Inaccessible Tin Source

[William Yanda]

I had occasion to visit my alma mater for a Triple Play concert last night. In the auditorium was a large pipe organ. I counted 23 ranks of pipes-not all pewter, but mostly. The largest pipe in the largest rank must have been 8-10 feet tall and 3 inches in diameter, give or take. I was wrong. There are 60+ ranks and over 3000 pipes. I only wish I needed that much tin to alloy for boolets! I didn't mention this to my wife-she was a music major and that subject would have been heresy to her.

[Buckshot]

...........Glad you abstained from removing a couple of those pipes :-) I'm sure you would have been viewed as being in bad oder. Speaking of Tin, a shooting acquaintance of mine was the person in overall charge of the physical plant at Riverside City College (Riverside, Calif).

I first met him in the mid nineties at my gunsmiths' shop. Turned out we were both kind of gun nuts, so that made the both of us boolit casters. He was much older then I was, and had been a navigator, co-pilot, and pilot on B-24's out of N.Africa, and later Italy. One time when I was at his home (we were in his 'Man Cave' or reloading room in his garage) he asked me if I needed any tin?

I said sure, and how much did he want for it? He said a buck a pound, and then proceeded to open one of the cabinets under a counter that ran along a wall. Inside was stacked quite a few milsurp ammo cans. Turned out that each of them were stacked full of Tin ingots made with a Lyman ingot mould! That's when I found out what he'd done and how he'd acquired it all.

They were tearing down the old laboratory building on the campus. Long story short, all the plumbing (including fixtures) that delivered distilled water was pure Tin. He asked the contractor about liberating the stuff, and was told it was fine with him as it was all going to the dump in a couple days anyway. Over a few years I bought quite a bit from him. Later on, his wife had passed away and the time had come for him to downsize. None of his kids cast lead so he offered me the last 2 ammo cans and a couple hand fulls of Tin for $100 even.

..........Buckshot

[Grmps]

I hope you were wearing a mask when you paid him :)

[centershot]

...........Glad you abstained from removing a couple of those pipes :-) I'm sure you would have been viewed as being in bad oder. Speaking of Tin, a shooting acquaintance of mine was the person in overall charge of the physical plant at Riverside City College (Riverside, Calif).

I first met him in the mid nineties at my gunsmiths' shop. Turned out we were both kind of gun nuts, so that made the both of us boolit casters. He was much older then I was, and had been a navigator, co-pilot, and pilot on B-24's out of N.Africa, and later Italy. One time when I was at his home (we were in his 'Man Cave' or reloading room in his garage) he asked me if I needed any tin?

I said sure, and how much did he want for it? He said a buck a pound, and then proceeded to open one of the cabinets under a counter that ran along a wall. Inside was stacked quite a few milsurp ammo cans. Turned out that each of them were stacked full of Tin ingots made with a Lyman ingot mould! That's when I found out what he'd done and how he'd acquired it all.

They were tearing down the old laboratory building on the campus. Long story short, all the plumbing (including fixtures) that delivered distilled water was pure Tin. He asked the contractor about liberating the stuff, and was told it was fine with him as it was all going to the dump in a couple days anyway. Over a few years I bought quite a bit from him. Later on, his wife had passed away and the time had come for him to downsize. None of his kids cast lead so he offered me the last 2 ammo cans and a couple hand fulls of Tin for $100 even.

..........Buckshot

This stuff NEVER happens to me!!! :(

[alamogunr]

This stuff NEVER happens to me!!! :(

Don't be sad! Think of all the rest of us it didn't happen to either.

[lightman]

Seeing those organ pipes is like riding around in the older parts of New Orleans or Charleston and seeing all of the lead flashing on those old buildings. Kind of a tease to a caster!

[St. Hogustine]

Hmm... there aren't many pipe organ manufacturers/repair shops these days, but it may be worth touching base with one if you happen to have one local. I'd never considered that before.
It's a dying art. There will always be a few organ players, and a few organs to be played, but I bet that 100 years from now half of the ones around today will be scrapped.

[RogerDat]

.....There will always be a few organ players, and a few organs to be played, but I bet that 100 years from now half of the ones around today will be scrapped. Yes and I walked into the scrap yard about two weeks after one of them went out. It made me very sad to think of all that lovely tin being wasted. I always keep my eye out for them. However I think most scrap yards will know they are tin and the spot price of tin is pretty high. I'll keep digging for solder scraps while dreams of sugar plumbs (whatever those are) and pipe organ tin dance in my head.

[Drm50]

About twice a year I haul a load of copper & brass to a scrap buyer. They don't do steel other than
stainless. I save all the copper tubing & brass valves that I accumulate when replacing plumbing.
Anyway I tried to buy lead of them and they said they couldn't sell they were contracted for the lead.
They are the only place to sell it in miles. I found out from another guy that the reason they won't
sell is that they pay a good bit less than the scrap yards around the big cities. They don't sell any
metal. The only equippment they have is metal bins and a fork lift. I never thought much about what
I got for the copper and brass, it was free money. Then I found out that not only were they paying
less, they were paying the lower scale for all metal. They pay .17 lb for lead. I saw bins that had
store bought ingots by the hundreds. There has been a couple dozen mills, power houses and factories torn down in this area and a lot of the metal ends up at that yard. I have seen empty brass
everytime I go there. They have small containers at the counter area where scales are at. People
come in with small amounts of metal in car trunks and they weigh and dump it right there. They don't realize they just burnt more gas than they are getting for small amounts of metal.