Lead

Lead

Lead is a blue-gray, soft very heavy metal which is the heaviest of the common metals. It is extremely workable, has good corrosion resistance, is easily recovered from scrap materials and is relatively impenetrable to radiation.

It has a characteristic of corrosion resistance, this corrosion resistance arises from the fact that metallic lead does not react with many compounds or solutions, and with certain others it forms compounds that act as protective coatings against further action or corrosion.

Lead in fume, vapor or dust form and lead compounds are toxic if ingested in measurable quantity. Lead carbonate and lead sulfate have been almost complicatedly eliminated as the white paint solid in interior paints because of the lead poisoning of children from lead base paint. The only exception is basic lead silicochromate, which is nontoxic.

When the commercial, the lead is represent extruded as form of pipe, rod, wire, ribbon, cames, traps, bends, wedge lead, and special shapes. Lead also rolled into sheet, foil, strip, blanks for drawing, and blanks for various shapes. It also cast as sand or die castings; and in miscellaneous forms including metallic powder, wool and shot.

Types and uses

There are several grades of lead metal, of which corroding lead, chemical lead and common desilverized lead are of interest to the construction field. Corroding lead is used for fine white lead paints, red lead, litharge, and orange mineral. Chemical lead and common desilverized lead are used for sheet, pipe, lead wool, powered lead, ribbon lead and alloys.

Lead fines many uses in rough hardware items such as expansion shields for securing bolts, screws and other accessories in masonry, washers, lead headed nails and so on.

There also some specialized uses of lead in construction, for example, as an anti spar material for floors in areas where explosions may occur, in chemical laboratories for sinks, pipes and special equipment, and as a shield against radiation.

Another interest used for lead is in the form of lead azide. Lead azide is easily exploded by an electrically heated wire, so it is used in the manufacturing of blasting caps, which to set off other explosives.