Identifying ingots with monotype letters

[Petander]

241788

[lightman]

Thats pretty cool! I just use steel stamps. I rigged up a 1 piece ground rod clamp with a longer bolt to hold multiple stamps. I found a company that will make custom stamps with multiple letters but they were rather expensive. If I were just starting out I would consider this.

[LeadHead72]

Cool idea, Petander! I have a lot of monotype on hand and could easily set aside the appropriate letters for this use.

[Kraschenbirn]

Any monotype that might fall into my hands turns into ingots marked 'MT'...with a Sharpie!!

Bill

[LAGS]

I have a Large set of Number Stamps ( 3/4" ) left from stamping Brass Valve Tags for plumbing Valve identification.
I stamp the Ratio into all my ingots like 1/3 for one part Tin and three parts Antimony , or 2/4 for two parts Tin and 4 parts Antimony or just a 0 for pure lead on the Alloys that I smelt myself.
I also have 1/4" letter stamps that I use to detail things like Mono or Linotype that I have that I do not know the Exact Ratio or they were bought already smelted that way.
I did the Magic Marker on the ingots I had brought from California years ago.
The marks lasted a long time, but eventually Faded or was hidden by Oxidation over the years.
But it did work good if I was using the alloys up quickly.
A set of 1/8" stamps aren't that expensive at Harbor Freight and I have a set of those too.

[RogerDat]

Sharpie will last a long time, stamping longer. I have gradually moved to stamp a batch with something and then sharpie mark the whole batch.

If the batch is all hard stamped with TM-3 and even a couple of the ingots have a still readable sharpie marking as 6 Sn 18 Sb then I know what I have. Type Metal batch #3 I know that this batch are possibly different from batch -2 or -4 ingots.

That ground clamp was what I was trying to recall from back when we would hand stamp serial numbers on mated parts! Base number was clamped together then last digit was set by hand. So clamp would hold "10" and we would stamp 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. as the last number for 101, 102, 103....

With my using a couple of letters to designate what. With a dash and number (or letter) to designate a batch that ground clamp should be just the ticket to make my work easier. My stamps are also the Harbor Freight product. Works fine, cost little.

One other tip that a member put out there a while back was hitting the ends of the stack of ingots with a clear colored paint. Not enough paint to be a problem but could easily tell a batch of plain from a batch of COWW lead by just looking at the stack since those basic ingredients each had a designated color.

[lightman]

Someone posted on here a few years ago about using a turn buckle to hold multiple stamps. It looks like it should work well but I didn't have a turn buckle but I did have a ground rod clamp. You'all know how it is!

[JBinMN]

Small C-clamp. Tape them together in the manner ya like & then clamp into a small C-clamp.

[kevin c]

I just use duct tape to hold my HF stamps together; up to three together. More than that I couldn't cover with the head of the hammer I used. Hitting them squarely every time to get clear impressions on the first blow is apparently beyond my feeble hand/eye coordination (and I actually call shooting a major hobby?), so three letters needs a couple or three taps.

Someone on here mentioned making some sort of stamp holder that turned the stamps directly into the striking face of his hammer: nothing to hold with the weak hand, just swing the hammer and the impression was struck on contact. I'd like to see that.

That spray paint idea is intriguing.