Brass Faucets and Leaching of Lead

Where did the Pb come from? How was it deposited? Brass does not contain Pb.

A. You could immersion Sn plate the brass part after plating is one way to limit the leachable Pb from the surface.

A. Most brass alloys for the plumbing industry have some Pb in them - for machinability. There are proprietary acid blends available that will leach out the lead and leave a surface that will pass the NSF lead exposure test. My company has been actively involved in this aspect of plating for several years now. There are also ways of lead leaching that are post-plate, but we have found that a pre-plate application keeps from damaging the final finish.

A. I have no idea what you mean by "lead leaching". Cast and wrought brass destined for machining, frequently contains lead. When machined this lead smears all over the surface. Lead forms insoluble salts with sulphates and chlorides. Leaded brass must be pickled in 50% Fluoboric Acid which does not form an insoluble salt with lead. Then apply any kinds of electroplating.

A. Free machining brass contains a small percentage of lead. When the brass is machined this can result in a thin layer of lead being smeared over the cut surface, often giving it a "light grey hue" appearance. Trying to plate onto this can be disastrous unless it is correctly processed. One of the best ways of removing the lead is to soak the brass in a solution of fluoboric acid (ca. 20%). This will then make the surface free of lead and plateable.

A. I ran an automatic plating machine used for bright nickel-chrome plating of plumbing fixtures. I used sulfamic acid after cleaning. Lead sulfamate is soluble and much less dangerous than fluoboric acid. After the acid dip I installed a copper strike. The copper made a world of difference by eliminating what was referred to as "stardust", i.e tiny pits from the lead on the surface and from lead removed in the acid. Also the copper strike protected the bright nickel from constant lead contamination. The parts looked like good jewelry compared to before copper strike.

If you use fluoboric acid to remove the lead from the surface, there will be an increase in pitting. The sulfamic acid dip was a short one not designed to remove all the lead, but only to activate it for copper plating.

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Hi Don. Thanks for the interesting and informative answer!

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. Hi Pallavi. To my knowledge the major faucet manufacturers comply with NSF standards which limit any lead leaching into the water. I don't think it's a significant worry.

Regards,

A. Hi Bill. Oils can't last long with the water flowing past them, and most oils are poisonous. I don't think you'll get paint properly in there, or that it will adhere, and in may not really be safe anyway.

Many faucets are made of zinc and do corrode fairly quickly, but as you can surmise from this thread, there are solid brass fixtures and even solid stainless steel (although very expensive) -- either of which should probably greatly outlast zinc faucets. Good luck.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi again. Sorry I got a bit confused what you were referring to. I didn't quite understand what the corrosivity of your softened well water has to do with the non-wetted areas, but I'd agree that I see no harm in spraying fogging oil or WD-40 [on eBay or Amazon] on the inside of the faucet base if you think it gets damp in there. If there's room you could stuff a little desiccant package in there too before bolting it down I suppose. There should be either a rubber gasket/mat which the base sits on included in the package, or instructions to use plumber's putty, to help keep it dry in there.

Luck & Regards,

I'm going to give it a try. As far as the inside being wet, not so much but around the base...and with capillary action...for sure. Anymore, there is not a rubber gasket, but a hard plastic one that I have applied putty to where it contacts the counter. the base raises it a bit to keep it from sitting in wet, but any water on the faucet trickles down to the meeting point is going to sit in that "crack", as well as any the splashes on the crack. The notorious spots are right up front beneath that handles and behind where the popup push pull is. I'm working to eliminate that area by going to the tap tap drain.