adding tin?

[miner49r]

In Dads box of tricks I found 1.5lbs. of Kester Sn50 solder. Research has shown me that it is 50%tin.

Let's say I want to add 2% tin to 5lbs. of alloy. (5lbs.=80oz.)

.02x80=1.6

Since the Sn50 is 50%tin, then I should add 3.2oz. of Sn50. I realize that the solder will introduce more lead to the alloy.

Is it this simple or am I missing something?

[lwknight]

It really is that simple for guestimation.
Prezactimation would be to add 3.33 oz 50/50 solder to 80 oz lead to get 83.33 oz of 2% tin alloy.

In your way of figuring:
You would add 3.2 oz solder to 76.8 oz lead to get 80 oz 2% tin alloy. You do have to count the tin and lead in the solder. The differences are soooo infinatecimally ( is that a word?) inconsequential that no one would care or know t he difference.

Here is a very simple and user friendly alloy calculator. It does not do fancy stuff like Bumpos' but its intuative and easy to look at.

Simple calc (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=26218&d=1287544180)

[miner49r]

Infinitecimal is a word.
Thanks for the calculator. It took me a while to figure out how to input the solder but I got it.

Another thought. Since the chart shows WW's to already contain some tin... Would I looking to add 2% more tin or increase the tin to 2%?

[lwknight]

You can consider most clip WWs to have .5 to .9 % tin. Some may have even less.
You just have to take that with a grain of salt so to speak.
Personally , I would add 2% tin and maybe I waste a little but I don't care that much.
Some guys are soooo frugal that they would add tin by .5% increments till they get enough to do the job and hope to save any tin possible.

[miner49r]

That's what I figured. No reason to get Anal about it.
Thanks