cost of tin gone crazy

[Rickf1985]

if anybody is in need of tin let me know. I've just finished smelting organ pipes and have a bunch of 50/50 (tin/lead) to swap for other lead.

I wish I had know this a week ago, I was just through NC on 95 last Wednesday and I have tons of wheel weights I could have traded.

[The Appalacian]

To whoever is lurking around ebay in the last couple months buying up pewter and paying way more than its worth. Think about what you're doing.

Those sellers pay attention to prices just like we do. When they see stuff sell for more than what they're asking on theirs, what do you think they're going to do with their own pricing? For Pete's sake, you're shooting yourself in foot and the rest of us too.

If people would just stop panic buying everything they see prices all across the board would come down, and that includes even pewter bud vases and other silly stuff.

[kevin c]

What with not being able to weigh or examine the item (descriptions can be inaccurate), costs like shipping, and the fact that the asking price reflects the perceived value of the object, not that of its metal content, I haven’t been able to convince myself to buy second hand pewter on line.

[Rickf1985]

And you are not getting pure tin which you can buy at places like Rotometals and know for sure what you got. You can buy pure tin for 28.00 lb. and that pound will do a lot more than pewter alloy. One pound will alloy a LOT of lead. 10lbs. of antimonial lead, 5 lbs of pure lead and .5 lbs of tine give a very balanced 15.5 lbs. of 12.5 BHN lead. Enough to make 543 200gr boolits.

And if you buy 4 lbs. you will get free shipping over 100.00! That knocks at least 20 bucks off of the total and brings the price down to 23.00 lb.

[jsizemore]

And you are not getting pure tin which you can buy at places like Rotometals and know for sure what you got. You can buy pure tin for 28.00 lb. and that pound will do a lot more than pewter alloy. One pound will alloy a LOT of lead. 10lbs. of antimonial lead, 5 lbs of pure lead and .5 lbs of tine give a very balanced 15.5 lbs. of 12.5 BHN lead. Enough to make 543 200gr boolits.

And if you buy 4 lbs. you will get free shipping over 100.00! That knocks at least 20 bucks off of the total and brings the price down to 23.00 lb.

If you find 95%+ pewter for $10/lb shipped, how much can you alloy with the same $92? How much difference is there between 95% and 100% in your final casting alloy? Or 90% and 100%? I've cast with all them and can't tell the difference.

[Delkal]

If you find 95%+ pewter for $10/lb shipped, how much can you alloy with the same $92? How much difference is there between 95% and 100% in your final casting alloy? Or 90% and 100%? I've cast with all them and can't tell the difference.

And when you are only adding a few percent of something the math gets even less significant. Even though pewter is around 90% tin by the books I just treat it as a pure bar of 0.999 pure tin. Adding 2% of something 90% pure means your alloy is wrong by 0.2% tin. Does anyone think this will matter? And pewter has antimony so for hardness the difference is even less significant.

Same goes for Rotometals high antimony bars. Just buy some monotype for $2 a pound off of Ebay and it already has a good amount of tin already in it.

[Rickf1985]

If you are at 90% then the difference is negligible, but how do you know you have 90% without testing? And as has been said, the price is going up on pewter so is it still worth it?

[Delkal]

If you are at 90% then the difference is negligible, but how do you know you have 90% without testing?

It doesn't matter. Being over or under by a tenth or two of 1% is not going to change anything in the real world. And if you find a piece of pewter that is more than 90% the error is even smaller. At 95% tin your alloy will be off by 0.1%.

[6.5X284ever]

All this math is making my head hurt.