Could this be Tin?

R

Randominator

New Member
I was at my local salvage yard this week picking up some wheel weights. The guy said "I've got some pure lead if you're interested". Same price as the wheel weights, so I bought it. 40 lbs total in two large bricks and two small round weights. I brought it home and melted it down and poured it into ingots. The first thing I noticed was it took a while for the ingot to form into a solid, it had a reach a lower temperature before it would solidify. The next was when I finished, my 40 lbs of "lead" made over 65 one pound ingots. Each of the ingots barely weighs half a pound. What I was told was pure lead is on the left, straight wheel weight in the middle, and linotype on the right.

RfbaopYl.jpg


I'm thinking I may have bought pure tin.

Thoughts?
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
There is a way to take a specific sized hunka metal, weigh it and that's supposed to help determine what it is. That combined with the melting point should indicate to some degree what you have there. I'm not even going to pretend to remember the specifics. I'm sure someone else will chime in with ore info.
 
D

Dusty Bannister

Well-Known Member
The ingot near the reference .55 has that golden hue of pure or nearly pure tin. It is also less dense than lead so a similar volume will be lighter. Antimony and tin have a similar mass so weight is not a deciding factor. The appearance of the ingot exposed to the air when cast is more important than what it looks like when in contact with an ingot mold.
 
Joshua

Joshua

Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
EA98B85D-0A96-49CF-9F0B-830F4FD3CB01.jpeg
Left to right: pewter coin, range scrap, pure.

That yellow color screams tin to me.
 
R

Randominator

New Member
I’m thinking tin as well. I will set my PID at 460 and see if it will start to melt. The numbers in front of the ingots are the individual weights from a postal scale.
 
J

Jeff H

NW Ohio
Almost can't be too careful - make a SMALL batch with it first.

I agree on the yellow tint leaning toward tin, BUT be very careful and blend it with a SMALL batch of alloy to see what happens.

I just walked in to a nightmare with a bunch of wheel weights a very good and trusted friend/long-time fellow caster smelted for me.

I mixed 7# of this with 3# of pure lead and about 2% tin in the from of pewter and had fits casting it.

Regrouped and tried to cast JUST the wheel weights, suspecting my "tin" or "lead" not being "tin" or "lead" mess (Copy).jpgand I got THIS:
 
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Tom

Tom

Well-Known Member
I'll second popper's post. Pour some thin enough that you can bend it and you'll hear it squeak when you bend it
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
You can also do an SG test. See how much water it displaces in mL (use a kitchen measuring cup) and compare that to weight fir an SG number. Together with melt point that will tell you whatchagot. My main concern would be that it's cadmium but you'd be dead already if that was the case.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
those pictured above look like they got white metal instead of tin.
it's that crap they make cheap jewelry from you buy at the fair.
it seems to be tin until you get the heat up a bit higher then it just poofs off into nothing.
 
Mitty38

Mitty38

Well-Known Member
My No lead Pewter and my Tin weighs about a 3rd the weight of lead.

My lead based Pewter weighs about alf the weight of lead, but it sometimes contains zinc, which kinda mucks up the purpose of the tin.
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Double-check your melt point and congratulate yourself on an incredible score!
 
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