Modern Vespa

Worth a try

Do any of the engineering wizards here know what a toy (metal) knuckle bone is made of?

They are cast and I am certain they are not lead. My google searches have not revealed the secret metal.

Toy knucklebones? Is that strictly a Kiwi thing?

The only knucklebones I know of are in my knuckles, and they are most decidedly not made of metal.

Brass Knuckles?

Jacks maybe? ....We call them Jacks in the U.S. I never heard the term knucklebones but it makes more sense to
me now that I looked up the history.

I can't find anything either in the type of metal. What made you think of this? I would think aluminum.

Its actually an ancient game. Sometimes called 'Jacks".

.

Is there a ball involved like Jacks

Not usually.

Its a game played in the hand and off the back of the hand which includes picking up skills.

Now that's what I call "ballin' the jack."
(for those of you old enough to remember Brenda Lee and early rock'n'roll)

Here in the States, All the jacks (knucklebones) I've seen were made with "white metal", an alloy of lead, tin and copper. It's similar to electrical/electronic solder. There may be other metals also.
It's readily cheap and easy to "lost cast" pieces with.

I think you may have given me the answer.

Thanx.

It is almost Xmas season, 'tis the season to give.

What I've known as "pot metal"?

Yepper, it's known by several names. In the Navy it's used to make bearings on the steam turbines and is known as Babbott, probably named after the engineer that came up with it.

Actually, it's babbitt... named after Isaac Babbitt who came up with it in 1839.

And not just the Navy. All through the Industrial Age and up to almost the mid-20th century, poured babbitt bearings were the most common sort of bearing in all sorts of machinery, including automobiles.

I think the stuff used to make most inexpensive cast-metal items, what most Americans call pot metal, is mostly zinc.

What he said ^^^

Babbit metal is a mix of a harder metal with a soft one. Tin and lead mostly. Poured in place plain bearings are still used mostly in large relatively slow turning applications, big ship diesels, industrial machines, generators, etc.

O.K ..thanx all. Here is the story.

The frequent mention of lead is of concern ... and why I asked in the first place because I suspected as much.

A friend was using knucklebones (inside hop bags)... inside his home brewing keg. Its normal to use glass marbles to sink the hop bag to the bottom but he did not have any.

They went in shiny and came out looking like dull pewter! Thats when he asked me what they were made of. I knew it would be a castable alloy.

Think I'll pass on his homebrew

itll put lead in ya pencil?