Indium in alloy

Elric

Well-Known Member
As I surf for tin, occasionally there is solder with indium listed...

Not sure if the hardy frontier types had ingots of indium that they picked up at the rendezvous...

I do know that cadmium is a nasty thing.
 

Spindrift

Well-Known Member
I don't know how it will affect the alloy. But, at least, it is highly soluble in lead. In fact, it has the highest solubility of all compounds listed in the metallurgy chapter of the Lyman book.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
the indium is in there cause they can't get it out.

I bet it's leftover from when they strip the tin out of recycled lead products using zinc.
a little bit isn't a big deal in your alloy, but it can sneak up on you if you do get calcium in the mix too.
 

hrpenley

Active Member
Lead is available with Indium doping from a few of the online sites, Mostly as solder for jewelry I believe in alloys of up to 40% if I remember right but I don't know how well it would cast or how expensive it was but I have seen it available in my searches
 

Rcmaveric

Active Member
Not sure about Indium's affect on lead. I know selenium has the same affect as arsenic. Seleniun is really expensive due its use in electronic for doping solid states.
 

John

Active Member
The hardy frontier types bought their powder in one lb containers of lead that weighed enough to cast 50 cal rb's to match the powder sold. From what I recall from readings, they were either 1/2 or 1 lb containers. I would not want the job of soldering shut BP lead containers.
 

Joshua

Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
They used wax and cork to seal the lead containers. Here is a quote from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

“I walked down to the point where I waited their return. on their arrival found that two other canoes had filled with water and wet their cargoes completely. Whitehouse had been thrown out of one of the canoes as she swing in a rapid current and the canoe had rubed him and pressed him to the bottom as she passed over him and had the water been 2 inches shallower must inevitably have crushed him to death. our parched meal, corn, Indian preasents, and a great part of our most valuable stores were wet and much damaged on this ocasion. to examine, dry and arrange our stores was the first object; we therefore passed over to the lard. side opposite to the entrance of the rapid fork where there was a large gravly bar that answered our purposes; ... and unloaded all our canoes and opened and exposed to dry such articles as had been wet. a part of the load of each canoe consisted of the leaden canestirs of powder which were not in least injured, tho' some of them had remained upwards of an hour under water. about 20 lbs. of powder which we had in a tight Keg or at l[e]ast one which we thought sufficiently so got wet and intirely spoiled. this would have been the case with the other had it not have been for the expedient which I had fallen on of securing the powder by means of the lead having the latter formed into canesters which were filled with the necessary proportion of poder to discharge the lead when used, and those canesters well secured with corks and wax. in this country the air is so pure and dry that any vessel however well seasoned the timber may be will give way or shrink unless it is kept full of some liquid.1
1Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, 13 volumes (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 19832001), Vol. V, p. 53. All quotations from journal entries in the ensuing text are from”