making solder ingots

[wantoutofca]

I've cast wheelweight and lead ingots before but never solder ingots. Is there a trick to this or is it pretty straight forward? The solder is 70/30 drippings.

[runfiverun]

try to figure out how much tin you need for say a 20 lb pot. [which really holds about 18 lbs]
so like 3.0 oz's tin=@ 2%.
if you make a 4 oz ingot size that would be about perfect for each pot of lead.

making the ingots is straight forward, melt, flux,pour.
if doing large quantities of radiator drippings you might run into some water in the lead issues start the pot from cold.
and watch out for any fluxes they might have used in the shop acid core flux is nasty stuff.

[dRok]

Ive done a few hundred lbs of 60/40 ingots, same as lead, melts lower temp tho... I made mine smaller than my standard ingots tho. My normal ingot mold will hold 6lbs of lead and takes 1 full ladle to fill. I made my solder ingots 3lb each, just filling the mold half way.

[fredj338]

Nope, melt & pour. If you use a 1# ingot, fill it half full, 8oz, then you can add as you like for alloying. The Lee ingot mold comes in handy there as they have 1/2# & 1#, fill them half way, pretty easy to do the math.

[wantoutofca]

Ok I wasn't sure if it would solder itself to the cast iron mold or not. I have a couple cast iron muffin tins and the lee mold so im thinking of doing a mix.