Identifying tin

[greenrivers]

Went to the junk yard to pick up some WW and asked about tin. I was told that what was in a barrel was tin. How would I know? How do you ID tin if it is not marked? I bought some, and according to the melt chart above, it is not tin, but appears to be zinc, as it melts at a higher temp than lead. They also had some big chunks of what I was told was babbit. But from what little I know, I believe that babbit can be a mix of differant alloys?????? How do you guys ID these metals????????

[runfiverun]

sometimes you can't and have to walk away.
melt temp is one way.
if you can bend it you will hear tin popping and crikking.
the pop/creaking sound is the tin pulling/sliding apart.
it almost sounds like rice crispys popping really fast, and the creepy door sound you hear in the movies mashed up.
and sometimes you just know it when you see it. [shrug]
if it don't melt between 450--500 i'd be dubious as to it's tin content.

[greenrivers]

Thanks, that's more than I had for info before. Looks like I will take this back and swap it in for more ww.

[John Boy]

if you can bend it you will hear tin popping and crikking. the pop/creaking sound is the tin pulling/sliding apart. it almost sounds like rice crispys popping really fast, and the creepy door sound you hear in the movies mashed up.This is only for pure tin. If mixed in an alloy or is pewter ... tin will never make a sound

[garandsrus]

Ask the scrap yard to analyze the material with their magic gun. If they dont have one, i dont know how they would identify tin either.

[greenrivers]

I have never heard about this magic gun, can you explain? Also wondering about the babbit material. It would be a heck of a source for tin if it is. This is about half inch thick materiial. I guess if I could get them to brake of a piece, I could try melting it.

[lmcollins]

Alright men: what is a "magic gun?" On what principle does it operate?

I can understand that something probably exist like this, but I am stymied as to the above.

[Nose Dive]

One Magic Gun...is an X-Ray Fluorescence scope (GUN). hand held cutty that zaps metals will a none quantity of radio active beams,,,excites alloy metal ions and they 'fluoresce' (or 'shine' or get active) and the gun picks that up and reads it and gives you some data. Then you go plug it into your desktop and it picks out similar read outs from known alloy mixes that are common. Thus, you pick out what the sample is. Have used it often in a Pipe yard to verify that exoctic alloy pipe is indeed made up of what it supposed to be....Hastaloy,,,Incoly and such... Have never used it to ID Lead as, generally, we do not use lead pipe in refining anymore....too soft. One answer.

Nose Dive

Cheap, Fast, Good. Kindly pick two.

[lwknight]

Be careful with babbits , hard washers and the likes. Always test a small batch alloy. You could ruin your whole pot because you never know what exactly in in the babbits.

[SlippShodd]

runfiverun if you can bend it you will hear tin popping and crikking.
the pop/creaking sound is the tin pulling/sliding apart.
it almost sounds like rice crispys popping really fast, and the creepy door sound you hear in the movies mashed up. and sometimes you just know it when you see it. [shrug]
if it don't melt between 450--500 i'd be dubious as to it's tin content.


This is only for pure tin. If mixed in an alloy or is pewter ... tin will never make a sound

I'm not disagreeing with either of you, because experience makes a difference, even if everyone's experience is different. :)
I've been trying to train my ear to the sound of tin for the past couple years and just when I think I've got it down, I get fooled. The sound is more reliable than my eyes, and the feel of it is somewhat telling. Too many things taste tinny to me to rely on that. If it only had a distinctive smell I might be on to something.
I think the best way to familiarize yourself with the attributes of tin is to get a good piece of hallmarked pewter, preferably a platter or the like, something relatively thin. You can look at it, rub it with your finger, bend it, drop it, flick it with your fingernail, scrape, scratch and peel it with a pocketknife, all the while concentrating on the look, feel and sound of what's happening. Then you can try to replicate those familiar actions in the field to identify tin where you find it.
As an example of just how poorly trained the self-taught man is, I recently picked up a nice pewter platter at the Goodwill store and an unmarked goblet.
The goblet was cute.
It might be pewter.
It had a higher pitched tone than the platter when tinked with a fingernail .
Could just be an alloying difference.
It's still very cute. It sits on my workbench and catches all manner of small parts from whatever project I'm working on and don't want to end up in the rest of the clutter. On its bottom is a small black splotch where the muriatic acid boiled and bubbled and proved its high zinc content.
Last year we were changing the wood windows out of 60 year old house. The metal side rails were intriguing and made a very tin-like screech when bent. My partner (oblivious to what I was considering) said he thought they were made of tin. He's got decades more experience in windows than I, so I gathered them all up and brought them home. I melted down a small piece, and ingoted it. Then I gave it the acid test. Then I finished ruining my 95 cent thrift store pan and melted down the rest of the rails, poured the metal into a soup can, inserted an eye bolt and made myself a dandy zinc anchor for my kick boat.
The acid test is a must on unmarked scrap. A radio-fluorescenating-kill-o-zap gun would be handy. Hallmarked pewter is a safe bet; once you melt and ingotize it the properties seem to change and you just gotta ignore those. The low-temp melt point is probably the most certain indicator for we mere mortals.
The folks at the Youth Ranch store just kinda freak when I try to melt their stuff down in the middle of the sales floor with a torch.

mike

[lmcollins]

FYI there are formulas for the various types of babit in the Machinery Handbook.

Babit is not always the same. The person/people who put it in the last application might have mixed a couple different types.

The machinery handbook is reference book use by most engineers/machinest. Every library should have a copy in its reference section.