What kind of metal is it?

I recently bought some circuit breakers that are 12,000 volts and 15,000 amps. The copper electrodes are embed in porcelain with a silver colored metal used to bind the copper to the porcelain. The same metal is used to bind cast aluminum to porcelain and to bind porcelain to porcelain. It looks like it was poured in. What kind of metal is it?

Solder and it's not what kind it's more of I wonder how many different kinds of valueless metal is in this solder.

Is it not solder?

It looks like solder, but it is brittle. I tried to upload a picture of it, but photobucket isn't cooperating.

Well you do know what solder is used for right? To solder them together as in fuse them. After soldering it's welding so....

It doesn't stick to copper, aluminum, steel, or ceramic so it wasn't used to weld the parts together. Also it doesn't shrink when cast in ingots like lead does. It was used as a seal like lead was used in cast iron soil pipe in the past. I have 115 pounds of the stuff. I took a sample to a scrap yard and they said that it needs to be tested, but they agreed that there wasn't any lead in it. I am waiting on them to find out the alloy.

**** I want some just for the novelty of itn

I wonder if it would make bullets? I guess I will have to sit on the cold stuff till the mystery is solved. I gave less than $20.00 for the circuit breakers and sold the copper for $1106.00 so it isn't a total loss.

What kind of circuit breakers have over a g in copper in them. Or did you haveblike 10 thousand circuit breakers.

I had two circuit breakers that weighed over a ton each. They were rated for 12,000 volts and 15,000 amps.

woh- thats some big circuit breakers.
pls try to post pics of what u have- will be interesting to see

Originally Posted by junkerjake

I had two circuit breakers that weighed over a ton each. They were rated for 12,000 volts and 15,000 amps.

Lol .... big things start happening when one of those breakers trip ! Must go off like a cannon ?

Nice haul though.


Did they have some kind of oil or inert gas spray that douses the arc ?

See if any of the yards near you have an xrf

This is what I had two of. Westinghouse Porcel-line Air Circuit Breaker rated Kv 13.8 Max Kv 15, BIL-Kv 95, cycles 60, rated MVA 500, Max. amps 25,000, Mom. Amps 40,000, mfg date 5/73. Not much left of it just the steel that I am saving till the price goes up. It used a small builtin Stanley air compressor to douse the arc. You can see one similar, but smaller on eBay item number 131494683721.

This should be an image of the metal I am trying to identify.

Originally Posted by MattInTheHat

See if any of the yards near you have an xrf

I think they tried to test it, but it wouldn't register. They have tested stainless, cupronickel (found in ice cream packaging equipment), and other alloys for me before.

For some reason it reminds me of some kind of beryllium alloy or something exotic made for a special purpose. You would have to do some detective work. Maybe contact the company to see if they could offer any insight ?

https://docs.natlswgr.com/docs/W1000195.pdf

Periodic Table of Elements: Los Alamos National Laboratory

Originally Posted by miked

Give this a try. https://www.scrapmetalforum.com/smf-...rum-video.html

Apparently you can no longer use your free Photo Bucket Account without paying them $8.99 a month or $89.00 a year! Will look for another hosting sight.