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Thread: Solder...what to do with it?

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    Solder...what to do with it?

    I recently came into possession of two melting pots. Both of them contain solder used in the electronics industry. One of the contains "leaded" and the other is "unleaded". I was told the composition was: 63% tin/37% lead, while the other was 95.5% tin/3.8% silver/0.7% copper. Each pot is rated for 22 pounds each of lead and are filled with the solder.

    I and going to melt the solder and cast them into ingots. That way I have two new pots to add to the fleet.

    The real question is: once I cast the solder into ingots, are the useful? I am currently casting COWW for low velocity rounds and SOWW for BP use. Nothing I cast for would be considered hi-velocity.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    Yes, this will be useful later on. Be sure to mark the ingots clearly or perhaps use a different ingot mold for each solder, different from your normal casting alloy. There is really no need to be concerned about the partial percentage of the copper in the lead free solder. That will be used in such small amounts as to be only a trace in the over all alloy. The 63/37 might be very handy if cast into a small ingot mold, fish weight mold or some such to make small additions to a casting alloy easier. You may not need to have the tin to add at this time for pistol use, but you might find it very desirable later. For BP shooting, the old timers would add a very small amount of tin to their pure lead to make mold fill out easier. I find it helps to reduce the lead oxide from forming when in storage. You have some good tin based solder, mark well and store until needed. It will never be cheaper than what you have in it now. Dusty

  3. #3
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    In my many years as an electronics tech, I amassed quite a few pounds of Rosin core solder -- bion, the last 10 inches or so from machine dispensers were generally discarded -- slowed production to use -- so a good many ended up (OK with management) in shirt pockets. Similar, with my moon-lighting for extra cash doing plumbing -- mostly acid core roll solder for copper pipes. I had been concerned re the rosin/acid fluxes, but someone wrote on this site, "no problem at all with either". What the heck? I added a few pounds to a smelting pot (my total, over the years, was pretty close to 50 pounds of solder) -- and I do believe my cast boolits actually came out better looking than without the added solder. Figure?
    I am far from anything resembling a wanna' be chemist/metallurgist -- BUT -- the solder added to my alloy did nothing but, again imho, improve it. The only add-on to this, is I was worried re "fumes" from my mostly containing flux solder. With yours, I, too would probably do my initial mix/flux outdoors and up-wind -- just in case some really nasty/toxic fumes might (I don't know!) come out of it.
    geo

  4. #4
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    Since it's already been melted in the pots there should be little if any flux (acid, rosin, whatever) left in it but I'd never advise anyone to not have plenty of fresh air when making/cleaning alloys.
    If you mix them you'll have something like 75% tin with trace (read: negligible) amounts of copper and silver, depending on how many pounds of each. Good stuff. There's a few threads on alloy content, plus a table in the Lyman manual so you can tailor your boolits. Good luck
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  5. #5
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    Like georgerkahn, I worked for a manufacturer of transformer components for manufacture of large power transformers. A couple of years before I retired, they had somehow purchased an excessive amount of solid wire solder in 25# rolls. They investigated having it disposed of. Before they made arrangements(at some exorbitant $$ amount), I volunteered to take it off their hands. I ended up with almost 1000 lbs of 40/60 wire solder. Just about the best deal I ever fell into.

    Another time I was given about 15-20 lbs of flux core solder. When I melted it down to cast into ingots, the flux just about got to me and everything else within 50 yards. I finally soaked up the excess flux on top of the melt with sawdust and disposed of it so I could cast the ingots(solder boolits).

    Been retired quite awhile now but still have a lot of the solder.
    John
    W.TN

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Liquid pure tin is about 2/3rds the density of that of lead. If full to capacity, you have over 24# of tin between the two pots, which may be worth more than what you paid for them (tin is 11 to 25 dollars a pound retail at Rotometals). Great thing to have thrown into the deal!

  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    add the tin to pure lead at 20-1 or so for low vel. boolits, keeps lead together somewhat on impact and helps the pour when casting. 20-1 is kinda the "go to" for black powder boolits.

  8. #8
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    Thanks for all the replies. Just to clear it up, both solders have been fluxed. The pots were in production and the line was "upgraded", so the units were turned "off" and allowed to cool. Like kevin stated, I probably have 24# of tin.

    Any suggestions what size to cast the tin into? The smallest ingot I have is 1#. I do have a 50 cal round ball mould.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master RKJ's Avatar
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    You might check with your local Goodwill or Salvation Army thrift store, I'd bet they have some small cast iron skillets or muffin tins you get cheap.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master

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    Fill your molds 1/4 full, use number stamps to mark the composition and weight on each one.
    Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.

  11. #11
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    I'd think that what you cast your tin into sort of depends on how much you're casting at a time and how precise you want your alloy to be.

    Some folks add tin to a pot of alloy until it casts the way they want, using bullet sized chunks or dipping the end of a tin ingot to melt off what they think will do. They may take notes on how much tin was added to how much alloy in order to reproduce the mix in the future, or may do it empirically each time.

    Others want to be more precise, calculating and pre measuring everything that goes into the pot from the beginning. That may be easier with tin that can be measured out bit by bit (bullets, not bars). Others go the big batch route, preparing a big batch of casting alloy in advance, so they just melt and replenish with the same ingots as they go without having to worry about mixing, though it commits a lot of metal to that particular alloy. When you're adding pounds of tin, not grains, an ounce or so either way doesn't matter so much, so tin bars may do.

    Since I used thousands of boolits of the same type each month, I went the last route, making lots of 250# at a time. Worked for me, and I'm planning to make a new batch once I pick up the shooting again. Of course, YMMV.
    Last edited by kevin c; 05-24-2020 at 02:38 AM.

  12. #12
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Since you know the composition of both I would keep them separate from each other. For things like tin, solder and pewter I use the 2 small cavities in a Lee ingot mold. You can buy one for about $12.

    As far as the end use goes, solder is great for blending alloys with or a small amount can be added to a problem alloy if you have something thats giving you problems.

    Thats a great score, by the way!

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by crandall crank View Post

    Any suggestions what size to cast the tin into? The smallest ingot I have is 1#. I do have a 50 cal round ball mould.
    That depends mostly on how much alloy you're going to use. I got a good deal on a pile of tin rabbit and cast some of it into .54 musket boolits as 'pot sweetness' in case the tin is a little light in the batch. The rest is in 1lb and 1/2lb ingots for making alloy.
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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check