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Do Hornby Use Lead Weights?


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so a few days ago i opened up some Hornby pullman coaches and i saw some weights inside. i didnt touch them, but i used my scissors to grab them and put them under my bed. i really need to know if Hornby use lead weights because right now im scared of going near any of my model railway stuff

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Commercial models won't be using lead in any way - they wouldn't get the CE accreditation if they did.

 

There's no need to be scared of lead. Just wash your hands after you have handled it. The amounts we use are tiny. You would have to eat (yes eat) a lot of lead to do yourself significant harm.

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It isn't that long ago that people got their drinking water through lead pipes ; not a good idea but even then it took a very long period of constant taking in small amounts of lead to do any harm. To occasionally touch  the stuff is harmless! Handwashing always a good idea anyway.

 

 

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Lead hasn't been used in British toys for decades. Even the paint became lead free. I have a Britains Ford Thames ambulance which originally had a solid lead body. (It doesn't any more!) and this dates from the late fifties. Any toy or model made in the last 50 years at least will be lead free.

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Nowt wrong wi a bit o lead.  Its the steel and mazak which gives trouble.  They both swell when damp and damage the plastic bodies.  I habitually remove steel and mazak weights and replace them with lead flashing cut to size with scissors, or with lead ingots cast from melting down car wheel balance weights and old lead pipes with a blow lamp. Obviously licking your fingers after touching the lead isn't a good idea, but that's what children did after playing with lead figures years ago which contributed to the subsequent brain damage etc.

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2 hours ago, BoD said:

If it were that deadly the church roofs of Britain would be littered with dead thieves.

I have a story. About fifteen years ago, as a CoE churchwarden acting on behalf of the PCC I had to arrange significant alterations and repairs to a church roof. When it came to the waterproof covering, metal was the clear choice. Copper, Lead, Steel, Zinc were all in the frame; the final choice was traditional lead (well proven, will last > 200 years, attractive to thieves) or a surface covered stainless steel, which would replicate the appearance of lead and also have long term durability.

 

So we elected for the steel, as it happened the same contractor came in with best quotes for both, with very little difference between the two. The faculty was applied for and approved, all set to go. A week before the work was booked to commence there was a call from the Diocesan secretary who lead the advisory committee: Stop! don't use the steel, we will revise the faculty for lead. A couple of likely lads had decided on an earner by stripping some church roof lead, but what they set about was trying to remove the coated stainless steel made to look like lead. Long story short, one of them nearly died up on that roof after giving himself a large wound on a very sharp edge they created ,which penetrated a major artery.

 

Steel, nasty stuff...

2 hours ago, Les Bird said:

Lead hasn't been used in British toys for decades.

Not if it came from Lima. Big blocks of it in their steam models such as the J50. Way away the best thing about it.

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But they were discontinued in 1980-ish. That's forty years ago.

 

However I don't think it was actually lead but a similar type of alloy.

 

 

The diesels obviously had a big slab of steel which hurts when you hit a toe.  :laugh:

 

 

 

Jason

Edited by Steamport Southport
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18 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

No worries they're not lead.

 

Caution young one ( not picking on you just using you as an example ). I had some old junk train stuff years ago, I stripped it and binned anything I deemed not remotely useful. I have over the years bought more junk stuff which I have mucked about with. INCLUDING adding weights from the junk box which may or may not have been lead.   So unless you can categorically say the weights are original ? Then they COULD. Be lead

 

Having said that a few years of fishing as a yoof and and holding small lead weights in ones gobb while attempting to tie knots in fishing line with cold hands, didn't seam to do me any harm. . . Well not MUCH  according to te Mrs

                                             :jester:

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'Whitemetal' kits, figures and parts are cast from alloys with different mixes of metals, that often include tin and lead, which is why they come with warnings about not being toys and so are unsuitable for children. A good hand wash after working with them in the construction phase is obviously recommended, but once painted the toxic content should be sealed in. 

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36 minutes ago, Mattc6911 said:

 

Having said that a few years of fishing as a yoof and and holding small lead weights in ones gobb while attempting to tie knots in fishing line with cold hands, didn't seam to do me any harm. . 

                                             :jester:

 

... and how many of us of a certain age remember casting said weights from molten lead?

 

I won't ask you to own up as to how you actually melted the lead, or where you got it from.

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19 hours ago, tubs01 said:

so a few days ago i opened up some Hornby pullman coaches and i saw some weights inside. i didnt touch them, but i used my scissors to grab them and put them under my bed. i really need to know if Hornby use lead weights because right now im scared of going near any of my model railway stuff

Not sure that 'under the bed' is approved storage for dangerous materials. What happens if the monsters get hold of them?

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I spent one term at school doing metal work. I made a very nice flower vase which I still have. It is made of lead and weighs 4lb 5oz. I bet the kids today would not be allowed to do that.

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4 minutes ago, BoD said:

 

... and how many of us of a certain age remember casting said weights from molten lead?

 

I won't ask you to own up as to how you actually melted the lead, or where you got it from.

Over the last few weeks I've  cast 152Kg of lead , it now resides, in an aerofoil shape for the keel of my little sailing boat, This week end I've seven 12mm holes to drill through it for the keel bolts, and the shavings will go back into the melting pot, to make a little ingot ready for next time I need a weight..

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53 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

'Whitemetal' kits, figures and parts are cast from alloys with different mixes of metals, that often include tin and lead, which is why they come with warnings about not being toys and so are unsuitable for children. A good hand wash after working with them in the construction phase is obviously recommended, but once painted the toxic content should be sealed in. 

 

The antimony in typical white metal is far more deadly than lead I think.

 

And has no-one mentioned solder? Lead-tin alloy is back as it just happens to be better than most lead-free alternatives. And it didn't even need Brexit for that .......

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19 hours ago, tubs01 said:

so a few days ago i opened up some Hornby pullman coaches and i saw some weights inside. i didnt touch them, but i used my scissors to grab them and put them under my bed. i really need to know if Hornby use lead weights because right now im scared of going near any of my model railway stuff

 

Lead as silvery grey metal is not much of a problem as it takes quite a bit of transfer and ingestion to be poisonous. Lead as part of a chemical compound on the other hand is way more dangerous. Like all those bright reds and greens painted on 1950s Meccano for example. And my cot was painted with lead containing paint .....:crazy_mini::jester::tease:

The real killer though was the anti-knock stuff put in petrol. All that tetra-ethyl lead that car exhausts used to spew out at pushchair height. Banned some thirty years ago, but you wouldn't believe today how angry the petrol heads got over that

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Lead is a toxin which gradually builds up, but I don't worry about small amounts.

 

It has been surmised that the Roman Empire fell because of lead water pipes. Our first house had them but we survived.

 

If lead ballast weights were lead they wouldn't suffer from expansion problems. It couldbe lead contamination of zinc alloy of course.

 

6 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

The antimony in typical white metal is far more deadly than lead I think.

 

And has no-one mentioned solder? Lead-tin alloy is back as it just happens to be better than most lead-free alternatives. And it didn't even need Brexit for that .......

 

IIRC lead-free solder was never allowed by NATO. (I may be wrong it's over 20 years that I worked on NATO contracts.)

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Ways to dangerously ingest lead.

 

Inhale the vapour when melting it.

Chew lead-based paint

Use pottery that has a low-temperature lead glaze (acidic foods and drink are your enemy here)

Frequently handle lead, or lead based products like old, cheap pewter without washing your hands before sucking your fingers.

 

Water pipes are odd.  Lead ones were only dangerous when new, the water supply was soft or if water had been static in the pipe for a long period of time.  Especially in hard water areas, the pipes would fur up quite rapidly with calcium deposits, which would form an insoluable layer between the lead and the water.  I'd not be dogmatic, but old lead water pipes would probably be quite safe, provided they weren't disturbed!

 

 

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7 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Lead as silvery grey metal is not much of a problem as it takes quite a bit of transfer and ingestion to be poisonous. Lead as part of a chemical compound on the other hand is way more dangerous. Like all those bright reds and greens painted on 1950s Meccano for example. And my cot was painted with lead containing paint .....:crazy_mini::jester::tease:

The real killer though was the anti-knock stuff put in petrol. All that tetra-ethyl lead that car exhausts used to spew out at pushchair height. Banned some thirty years ago, but you wouldn't believe today how angry the petrol heads got over that

 

You weren't supposed to eat it!

 

And well if you had a high performance car which required 100 octane fuel and couldn't get it any more....

 

Remember the (1959?) Esso Golden ads., "Planned for 1963 but we had to bring it forward!" (or something like that - it was a long time ago!

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