Can I do ANYTHING with 65-75% tin alloy?

[theTastyCat]

So a friend of mine is a pipe organ builder, and I asked him if he would keep an eye out for lead, as I know certain styles of organbuilding use pipes of pure lead, and others use varying alloys. He quickly replied that he has a tremendous quantity of lead alloy, but most of it is 65-75% tin. Now I think I've picked up thus far from this wonderful forum that tin and lead on their own are respectively very valuable and very useful, but I think they cannot be separated.

Is there ANYTHING I can do with what he's got? He said he's got more of these ingots than he would ever know what to do with. Is there ANY way to make it castable?

Many thanks.

[Zbench]

You can certainly blend it down with other lead to make just about any alloy you want. You should be aware that most pipe organ alloy also has good amounts of copper and even some zinc in it. Not all of it works well for casting in my experience, even in small amounts. Best to get a sample or two and take it to a scrap yard that has an XRF analyzer. They will tell you exactly what is in it.

[Freightman]

Put it up for trade on the trader board, 1# for three or four W-W lead yoou will get a lot of response and lead. Keep some for yourself.

[Sully]

Melt them down and seperate them. Melting temp for lead is right at 622F.....for tin its 450.

Melt down...pour into ingot molds and sell that tin!!....:)

[theTastyCat]

Wow...so you CAN separate it?? Sully, could you give me a bit more insight into the process? If it's all combined together, a la alloy, how could I get the lead out (ha ha) at 500 degrees?

Many thanks!!!!

[imashooter2]

You can't separate the tin from the lead. You can sell "65-75% tin pipe organ ingots" for considerable money or trade them for lead or WW at 3 or 4 to one easily. See the many ads in the Swapin & Sellin section mentioning reclaimed solder. Your pipe organ pipes are esentially the same thing.

You could also alloy your 65% tin with WW or lead to make more suitable casting alloys (generally 10% tin or less, depending on what you started with and what your end use is).

ETA: If the price is reasonable, you should get all that he has or you can afford, whichever comes first.

[theTastyCat]

Ah, so fellow casters would find such alloy useful to harden their own alloys! I see!! I'll get all I can get my grubby hands on and go from there :) :)

[lwknight]

Its at least worth about $5.00 per pound for the tin.

[*Paladin*]

That alloy is WORTHLESS!!! But, because I'm such a nice guy I'll send you a few bucks and you can mail it all to me for proper disposal... :mrgreen:

[theTastyCat]

Paladin, you are a true gentleman. For that, I'll drive it up to Idaho for you. Just wait for me on the front porch - I'll be there any minute.

[*Paladin*]

Paladin, you are a true gentleman. For that, I'll drive it up to Idaho for you. Just wait for me on the front porch - I'll be there any minute.

Hahahaha!!! Don't say that! I'll sit on the porch all night!!!:drinks:

[a.squibload]

(He's still sittin' there, and his beer froze up last night...)

[geargnasher]

Melt them down and seperate them. Melting temp for lead is right at 622F.....for tin its 450.

Melt down...pour into ingot molds and sell that tin!!....:)

The guy had a legit question, he doesn't need a BS answer.

Any tin/lead alloy like that is very valuble to casters for the tin part. The lead is of negligible value compared, but still worth about a buck a pound on top of the tin. Tin is used mostly to help alloy antimony with lead, and to help mould fillout. usually no more than 2% by weight is used by casters unless needing something like Lyman #2, but tin is expensive even in small quantities and very valuble.

Here's the rub: Pipe organ lead, as Pete (Zbench) said, varies greatly in composition, but is often high-tin. No matter what you're told, the only way to know for sure is to have a sample assayed. Really, you need to melt all the ingots down together and pour new ones so you know they are all the same. I have a couple of friends in the pipe organ business (Rubin Frels and Michael Quimby) who have told me the same things about varying content of the pipes, and further that the ingots are made during periodic shop cleanups and can consist of just about anything. Remember, organ builders are not usually boolit casters and don't take the same precautions when melting scrap. Most good metal salvage yards have a handheld X-ray scanner that can give a reasonable estimate of the content of one sample.

Gear

[Bloodman14]

Gear, as Sully is somewhat new here, I don't think his answer was BS, but merely given out of simple ignorance, which can be cured. Sully, your answer was meant in honesty, I believe, so I will inform you as friendly as possible that alloys of lead are NOT separable when melted down. Once alloyed, they are inseparable. As far as the OP, get all you can, have it assayed, and go from there.

[theTastyCat]

Great, Gear - thanks so much! Really smart to re-ingot it all to be sure it's the same - wondering how I can do that with the dutch oven/turkey fryer setup I was thinking of running. Maybe I could at least fill the dutch oven and keep those ingots separate, and just have one ingot per batch analyzed.

Quimby does TOP NOTCH work - I respect him VERY highly and he is one of the very top organbuilders in the country. Small world!

Now I feel bad - when a man's beer freezes over, he has truly hit rock bottom.

[Dennis Eugene]

not to mention he is not only cold but thristy also. Dennis

[lwknight]

I stayed away from Sullys' comment because I could not decide if it was a joke, BS or just misinformation

[imashooter2]

I decided best course of action was to provide accurate information and move on.

[Sully]

Gear, as Sully is somewhat new here, I don't think his answer was BS, but merely given out of simple ignorance, which can be cured. Sully, your answer was meant in honesty, I believe, so I will inform you as friendly as possible that alloys of lead are NOT separable when melted down. Once alloyed, they are inseparable. As far as the OP, get all you can, have it assayed, and go from there.


If you say so?? Ive never heard that before...Ive never read that before anywhere at all. And IF thats 100% true...how does ANYONE get 100% pure lead? Its got to be "melted" and seperated by some process or method.??

I wish to thank you for informing me of this and Ive learned MORE than just this one item.....Ive also learned to keep my back covered when certain people are out and about!

[imashooter2]

You can reduce pretty much any metal to base form through various electro chemical refining techniques. Those paths are not available to the home caster. Once alloyed, 2 metals will no longer melt each at its separate temperature. Note that when you melt WW, you don't get lumps of unmelted antimony in with the lead (antimony melts at 1,167 degrees F).

[theTastyCat]

Wow - THAT is hot. In order to melt antimony I'd have to take the dutch oven off the turkey fryer and place it directly on Daisy Duke's stomach :)

[imashooter2]

I built a charcoal fired blast furnace from firebrick and a shop vac to do it once a long time ago. It was a lot of trouble. Now I just buy type metals. It's easier.