Thoughts on drippings from radiator shop?

[gishooter]

Hi,
Just got a 1/2 bucket of solder drippings from a radiator repair shop. Gentlman had it for years stuck under a bench and he can't remember much about it except it was "mostly tin." Also gave me a coffee can worth of 60/40 solder drippings.
I melted it down very easily and cast into blocks. Didn't notice anything out of the ordinary about it. I've got them set aside and waiting to hear from everyone on what it might be and suggestions for mixing with the wheel weight ingots. So what do you think is the mystery drippings?

[arjacobson]

Tin...I had 70lbs of the same stuff and sold it all for $5lb. Stinky stuff isn't it??

[gishooter]

This is my first dealings with a radiator shop. Nice guy too. I melted all down into 1 pound ingots. What number of wheel weight ingots would I need to add to one ingot of the radiator drippings?

[45 2.1]

Hi,
Just got a 1/2 bucket of solder drippings from a radiator repair shop. So what do you think is the mystery drippings?

Having good friends in several radiator shops, i've watched where those droppings came from. They are from breaking down the tanks and side straps from old copper core radiators to re-core or scrap and are 60/40 solder. No shop I know of uses the more brittle 95/5 solder, that is used for circuit boards from the information I was given.

[docone31]

I would not add to wheel weights. If anything, I add pure to stretch it out.
You might consider selling that solder. Or trading for pure.
When I first started casting, I got some lead free solder. I still have it. If the mold is hot enough, they come out great.

[Nazgul]

Figuring I need to add 1% tin to WW for the proper fill out and hardness, I add 4 lbs to my 200 lb pot when full. Got 182 lbs of solder drippings from a radiator shop, free last year. That is after smelting into ingots. Know it is 65/45 but just figured it at 50/50. Works well.

Don

[felix]

Bob is correct. Radiator lead is just that, not for circuit boards. Modern circuit boards use straight tin, but that pure tin was found to output spikes when aging that caused short circuits on the boards. Thus, they started denaturing the tin with stuff like copper and other contaminates that would stop the tin from growing spikes. The name of the game for circuit boards is to use "wire" that goes solid extremely fast. ... felix

[runfiverun]

i'd use it as 60-40 then forget what it was and call it 50-50.
just weigh an ingot before use and figure it for 1% with the ww's
that's one lb of tin for 100 lbs of ww's.
or one ingot for 50 ingot's of like size.

[gishooter]

Thanks for the tips fellas. Will try adding to the wheelweight ingots as suggested. I'll also do a run of straight ww to see how it fills the molds. I suspect anything bigger than .30 will fill out fine. Not too sure about the .22 cailiber stuff, so I'll see what happens.

[500MAG]

I think it's best you don't use it. In fact, it probably is very toxic. For your sake, you can send it to me for proper disposal. :kidding:

[imashooter2]

If the shop is using 60/40 today, it seems unlikely that they were using something other than 60/40 for the stuff in the bucket.

[Lizard333]

Bob is correct. Radiator lead is just that, not for circuit boards. Modern circuit boards use straight tin, but that pure tin was found to output spikes when aging that caused short circuits on the boards. Thus, they started denaturing the tin with stuff like copper and other contaminates that would stop the tin from growing spikes. The name of the game for circuit boards is to use "wire" that goes solid extremely fast. ... felix

This effect has burnt the power company's in the butt. The utility I work for has relays that were soldered with the high tin connections. This has caused bridges to form cause relays to operate, causing unexplained outages. The tin would burn up with the high current flow, getting rid of the evidence.

[badbob454]

[smilie=1:gishooter cast into 1/2 lb ingots and add one every time you fill the 20 lb pot . or as i do i add half empty . 1/4 pound to add to my wwlead . between be and you i waste a little tin, and add to make a total of 3% to cast nice boolits
.. shhh dont tell any- one ...