How to tell the difference between tin and lead

[filric48]

My father in law gave me eight 5 lb.ingots of lead and 3 other ingots square, about 12 lbs. He said they were tin. I don't have a hardness tester and I read something about a drop test on a concrete floor, the tin has a slight ring and the lead a dull thud. So I tried it and it did ring and the lead a dull thud, is there any validity to this story?

[BulletFactory]

yep. thats prolly what you got. just dont mix it all together/

[SlowSmokeN]

I make ingots have out of range lead. When I drop them on the concrete there is a ringing sound. I find there is very little tin and I don't get good fill in the mold.

It is hard to tell by just dropping them on the concrete. Cast some boolits and see if you get good fill and crisp edges with the one you think is tin.

[runfiverun]

a thin bendable piece of high tin alloy will have a crieeek sound and pretty good resistance along with some varigating seams when bent.
lead just bends.
lead alloys have different sounds and they are very hard to tell apart everything from patink to tclack. to a tump.
something with 3% antimony sounds suspiciously like something with 1% tin, only different :lol:

[DukeInFlorida]

Tin and lead are very different when it comes to density. If the blocks are any where near the same size/shape, the lead ones should be significantly heavier than the others.

Try doing some simple volume calculation (width times length times thickness) and then weigh that, for each. Then you can do some quick recalculation to figure what equal volumes of each would weigh. There's a chart somewhere that will tell you what given volumes of lead and tin will weigh.

Calculator time!

[fredj338]

That & tin doesn't oxidize like lead. Lead will turn a duller grey, tin stays shiney.

[John Boy]

How to tell the difference between tin and lead
Got a thermometer?
Tin Melting Point = 449.47 °F
Lead Melting Point = 621.43 °F

[filric48]

I thought about the thermometer thing, I will have to pick one up.

[Alchemist]

If you have 12 lb ingots of tin, you might want to melt it down and recast into small ingots so you can easily add in the % of tin you want when doing up batches of alloy.

[lylejb]

+1 Duke

Tin weighs 65% of the weight of lead.

Cast some booilts of the suspected tin, and weigh them.

I used a lee 358-158-rf and got 106 grs with hallmarked pewter ( high tin alloy)

Also, the booilts were very shiny and filled out almost perfectly in a cold mould. No way lead would do that.

tin boolits are also a convenient way to add small amouts of tin to a pot.

[Iron Mike Golf]

Really hot tin will oxidize to a goldish color. Really hot lead will get blue or purple. Not sure what the antimony does to the oxide colors. Won't have that goldish cast to it.

[captaint]

Even a high tin alloy will have that goldy look. It just doesn't look like lead. Mike