this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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The metal is smooth, but not shiny. It is super bendable. As soon as I realized what it was, I stopped handling it and washed my hands.

Lead is heavy, but seems such an odd choice for a weight in a consumer device. It must have been cheaper or even free.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Don't worry, lead isn't that toxic. It takes a lot more exposure than the occasional handling to get heavy metal poisoning from it. But yes, odd to use lead as a weight (or put a weight in, perhaps it's a heat-sink?) it's fairly expensive. It could be a lead alloy which makes it more malleable, though a small peice of pure lead like that I'd expect to be easily bendable, but not compressable like clay.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lead is literary the cheapest metal you can get.
Source 1
Source 2
Market prices of other metals are also shown.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

$2k/ton is not that cheap. Granted, it's cheap enough that it's not going to be an issue in these quantities, but it's the same price as the notoriously quite expensive aluminum, and twice what coil steel is worth: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/hrc-steel

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, but for steel and aluminum you need machinery. Lead can be cut with a butter knife shaped with you hands and melted in an kitchen oven. Perfect for cheap stuff.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

not to forget that aluminium is not as dense and in that size it would be too light to use as weight

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Mmm toxic oven fumes

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I stand corrected! At least in terms of the commodity price. A product made from a raw material can become relativly cheaper through mass production or bulk buying. Also factor in weight re transport costs etc. I've always had the impression that it had a good value, if not mega pricey, at least in a way that made it unfavourable for uses like this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I may have described it wrong. It is very bendable, not compressible at all really. It is so odd indeed!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No problem, we all have slightly different ways of describing things!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Lead is dense. It is an easy way to add weight in little space. Golfers use lead weight tape on golf clubs to make them heavier.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think lead is clay like. I could be wrong, the only lead I have touch was fishing weights.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Per the Wiki, lead is a very soft metal.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ve used lead quite a bit for various things. It’s “soft” for a metal, but it is nothing like clay and is not “squishy”. It is relatively easily bent and will take a rubber hammer to easily form to shapes. I really can’t think of a material one would encounter in daily use that is comparable to the malleability of lead. So “very soft”, yes, but it is metal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t know what I was thinking describing it as malleable. It is super bendable, but that’s it. I fixed the post now 😅 lol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I've never heard it compared to clay but yeah it does make sense. Lead flashing is probably a little bit thicker than what you have and it's very pliable, it can easily be shaped with just one finger, I can definitely see how it could be called squishy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

With how malleable it is, Maybe it's aluminum?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That just looks like an EMF shield.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Definitely not like any EMF shield I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely a very soft metal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Did the battery have pull tabs at all? It could also be there to hold the battery in place if there were none. That isn’t uncommon either.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It had a strip of double stick tape under it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Ok yeah so that sounds like a mounting bracket for the battery itself. That’s normal, probably not lead.

Genuine Apple batteries will have a pull tab for safely removing the battery, this appears to be a less sexy version of that.