Organ pipes?

[mfraser264]

Tin has an interesting characteristic, pure tin when bent sound like Rice Crispies when you add the milk while it bends. Crackle, crackle crackle. Save this for future finds. A friend of mine that grew up in a scrap yard taught me that. Just went through a bag of costume jewelry from my mother, yard sale find and there one small piece that looked lead. Bend test told the story!

[DHDeal]

Those bubbles are pure hydrogen gas. Might make your voice squeaky if you inhaled a lung full, but unless you light up a smoke no harm done.

Now if you've already got gallons of HCl and a lot of zinc you won't miss, along with a certain sort of mind, you can really have some fun.

I got a good laugh out of your last paragraph. I can see it now.....

[RogerDat]

I melted some known pewter in a pot and maintained a sub 400* temperature to test if samples of these different types would melt. Confirming not zinc and not lead. Leaving open a pretty wide range of tin alloys as possibilities.

As you can see the sorted batches of organ pipes pictured yielded distinct and different looking ingots. With different weights.

The stack of ingots on the bottom with the pockets from off gassing and most golden sheen came from the large and flattened lines of sample 3. The spread out stack of 3 with a slight golden sheen came from the non-coated sample 2 (right). The single heavy and non-glossy ingot came from sample 1 (left) I think it is somewhat like a modest solder.



Samples 1 and 2. The ones on the right are tink sounding metal when struck and do not appear plated or clad. The ones on the left are some sort of cladding or plating that is flaking off a bit. These made the single ingot. Weight was 6 lbs. instead of the 3 lbs. of the golden ingots. They melted at 400* ok, lower not so well. Not glossy but fine grained. Sort of like a 7 - 10 percent tin alloy.

Clad pipes on left were Sn-39% Sb-1.1%
Thin pipes on right were Sn-80% Sb-0



Sample 3 - this stuff was stiff but easily bent, tink rather than thud when struck, could be torn after bending. Melted right away in 400* or even lower pot.
These were Sn-51% Sb-1.7%


Sample 4 Can melt, are heavy, go thud when struck. My guess is a mostly lead alloy. Would not melt at 400* which means not much if any tin.
These were Sn-16.8% Sb-3.6%


There are also some larger pipes not pictured that looked sort of like tin but don't melt so I'm thinking polished zinc or some aluminum alloy. Many of the pipes were a black and silver speckled much like galvanized, MAPP gas torch would melt, propane not really. My suspicion is zinc but will have to test with acid.

I don't think I will have these samples tested anytime soon but when I do I'll post the results. Glossy golden ingots are a sure sign of very high tin content. Two 5 gallon buckets of pipes yielded 6# of the least alloy, 6# of the medium tin alloy, 9# of the best alloy. Unknown amount on the dark gray suspected lead pipes.

In the past have gotten 40's to 50's for tin content when all mixed together so this time I sorted. Would rather work with tin instead of solder for some uses. Solder is good for other uses.

[RogerDat]

Melted sample 4 pipes pictured in post #43 and it is harder than plain lead by a good amount. Very fine grain surface. Very uniform grain appearance also. Smooth but not glossy.

I will label and set aside for now. Next time I have occasion to have lead tested will include these. Organ pipes are not super common but they do show up in scrap yards from time to time so having a record may help someone down the line. I think the ingots from some of those pipe types will go someplace around 70% tin or maybe more. The one set are a bright gold color, glossy and butter smooth and that usually only comes from pewter and other really high tin alloys.

I would tend to say based only on appearance of the ingots that the plated/clad small pipes on left of first picture and the larger dull gray "thud" pipes of sample 4 are the same alloy.

[kevin c]

Say, richhodg66,

Did you ever get that analysis back from BNE? I'm asking because I just did a little experiment at the prodding of someone with better practical experience in metal/acid chemical reactions and discovered that tin will fizz and dissolve when submerged in muriatic acid. A drop on the surface like most of us do for zinc isn't enough to make tin fizz, but put that tin into an acid bath and it's a different story.

See this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...64#post4833364

With zinc, the reaction to just a drop on the surface has been, for me, immediate and strong (almost a boiling type of reaction). I'd guess the zinc in submerged in a bath would be even stronger, producing lots of gas until dissolved. A high tin lead alloy or a nearly pure tin might fizz and dissolve, but less vigorously and more slowly.

All that to say that maybe those pipes are tin after all.

[Drew P]

I’ve run a few pipe organ pipes through my guns. They shoot fine

[RogerDat]

I finally sent in samples from those pipes pictured. Will post when I get results. I have been trying to get the assorted and misc. alloys dealt with. So finally sent in samples of the organ pipes.

[richhodg66]

Say, richhodg66,

Did you ever get that analysis back from BNE? I'm asking because I just did a little experiment at the prodding of someone with better practical experience in metal/acid chemical reactions and discovered that tin will fizz and dissolve when submerged in muriatic acid. A drop on the surface like most of us do for zinc isn't enough to make tin fizz, but put that tin into an acid bath and it's a different story.

See this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...64#post4833364

With zinc, the reaction to just a drop on the surface has been, for me, immediate and strong (almost a boiling type of reaction). I'd guess the zinc in submerged in a bath would be even stronger, producing lots of gas until dissolved. A high tin lead alloy or a nearly pure tin might fizz and dissolve, but less vigorously and more slowly.

All that to say that maybe those pipes are tin after all.

Pure zinc, or very, very close to it.

[Dapaki]

Our pipe organ's pipes are lead with some tin and antimony with a possible exception of the large bass pipes (third down) that appears to be painted.

[Driver33]

Be careful when testing for zinc with acid. Muriatic acid when applied to zinc produces hydrogen gas that is very flammable.

[RogerDat]

I added the results of testing by member BNE (thanks!) to the pictures in post #43 Edits in red above each picture.

There was a significant range.
The thin pipes that were very soft. Felt and melted like tin were 80% tin. Weight 8.2 lbs.

The assorted pipes that bent easily (soft) and tore easily but seemed different than the thin pipes came out at 51% Sn and some Sb. Weight 6 lbs.

The pipes that were clad and flaking off were 39% Sn with 1.1% Sb Weight 3 lbs.

The stuff that went thunk when struck and wasn't as soft or easy to tear was Sn 16.8 and Sb of 3.6 Weight 4.7 lbs.

Now it is possible that the sorting I did influenced the final product. For example it wouldn't have taken much of the 80% tin getting in with the thunk lead sounding pipes to bring up the tin percentage.

Likewise the 51% Sn with some Sb may have gotten some lead sorted into higher tin alloy pipes to bring the Sn percentage down and put some Sb in the resulting alloy.

I also didn't mention that in addition to sound, feel and melting temperature the "heft" played a part in the sorting. If a piece felt like it had more weight for a given size piece of pipe I would move it toward the suspected higher lead group. Tin is pretty light compared to lead.

The final ingot appearance was also consistent with the testing. High gloss w/ gold tone is typical of high tin. High gloss some tin, fine grained but dull is less tin.

Also worth noting I got 21.9 lbs out of 28 lbs. of stuff I rapidly sorted from a bin. In short I ended up with some end points or caps that were zinc as well as some pipes that were not lead/tin. Still since I paid a price just a bit over price for lead it wasn't a bad deal. Was a bit more work than stamped pewter pieces or solder from garage sales but certainly worth it.