Hard White Metal Silver Plate - alloy

[RogerDat]

Found a bowl that was silver plate over white metal, soft to bend. Touch mark has "Hard White Metal" under it which could be a tin alloy such as EPBM (Electro Plated Britannia Metal) but could also contain zinc according to Wikipedia.

Anyone have any experience with "Hard White Metal" as a source of tin? I once didn't pick up a bunch of silver plate stamped EPBM only to find out that was over 80% tin. So I decided to take a $1 gamble on this bowl.

I'm going to melt it separate and send a sample in next batch of samples I have to be tested. will post back here what I find out about this label, and the company in the touch mark. Which I have to clean to get a decent picture of.

[jsizemore]

It can be anything. Melting separate and testing is the safe bet.

[skeettx]

Hard White Metal is also a company

http://www.abesilverman.com/A627.html

[dondiego]

Found a bowl that was silver plate over white metal, soft to bend. Touch mark has "Hard White Metal" under it which could be a tin alloy such as EPBM (Electro Plated Britannia Metal) but could also contain zinc according to Wikipedia.

Anyone have any experience with "Hard White Metal" as a source of tin? I once didn't pick up a bunch of silver plate stamped EPBM only to find out that was over 80% tin. So I decided to take a $1 gamble on this bowl.

I'm going to melt it separate and send a sample in next batch of samples I have to be tested. will post back here what I find out about this label, and the company in the touch mark. Which I have to clean to get a decent picture of.

Have you tried the muriatic acid test for zinc?

[RogerDat]

Have you tried the muriatic acid test for zinc?

No I haven't. Good call! I picked up some muriatic acid for just that purpose at the hardware store and forgot all about it. Reminds me I need to check if I'm wearing my shoes on correct feet and pants. Pants would be important. Man the CRS is getting bad sometimes. Will test tonight and let folks know what I find out from the acid test.

[lightman]

What are you using for acid? A friend gave me a gallon of the swimming pool treatment stuff and I use a glass eye dropper from Walgreens.

[dondiego]

The swimming pool acid should be muriatic. What I don't know is the percentage of zinc needed in an alloy to be able to react effectively with the acid to bubble. Also, what is the maximum percentage of zinc in an alloy that ruins it for casting?

[RogerDat]

I think this is swimming pool acid. Picked it up at Ace Hardware. I don't know how much Zn ruins it but even a few percent makes the melt "off" a bit. Not unusable but slushy on top. I think BangerJim did some experiments and found he could still cast up to around 4% Zn using a hotter melt.

I used some contaminated tin that was 9% zinc to get a batch of WW's up to 2% Sn and the melt was a little bit funky to pour into ingots. Does seem a little harder than normal WW + 2% Sn would be. I was thinking might use for buckshot. Round ball is an easy cast and forgiving mold. I was thinking the fairly high Sn percentage would offset the Zn tendency to not flow as well. Might be ok, or not. No hurry, it sits next to my bench with big Zinc Contaminated written on the ingots and waits for me to get around to it.

Since I made those WW+Sn+Zn ingots I took that Sn & 9% Zn alloy and did a sulfur treatment using garden sulfur. Going to send in a sample to BNE to see how much Zn was removed. Just did it as an experiment, I wanted to see how effective mixing in and burning off sulfur actually is. I was burning scrap wood in the back away from the houses where sulfur smoke wouldn't be a problem so.... I figure 5# of Sn would make it a worthwhile rescue if it works. Seem to recall sulfur removes tin but since this is mostly tin.... maybe what is left will be tin without zinc.

Wasn't able to get out to the garage and do the deed checking with acid last night but expect to tonight or sometime this weekend.

[RogerDat]

Acid didn't bubble. So I melted. The bowl certainly melted like pewter. Hit with a propane torch it just sort of vanishes in front of the flame. In the pot it went "splush" all at once as soon as it hit melt point. Poured like pewter. I'll still have it tested to be sure but this Silver Plate on "Hard White Metal" seems like it is pewter or high tin alloy. I think that I'm up 1.4 lbs. of tin for a buck.

I also put some muriatic acid on an ingot that I know has a small amount of zinc and it formed little bubbles but it was not a very pronounced or robust reaction. I had to use the reading glasses to see it. I think that stuff is around or below 1%.

[dondiego]

Acid didn't bubble. So I melted. The bowl certainly melted like pewter. Hit with a propane torch it just sort of vanishes in front of the flame. In the pot it went "splush" all at once as soon as it hit melt point. Poured like pewter. I'll still have it tested to be sure but this Silver Plate on "Hard White Metal" seems like it is pewter or high tin alloy. I think that I'm up 1.4 lbs. of tin for a buck.

I also put some muriatic acid on an ingot that I know has a small amount of zinc and it formed little bubbles but it was not a very pronounced or robust reaction. I had to use the reading glasses to see it. I think that stuff is around or below 1%.

That is good to know that the reaction occurs at such a low zinc percentage.

[kevin c]

I have had very small bubbles form slowly on the surface of a Pb-Sb-Sn alloy that was analyzed and had no Zn in it per the report. I haven't tested anything that caused the fizzy type of bubbling I read about here.

[Peregrine]

White metal=petwer

[jsizemore]

^Sometimes^

[RogerDat]

I have had some stamped pewter that had zinc furnishings on it. Handles or trim or feet for example. On one occasion I was hitting the items with a propane torch to chop them into the pot and I torched the wrong item, contaminated a batch. Nothing like knowing you have $40 or more of pewter that is ***** from zinc to make one get more cautious.

For that matter melting down some block tin cooling lines I found that a few parts were "hard" metal which did not readily melt into the rest of the tin alloy. I think those parts are zinc so I have to use care in melting that source to avoid melting the zinc in.

Generally if I find silver plate on white metal rather than copper or similar metal I'm going to be interested based on past items.

[Peregrine]

^Sometimes^

At the very least "usually" or "typically" surely.

What sort of exceptions have you found? I'm batting 100% with anything I've found marked white metal. Usually all silver plated, and mainly sugar bowl and creamer type pieces.

[RogerDat]

I have had very small bubbles form slowly on the surface of a Pb-Sb-Sn alloy that was analyzed and had no Zn in it per the report. I haven't tested anything that caused the fizzy type of bubbling I read about here.

Why can't I ever find a zinc WW when I want one? Next chance I get I'm going to test one of those after hitting it with a grinder or file to get to clean metal.

[Traffer]

I would call it pewter and go with it. If it melts that easy...TIN ...bingo.

[jsizemore]

At the very least "usually" or "typically" surely.

What sort of exceptions have you found? I'm batting 100% with anything I've found marked white metal. Usually all silver plated, and mainly sugar bowl and creamer type pieces.

I've found any number of these discussed on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_metal

Very few pieces I've found were dependably equal to pewter. If you've had good luck I'm happy for you. I've NEVER wanted to mess up a 100lb pot of known pewter with white metal, EPWM on a guess.

[Petander]

I have had very small bubbles form slowly on the surface of a Pb-Sb-Sn alloy that was analyzed and had no Zn in it per the report. I haven't tested anything that caused the fizzy type of bubbling I read about here.

I had my alloy tested because coatings didn't stick,no zn but some niobium instead. And copper.

It sizzles very little bubbles and very slowly but the alloy changes to much darker colour overnight. I use 30% HCL. My cast boolits look like chromed steel and stay like that for years. After HCL soak they are much darker and coat very well.

Attachment 235871

[Traffer]

"...cast boolits look like chromed steel and alloy contains nobium"
Now I am envious. I want chromed steel looking boolits. And nobium in my alloy.