A new electric smelter

[snowman]

I've had the idea for a while....a decrepit old pottery kiln, a pid controller, a cutoff tank and some steel plate. Not sure how many pounds she'll hold, but tank size is 7 3/8" x 8" or so.

Holds right at temp just fine....trick is figuring out melt temp vs kiln temp to set the controller.

[snowman]

It could be a long night. I've got a couple more buckets of solder rolls hiding somewhere.

[el34]

Treating the solder as a source of tin? Hopefully you know what it is. And is that pewter? Pretty interesting collection of stuff there. It's kinda satisfying to turn a pile like that into a nice stack of ingots! Good luck getting that kiln smelter operating well.

[snowman]

This thing is awesome once you get a decent amount of lead in it....heating it up however takes forever.

Yeah, I know what I've got. This is about a years worth of hoarding...somewhat minimally. I got to a point where I was sick of moving my buckets. If I bought every bit of solder / linotype I came across, I'd never have any extra money....I'm to the point where I only buy solder if it's above 50/50.

I've got a couple hundred pounds of pewter. My parents are antique dealers, so I told them to just buy everything they see for $1 or less.

[snowman]

The coolest part of my "hoard" are those long tubular things.....pipe organ pipes. I actually feel guilty melting those down. I never find any of the tin ones though. I've got a bunch that will still sound if you blow into them. I gave a couple to the middle school music teacher.

[el34]

What are the organ pipes made of?

A couple hundred pounds of pewter? You could sell half, turned into little ingots, at $10/lb and buy something else especially if it keeps trickling in.

[snowman]

Organ pipes range all over the place, depending on size. The high pitch tiny ones are tin, low pitch tiny ones are lead. Middle size are tin / lead, tin percentage around 15%. Once you get bigger, you have to start having more tin, so it's harder and doesn't slump on itself. Very interesting craft.

Right now, I've just got a lot of pewter. I've been hoarding it for a looooong time. Some day I'll process it down, if nothing else to get it into a more compact storage size. I need to make some good ingot moulds...can't find my lymans. I made some out of channel stock, but it cools a little too fast for my tastes....I want a nice soft bar.