How do I add tin to my lead??

[mikeyman]

Bear with me guys potentially dumb question:oops:

So I now have alot of lead smelted from a mix of half COWW and half SOWW. I just aquired 5 pounds of tin for 10$ pound that came in one pound bars. I know I need 2% tin in a 20 pound pot comes to 6.4 ounces. What do you guys do now? Do I hack saw chunks of tin? Can I melt tin into my 200gr swc mold? If I did that I would need 14 bullets per 20 pound pot to get 2%. Is this a dumb idea? Will melting straight tin hurt the pot or the mold? Thanks.

Mike

[sthwestvictoria]

I just take a hacksaw to my pieces of opportunity shop/yard sale pewter then add the desired weight to the alloy.

[GLL]

Tin bars cut easily with long-handled garden shears.

Jerry

[500MAG]

In the future, you should consider smelting your coww's separately from your soww's so that you can combine them in a ratio, for the boolit your casting, in your casting pot. Cut the tin as mentioned above and add it to your melt in your casting pot.

[Smoke4320]

when smelting I just add 2% tin to the COWW and pour into ingots .. Most everything I do is either 100% COWW or 50% COWW and 50% lead.. That way my tin is covered..
if I need to add slightly more tin for the 50/50 I can do that in the bottom pour pot

Ps you can break off Tin in a vice hit with a hammer

[williamwaco]

All the above is good advice.

If you tin happens to be in long thin bars, take a ruler and a pointed tool and mark lines across the bar at one or two ounce intervals.
Then If you want 6.4 ounces for 2% in your 20 pound pot, dip the bar into the melted pot until you have 5 or 6 ounces under the surface. Hold it there about 60 seconds and pull it out. you will find that everything below the surface has melted and you now have a slightly shorter bar.

I buy my tin as bar solder and it is very easy to calculate how many inches of bar makes one or two ounces of tin.

[oldandslow]

mm, 9.22.13

Not a dumb question at all. I do as "williamwaco" does to get tin into my melt. I bought round tin bars from www.Buffaloarms.com and just mark off the desired weight with a Sharpee felt pen and dip the bar into the melt up to my mark. The desired weight just melts off into the pot. I've tried some other methods (like hacksawing) and it was a lot slower and required more work. Good luck.

best wishes- oldandslow

[shadowcaster]

In the future, you should consider smelting your coww's separately from your soww's so that you can combine them in a ratio, for the boolit your casting, in your casting pot. Cut the tin as mentioned above and add it to your melt in your casting pot.

This is how I do except for.. I don't add any tin to begin with, I see how my boolits cast and fill out. Fill out is the indicator to the flow and harmony of your alloy. If I then feel it needs tin, I start with 1% (3.2 ounces of tin per 20 pound lead and some antimony). Again, cast up some boolits and see how they fill out. If more is needed, I then add another 1%. It is rare for me to exceed 1% added tin as most of my scrap has some tin in it already. A penny saved on not wasting tin, is a penny spent on other components.

Shad

[ColColt]

What I don't like about pewter is the antimony and copper content. I'll stick to paying for the pure stuff.

[jsizemore]

What I don't like about pewter is the antimony and copper content. I'll stick to paying for the pure stuff.

We definitely don't want any antimony or copper in our boolits! It makes me want to pay twice as much for pure tin in my pure wheelweight lead. Vastly superior, indeed!

[bangerjim]

You don't even need to go the bother of cutting the bars! I don't. Take the bar, weigh it, divide it into equal divisions (ie 4oz each) with a ruler and mark each all the way around with a magic marker.

Then when you need, say 6oz of tin per the calculator (you DO have the spreadsheet, right!), you just hold the bar over the pot, and lower it into the mark until it melts off to the mark.

Works perfectly EVERY time!

bangerjim

[Beagle333]

I agree... melt off what you need. I do the same with pewter mugs and plates. I just take my little kitchen scale and set it up beside the pot.... then I dip the pewter item in the pot to melt off some until what is left weighs X ounces less. 'Easy way to get odd shapes of pewter to come out to the right weight without hacking it all up into potato chips. 8-)

(My digital kitchen scale has a flat glass top.... don't put a half melted pewter mug into a plastic kitchen scale bowl :shock:) Well.... you could do it..... once.

[mikeyman]

Man I love this site! Thanks fella's I will do the melting method no muss no fuss and not much work. Perfect!