So, I stopped by the radiator shop...

[Bookworm]

I've been using the same radiator shop for years, an old-school type shop, where the Proprietor (the only person there) can still solder up a hole in a copper/brass radiator. The equipment I'm around still uses the old-style coolers, mostly because it's old equipment, but also because weight usually isn't a factor.

Anyway, I was there a few months ago, had him repair a condenser on my International. When I went to pick it up, I got to talking with him.

I asked about dross, and solder drippings. He asked me why I was interested, I told him I was after the tin. He asked why. I told him I used it as an ingredient in alloys for bullets. Turns out, he likes to shoot too. We got to jawing, and finally, as I was leaving, he figured he would save some for me.

I called him a week or so back, he said he had some old nasty **** in a bucket, probably wasn't worth messing with. I allowed as I'd give it a go. I picked up about a 1/4 of a 5-gallon bucket. Nasty, wet, mud. He didn't want to charge me anything, because he figured there really wasn't anything in it worth anything.




Oh boy. I washed it with a couple sieves, and ended up with this -




This morning I put it all in the rendering pot, and fired it up. Lots and lots o' garbage, dross, ash, junk. I burned it off best I could.

Here's the result.




Over 12.5 pounds of solder.

I can see the yellow tint to the ingots, but I don't know if it comes thru in the pics. I don't know how much tin is in there, but 2 Lee 1-pound ingots weigh just a bit over 1.5 pounds.


I believe I need to bring him a supply of his favorite beverage. I also need to send some of this in, find out what I have.

[skeet1]

I have done the same thing. Yes it is nasty stuff but the results are well worth the effort! Good job Bookworm!

Ken

[CastingFool]

Great score!

[Bookworm]

Yeah, I was surprised at the total. I figured if I got 4 or 5 pounds it would be worthwhile. I bet there was 45 pounds of mud, garbage, hose clamps, screws, anything you can think of in there. Oily, nasty, sticky, stinky.

I've rendered hundreds of pounds of wheelweights, and they are nowhere near as filthy as this radiator shop dross was.

I need to re-melt this stuff. I had it in a big pot, and there was so much garbage and junk in there, it was hard to clean. I'm planning to re-melt all of it in a smaller pot, so I can clean it better. My plan is to cast it all into the Lee 1/2 pound ingots, so I can be certain not to mix it up unintentionally.

[RED BEAR]

I would definitely bring him a beverage. Places like that are getting scarce around here.

[high standard 40]

I have a similar shop near me and so far I've processed four 5 gal buckets of that stuff. I think I'm covered for a while.

[Conditor22]

THAT STUFF IS NASTY TO SMELT. WEAR BREATHING PROTECTION

The radiator repair shops near me charge for it. I tried it once and found it cost less than $2 a pound to the finished result
I ended up with around 75# of 40/60 from a 5 gal bucket

[Mitch]

great Job with the nasty.i am not sure what solder they use for the radiators.I would think you have a good amount of tin there 40% maybe give or take.One thing i found from a radiator shop once is a bucket full if floor sweepings.Didnt look like much but ****.i got about 50% solder from that ****.If you looked close you could see all the little spatters that were in there.the best thing was the scrap yard guy gave it to me cuz they didnt buy it cuz it looked like all dirt so the guy just left it.

[Bookworm]

I'm going to stop by the rad shop and talk to my new best buddy. I'll ask him what solder he uses, but I'm sure I'll end up sending this out to test.
If it is indeed 40/60 Sn/Pb, then I've got 5 pounds of Sn out of that partial bucket of mud.

I'll dang sure do it again, given the chance.

[high standard 40]

I'm going to stop by the rad shop and talk to my new best buddy. I'll ask him what solder he uses, but I'm sure I'll end up sending this out to test.
If it is indeed 40/60 Sn/Pb, then I've got 5 pounds of Sn out of that partial bucket of mud.

I'll dang sure do it again, given the chance.

Knowing what solder that shop uses is only part of the story. Your mix of drippings includes solder that other shops or the original radiator manufacturers used. This additional solder is sweated out of the radiators he repairs and is mixed in with what you get as drippings.

[Mitch]

i agree with high standard 40.What your new buddy uses is one thing what the last guy or the factory is another.I have all my lead tested just to be sure what i have.no alloying metal is wasted this way.You better find out your new buddys faorite beverage or take some doughnuts in the morning on the next trip.sounds like you found a good thing.good luck

[lightman]

Wow, you got some good looking stuff from that nasty looking mess! I've never scored solder from a radiator shop and had no idea it was that nasty. I guess I missed an opportunity when we still had an old fashion radiator shop here.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Look at it from a dollar value. Assuming that tin is selling for around $10 per lb. and you have just under 13 lb., I`d say you realised a decent return.Robert

[Bookworm]

Look at it from a dollar value. Assuming that tin is selling for around $10 per lb. and you have just under 13 lb., I`d say you realised a decent return.Robert

Even at 40% tin, I would end up with over 5 pounds of tin.

I have maybe 4 hours total work in this, plus propane. Most of the time was washing that junk through the sieves. I had never worked with this stuff before, and didn't realize how incredibly filthy it is.

I didn't weigh the mud I washed out, but should have. I'd also bet that if I panned that mud I'd get even more solder out of it.

Maybe next batch.

[barsik]

I also ransacked a rad shop for the floor sweepings, it takes a lot of time and effort to separate all of the candy bar wrappers, cigarette butts, and dirt from the solder. they gave me a 5 gallon pail of dirt and I ended up with almost 15 lbs of relatively clean ingots. I have a question for the seasoned members here... assuming pure WW alloy, what ratio of the rad shop solder do I add to the WW alloy? roughly what BHN would it be?

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Stop by my place and I will give you 18 LBS of dross with lots of lead in it. I weighed the stuff. I don't know how to get rid of it.

[Winger Ed.]

assuming pure WW alloy, what ratio of the rad shop solder do I add to the WW alloy? roughly what BHN would it be?

I'd figure its pretty much all 60/40, maybe 50/50 or so solder, and will be fairly hard all by itself.
Ya just have to test it since there is so many unknowns in there.

[Bookworm]

OP here, I wanted to bring this thread back up to reveal the test results.

I sent 2 samples off to BNE, got the results back.

Average of 62.7% Pb, 1% Sb, 36% Sn, 0.3% Cu

I think the small amount of Copper came from the radiators to which the solder was applied. Cu just dissolves in lead, in small amounts. Makes sense it would be there.

What surprised me was the Sb, the antimony. No idea how that got there.

However it got there, for the price I think I fell into a good thing.