Harry O
06-08-2008, 05:05 PM
You probably can, too.
My wife has a hobby going to estate sales (this is different from garage sales). I don't mind since she does not spend much. I think it is just to be able to see what the inside of other houses look like. In addition, she has scouted out several places with a LOT of tools and I was able to get good tools pretty cheap.
Anyway, I went with her from time to time and saw that if they had any tools at all, they usually had a coil of solder. I told her to buy any full coil for $1 or $2 per coil and half that if the coil was pretty used. She has brought me about 30lbs in the last year. Some is 40%tin/60%lead. Some is 50%tin/50%lead. Some is 60%tin/40%lead. She has also brought back 3lbs of lead free, 95%tin solder.
I have mixed and matched then and melted them down so that average is about 60%tin/40%lead and then cast them into 3oz ingots. That means that I can get 1.8oz of tin with a full ingot or 0.9oz with one cut in half.
My wife has a hobby going to estate sales (this is different from garage sales). I don't mind since she does not spend much. I think it is just to be able to see what the inside of other houses look like. In addition, she has scouted out several places with a LOT of tools and I was able to get good tools pretty cheap.
Anyway, I went with her from time to time and saw that if they had any tools at all, they usually had a coil of solder. I told her to buy any full coil for $1 or $2 per coil and half that if the coil was pretty used. She has brought me about 30lbs in the last year. Some is 40%tin/60%lead. Some is 50%tin/50%lead. Some is 60%tin/40%lead. She has also brought back 3lbs of lead free, 95%tin solder.
I have mixed and matched then and melted them down so that average is about 60%tin/40%lead and then cast them into 3oz ingots. That means that I can get 1.8oz of tin with a full ingot or 0.9oz with one cut in half.