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I have very fond memories of zinc because it's the first metal I melted and cast into many shapes as a wee lad. It's wonderfully suitable for casting because it's fairly non-toxic (certainly less toxic than lead), fairly low melting, and easy to get very cheap in the form of scrap roof flashing. Tin would be a better metal, but it's expensive and not available as scrap metal. (Click the first story book icon below for more about zinc casting.)
Aside from being an essential nutrient (first sign of zinc deficiency: your sense of smell goes), zinc is very widely used as an anti-corrosion plating for things make of iron. Contrary to popular belief, zinc plated objects are not intended or expected to last indefinitely. Zinc also oxidizes, just more slowly than iron, and the lifetime of a zinc plated ("galvanized") item is determined by how thick the zinc plating is.
Zinc is also used as a sacrificial anode to protect iron that can't be plated with it (for example, train tracks). See the oil tank anodes below for more on this.
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   Scrap roof flashing.
I've been melting and casting roof flashing zinc since the late 1970s. But I couldn't find any just now, so I purchased a new bucket of scrap at Marco's scrap metal in Champaign in April 2002. Later I found many pounds of it in my parents' basement. This metal was melted down and poured into mini-muffin tins to make nice little coins.
Click the book icon for a story about casting zinc and other metals.
Source: Marco's Scrap Metal
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 15 April, 2002
Price: $1/pound for scrap zinc
Size: 1.25"
Purity: >90%
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Post-1983 Pennies.
Before 1983, US pennies were made of solid copper. After the price of copper briefly went over a penny per penny, they reconsidered, and now pennies are copper plated zinc.
Source: America
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 15 April, 2002
Price: $0.01/penny
Size: 0.5"
Purity: >90%
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Art.
I made this out of old roof flashing probably in the late 1970's. It's quite heavy, could definitely be used to defend yourself in a bar or something. You can actually see fingerprints that were in the wax I braided to cast it from, because I really didn't spend a lot of time on it: I just softened some wax, braided it up, and made a mold.
Source: Theodore Gray
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 15 April, 2002
Price: $1/pound for scrap zinc
Size: 8"
Purity: >90%
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More Art.
Another thing I made out of old roof flashing probably in the late 1970's.
Source: Theodore Gray
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 15 April, 2002
Price: $1/pound for scrap zinc
Size: 3"
Purity: >90%
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Sample from the Everest Element Set.
Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (excepted gasses) weight about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid.
To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order.
Source: Rob Accurso
Contributor: Rob Accurso
Acquired: 7 February, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: >99%
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Oil tank sacrificial anodes.
These little zinc balls are put into oil tanks to prevent rust: The idea is that the zinc oxidizes more easily than iron, so it gets consumed before the iron does. As long as you keep some zinc around, the iron will generally speaking not rust. The same idea is used to protect boat hulls, railroad tracks, and other steel structures. The zinc is simply buried in the ground near the iron and connected with a wire.
Source: eBay seller kaltofen@aol.com
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 14 February, 2003
Price: $11/3
Size: 1"
Purity: >99%
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