White Lead for Cutting oil

This subject may have come up before.
When I worked in a particular shipyard back in the 80s, when I first started I noticed all the containers of cutting oil at the machines had a milky white appearance. I thought maybe it was a blend of the old Chevron soluble oil, but later found out that they were mixing in White Lead.
"It's the best!" boasted one old timer.
I was also told that particular mating parts on the Coast Guard ships called out for white lead as a corrosion inhibitor.
Whenever I saw some old timer, cutting threads with their face in the cutting oil smoke, I cringed and ran to the other end of the shop.
Was this a typical use of white lead in days gone by?
I do know that red lead was used as an indicating paste for precision scraping at one time.

Wouldn't come close to it if I were you. Due to its toxicity, it has been banned in many countries. There are many not toxic lubricants that will do the job just as well.

conant said:

all the containers of cutting oil at the machines had a milky white appearance. ...
I was also told that particular mating parts on the Coast Guard ships called out for white lead as a corrosion inhibitor. ...
Was this a typical use of white lead in days gone by?

Click to expand...

I don't think mixing white lead with cutting oil was a very common practice. I'd imagine it would be like mixing Moly-Dee with your cutting oil. Might make a little bit of sense for an extreme pressure operation like thread cutting with dies, but some enthusiast would decide it had to be added to everything.

White lead was commonly used as an anti-seize, in both the lubrication and corrosion-protection senses.

It was also very commonly used for lubricating dead centers and similar relatively low SFM, relatively high pressure, applications.

I use red lead on my dead centers and I use it for scraping as I can see the color better on iron than bluing. I hadn't thought about using it for threading, I will try it next time I cut some threads. It is fairly easy to find dry red lead but I have not been able to find dry white lead but there is a video on Youtube on how to make white lead, I might try it some day.

Considering how better machinable leaded steels are, due indeed to the presence of lead in the alloy, I suspect that the practice could have some merit.
Honestly, I don't think I'd be too keen to trying it myself, since there are more, less toxic products that achieve similar results.

Paolo

Wouldn't machining leaded steel vaporize just as much lead when machining as if when the lead was just on the outside?

Gobo said:

Wouldn't come close to it if I were you. Due to its toxicity, it has been banned in many countries. There are many not toxic lubricants that will do the job just as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah the lead might jump out and kill you... I use white lead on my dead centers... As long as you don't eat it every day or get it in an open wound, not much to worry about....I think the big scare was from kids eating paint that had lead in it at one time.. When I was a kid, we ate at the dinner table and we were taught to not eat paint.. Ramsay 1

I worked with White Lead quite a bit in the past but first lets talk about Red Lead. The red lead I used was in paint and used as a rust preventative. The stuff the shop where I worked purchased came in #1 and #2. #1 Red Lead was a bright red and seemed to never dry. #2 was a brown red and dried like normal oil based paint. We did lots of bridge work for the DOT is a couple of nearby states. Each had their own specs. Apprentices were the ones who painted that stuff on the steel. Many days I wound up covered with red lead paint.

The most common use for White Lead was to lubricate dead centers on the lathe. If memory serves me right the South Bends even had a little depression made just to store excess White Lead. I also have seen it mixed with Black Sulfur Oil. I did not do much lathe work between centers so did not use it this way often.

When driving on an Interstate and passing under an overpass you can see rocker assemblies between the concrete piers and the overpass beams. We used to make some of these. Each assembly had a large steel pin acting as a moveable pivot as long as it stayed lubricated. We added the lubrication when we assembled prior to shipping.

I remember a large kerosene fired heater with a 2-3 gallon cast iron kettle on top. In that kettle we mixed Linseed Oil, White Lead and Tallow. I don't remember the proportions but I do remember having to scoop out the white lead from the cans. Sometimes by hand. We had to heat and mix until it could be spread onto the machined surfaces then assembled.

Between the white lead and working with asbestos coated electrical stuff I guess I'm lucky I have no apparent health problems.

Walter

I have a Southbend 16 inch and a Leblond 15 inch lathe in my shop.. Both have the correct dauber in the tailstock and both tailstocks are filled with a mixture of Dutch Boy white lead and machine oil.. I use this for lubricating my tailstock dead centers.. I also use it for tapping and die cutting threads on materials which are difficult to thread..

I am 64 years old and have been around lead all of my life having soldered, cast bullets from lead, shot guns with lead bullets, drank water from lead soldered water supplies, even spit out lead pellets from eating wild game and probably swallowed more than my share and to my knowledge have no physical problems...

A friend of mine is 74 years old and was in the Navy for six years and they used Dutch Boy white lead on the exterior fittings of ships to prevent rusting and seizing from salt water...

I definitely would not eat white lead but then again I would not eat Drano either..Ramsay 1

We used white lead on the dead centers in our shop for many years. However since we were part of a food production company OSHA banned it's use in the mid 1980's. It was a great lubricant for that purpose but we had other less toxic lubricants for threading.

I inherited a can of the stuff for my shop when OSHA banned it in the food production industry. It lasted several years, but is now long gone. I started looking for some a few years ago and found it all but impossible to find. On the advice of another member I ordered several tubes of Honda M77 Assembly Paste. It works as good or better on dead centers, and is non toxic.

http://www.paisleyproducts.com/content/files/content/msds/AVDCM77_msds_9_9_2014.pdf

at kodak in some buildings they would test employees for silver nitrate poisoning as residue was all over walls and equipment.
.
then i see guy on tv who was taking silver nitrate for years on purpose as he said it made him feel better. his skin literally was blue and his hair white. and the "blue" man would have blue skin for decades if not rest of his life. you'd think he would stop poisoning himself after skin turned blue
.
just cause if poisoned you do not die immediately does not mean it is good for you. mercury makes people go mad or nuts and it was given to people to treat illnesses too. many poisoning effects are subtle and not always noticeable. who is to say somebody who is 1/2 nuts is not 1/2 poisoned. asbestos does not kill right away either. i know people with asbestoses and it took decades to get bad enough to see doctor

Is the white lead everyone is using for their dead centers the same as the old Dutch Boy white lead? Did they use this same stuff for paint?

I have two 1 lb cans I've picked up over the last year. Ingredients on back are listed as lead paste and linseed oil IIRC.

I worked in a lumber yard in the late 60s. We had an old painter who asked for white lead every few weeks, even though we kept telling him we didn't have it anymore.

I'm surprised to hear it's still around.

enginebill said:

Wouldn't machining leaded steel vaporize just as much lead when machining as if when the lead was just on the outside?

Click to expand...

At IMTS I spoke with a representative of a specialty steel company. They are currently (and have been for the last several years) looking for a replacement for leaded steels with the thought that it will be banned in the near future.
Other alloying elements have been found that show promise in replacing lead.
We machine tons of 12L14 every year. With that knowledge in mind, I had a blood test for lead done. No unusual amounts were found.

Yes, the "Dutch Boy' brand white lead, once routinely sold as a component for hand-mixed paint, is/was the same material formerly sold in small tins by machinists' supply houses.

It was commonly used in machine shops (and I still use it myself) as an ingredient in the traditional 'seagull dung', a mix of machine oil, graphite, and white lead. It is used as an 'anti-sieze' for threaded assemblies, such as setting studs. As has been mentioned, it was also the 'high pressure' lubricant for lathe centres, before ball or roller-bearing centres were commonly available.

A mix of boiled linseed oil and white or red lead was used by some assemblers as a 'sealant' when setting studs in engine blocks, where the tapped hole for the stud was open to the coolant passages in the block.

I've known some old-timers who would mix white lead with black sulfur cutting oil for tapping stainlesses, and some of the tougher steels. This was considered an unhealthy practice if one was tapping under power, and generating enough heat to generate lead-containing fumes, but alright on one-off work if one turned the tap slowly, and kept it, and the part, cool.

cheers

Carla

Ramsey,
Could you clean a dauber and post a photo next to a scale? I have seen machines with the dauber hole in the tailstock, but never the dauber itself.

---------------------.

For a source of White Lead powder just google artist paint pigment supplier and you will find cans of it or tubes mixed. Search results for: 'lead white 4oz' - Natural Pigments Artists use it because (supposedly) it produces a better opaque white than Titanium Oxide.

If you plan on using it make sure you also pick up the heavy metal soap to clean your hands: D-Lead Abrasive Hand Soap - Natural Pigments

Rich C.

Here's one from a hardinge lathe:

Jager said:

Is the white lead everyone is using for their dead centers the same as the old Dutch Boy white lead? Did they use this same stuff for paint?

I have two 1 lb cans I've picked up over the last year. Ingredients on back are listed as lead paste and linseed oil IIRC.

Click to expand...

They used either white or red lead for center lubrication (dead tailstock center) which was mixed with linseed oil.. In fact, the five pound can I got for free had never been opened but the bottom had a pin hole rusted in it so all the linseed oil had leaked out.. I went to Walmart and got a container of linseed oil and got a new quart tin to contain the lead after I had mixed it with fresh linseed oil.. I have a small container at both lathes to fill the dauber wells.. I sometimes mix a bit of machine oil with it to thin it before use...This is all for naught if you use a live center all the time .. My wife tells me I will never change.. Imagine that! Ramsay 1

crij said:

Ramsey,
Could you clean a dauber and post a photo next to a scale? I have seen machines with the dauber hole in the tailstock, but never the dauber itself.

---------------------.

For a source of White Lead powder just google artist paint pigment supplier and you will find cans of it or tubes mixed. Search results for: 'lead white 4oz' - Natural Pigments Artists use it because (supposedly) it produces a better opaque white than Titanium Oxide.

If you plan on using it make sure you also pick up the heavy metal soap to clean your hands: D-Lead Abrasive Hand Soap - Natural Pigments

Rich C.

Click to expand...

The pic posted by Jim Rozen is a good description of the dauber though the dimensions would vary I would imagine from one machine to another.. Ramsay 1

Ramsey,
Do you use boiled or raw linseed oil? If boiled does it harden eventually?
Bill