question

[snaplink]

cleaning the garage I found 4 ingots labled Bell System wiping solder. took these and melted two. I poured into lyman ingot molds when I took them out most were a dull gray, and would crumble easily. the question I am asking is did I use too much heat? or is the way they would do in the molds.

the origonal ingots before melting didn't do this.. Also if I can melt these could I cast into bullets? thank you

[white eagle]

sounds like you dropped them out of the ingot mold to soon
just had a thread on the solder you mentioned
don't remember off hand the details but if you search for it it will turn up

[bumpo628]

Here's the thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=96042

If it's solder, then you don't want to cast boolits out of it. It would be a waste of good tin. You should mix these with some pure lead to stretch the tin out.

According to the above link, I believe it is 40% tin, 60% lead. If they were 5 lb ingots, then you can mix each ingot with the following amounts of pure lead to get these %'s of tin:
5 lbs solder + 195 lbs pure lead = 1.00% tin
5 lbs solder + 128 lbs pure lead = 1.50% tin
5 lbs solder + 95 lbs pure lead = 2.00% tin
5 lbs solder + 75 lbs pure lead = 2.50% tin
5 lbs solder + 55 lbs pure lead = 3.33% tin
5 lbs solder + 45 lbs pure lead = 4.00% tin
5 lbs solder + 35 lbs pure lead = 5.00% tin

[snaplink]

Thank you white eagle and bumpo628.

[Echo]

I suppose it is possible to determine the Specific Gravity of the solder, and figure from there what the mix is. Some wiping solder is 30/70. There are instructions elsewhere re the SG calculation - you have to weigh a sample, then suspend it in water and weigh again, and do some math magic to find the SG, then compare with a table somewhere, while standing on one foot, facing north.

And I suggest that you recast down into smaller ingots - 5 lbs of 30/70 would produce 1.5 lbs of SN, and that would sweeten 75 lbs of WW's nicely - but I can't get that much into my setup, and I'll bet there are few on the forum that can handle a 75 lb batch. Reduce the size of the ingots to make them easier to use.

[snaplink]

thank you, echo