you got good answers so far. Like from Swaveab , chug & red, etc... Yup: It was the "plastic of yesteryear".
 

Being in the plumbing trade from 1966 to 2016, (retired ), I saw where lead was used in turn of the century house construction, right up to where it was slowly phased out in the 70's.
Water services from the water main in the street to the inside of the house were Lead pipe. In smaller private homes with gas lighting, all of the piping in the walls that fed each gas light fixture, were lead.
Bathtub traps, and toilet bowl waste pipes were lead. All cast iron piping was connected by pouring a lead joint over packed oakum. Sheet lead was folded and soldered to form a lead pan for Shower Enclosures. Lead sheeting was also used as a flange that vent pipes would pass through at the roof level.
Every trade used lead when soldering. Tinsmiths, and Electricians. Painters would apply lead based paint.
We even used it in our gasoline at one time thinking it was a good thing.
Lead, whether inhaled or ingested is very dangerous.
It can cause brain damage in children who would eat paint chips back in the 60's and 70's.
I find it all the time. I don't find it in volumes that would make it worthwhile to take it to the scrap yard.
 

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Bullets, water pipe, batteries, as stated, plumbing use. Sometimes on old time wagons as spacers. The Romans used lead pipes and got lead poisoning from them. Also used to wrap flints in flintlock muskets.
 

sawmill man said:
Believe it or not, it was used in auto body work years ago.
Click to expand...
And still is to this day. I know a few that use it instead of conventional filler.

I'm a telecom lineman, and we sometimes repair lead-sheathed phone cables, some date back to 1900.
We use shaving cream to hold the dust in place when doing lead work.
 

Lead tastes sort of sweet, so the Romans sprinkled it as a sweetener on their food. Of course history records them having problems with lead poisoning. I'm not recommending anybody do what I did, but I think some of this worry about lead is a bit over blown. When I was a kid, I had a single shot Crossman pellet rifle. If I wanted a quick second shot, I carried the lead pellets in my mouth. I'm 80 years old, and at least smart enough to barely use this bloody computer. We also played with mercury in our hands, turning pennies silver. Everywhere a Civil War battle was fought, there is -- well, until metal detectors -- tons of lead in the ground. The patina in on those old bullets is caused by oxidation of the lead, which also seals off the rest of the lead in the bullet from oxidizing, and escaping into the surrounding area. I've never heard of people living on those battle fields being poisoned by lead. I cast lead bullets to use shooting my muzzle loader firearms and handle lead bare handed all the time. I'm not saying lead isn't dangerous, but it's not a rattle snake that is going to bite you, or it's not like finding unexploaded ordinance, it isn't radio active, and it doesn't seem to me to be near as dangerous as some environmentalists are trying to make out.
 

BosnMate,

You may think it's ok in small quantities and you may be right to a point because it does occur in nature in small quantities. Many other things also occur in nature in small quantities that are also deemed as safe in small quantities, but how many small quantities do what to you is a big question because you don't know what you would be like if you hadn't come into contact with it. Being older and on a PC isn't much proof of anything.

Some materials that are bad in quantity are lead, cadmium, mercury, radioactive ores and radon gas, arsenic, etc. I won't die with a small quantity of any of them as some exposure does occur in nature, but many instances of exposure even if small and combined with others can have an effect. How do you know this isn't the reason we degrade with age with these many small cumulative instances? Romans had large exposures and didn't die right away either, but their lifespans were very short by our standards today. True some things did happen like a tooth infection that killed for example, but lead played a big part in their general health too that may have allowed some health issues to occur that may not have otherwise occurred or brought it on sooner than it should've.

I have to add a good example that many may not be aware of and that is iron. You may say wait a minute here as we need iron and that's true, we do. If one were to take megadoses of iron every day for a few years you can die of renal failure as iron is toxic in quantity. For a healthy person I would say ok for the minimum daily amount of 18mg one may find in a daily vitamin, but you'd have to be watchful of your intake of it from food. If you eat allot of meat then exclude iron supplementation. Even if a doctor prescribes megadoses of iron like 56mg 3x a day don't do it for long as it will do bad things. My mother-in-law died of renal failure after being told to take 56mg of iron 3x per day and it was only a matter of a few years before she died.
 

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The largest use of lead in houses up to the 1920's was in windows. All stain glass windows used lead grout and lead was used as putty in most large victorian home windows. Large pieces where also used to seal gutters. Most clumps found around old home sites are from windows and gutters.
 

lead as also used to seal coffins in the 19th century. I'm not sure when it stopped
 

Simple skin contact isn't much of an issue so long as you was your hands afterwards, unless you are allergic, so don't panic. Inhalation, ingestion, and high velocity injection that usually cause brain damage. The last of which would be the more acute health hazard.
 

I believe kings and queens had dishes made of lead. (Or so i have heard). If its true, it kind of explains all the stupidity within the royal kingdom.
 

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