Lead Pipe solder joints

[Ohio Rusty]

I started to melt down some of the pipe solder joints I have had stored away. I am amazed at how hard these are after made into an ingot. I can scratch WW's with my thumbnail and make a mark, but these ingots won't scratch at all. There is some lead pipe underneath the tin solder. I have to wonder how much tin to lead ratio there actually is.

[Mitch]

i forget the tin content of wiping solder but it is good stuff.alot of old plumbers mixed there own and use what workd for them so tin content varys a bit.i do like ypo have in the pic ans keep the joints seperate in a bucket.When i get a good amount i melt and clean it up ans send it out for testing.Most pipe i have found to be pure lead.I have got from 4% tin to 25% tin doing this.another thing i have done on big dolder joints is melt the solder off the lead with a small propane torch.The solder melts at a bit lower tem then the pure lead so it runs right off the lead till you get it to hot.Being your ingots are pretty hard you have some nice hi tin content stuff there.40% tin 60% lead solder is BHN of 14 so just guessing if you kept the pipe content as little as you could proly about 20% or more tin and BHN of about 12.just guessing

[Mitch]

Hey use to deer hunt down your way a long time ago.use to head out of Logan and turn to the left at Gore keep the the right a few miles and set up cam by a creek there
nice counrty.much better than flat and farm fields.those were very good times.Have not been to that part of the state for a long time. about 4 hour drive from me.

[Bookworm]

I had some pipe joints that I rendered down awhile back. I ended up with 20 pounds if it.

I sent a sample off to BNE, it came back 5% Sn. A true 19-1 alloy.

[kevin c]

I think Mitch has pointed out pretty well that what you end up with can vary quite a lot in tin content. Even without any of the lead pipe cut off with the joint, it seems what plumbers used varied.

You could use a seat of the pants approach and just add whatever makes your current pot of alloy cast well, in which case exactly knowing the tin content of what you have salvaged isn't necessary. If you want to be exact, save up enough to batch together and have a sample analyzed, giving you a precise number that's good for the whole batch.

[bangerjim]

Contact BNE on here and send him a sample ingot. He will tell you the exact make-up with an X-ray gun shoot.

That is the only way to really know what you got. I have all my purchases X-rayed at the scrap yards I buy Pb and alloys from. Just scratching them will tell you nothing useful in mixing alloys for casting.

[RogerDat]

Another reason that large batches of saved up material work well. One test sample to send BNE and a consistent ingredient. Don't know what this years garage sale situation will shape up like but there were often old partial rolls of solder to be had cheaply at garage sales.

While it is sometimes nice to have some premium tin alloy such as one would get from carefully melting the solder off the joints there is something to be said for larger quantities of the same ingredient. Generally I would rather have a big batch that was at 40% than some at 60% and some at 20% although that 60% is easier to add without diluting the alloy as much. But hey that is what pewter is for!

[Ohio Rusty]

Hey Mitch ....Gore is a half mile down the road from me. It probably still looks like you remember it. You are in NW Ohio ... I was born and raised in Toledo.

Ohio Rusty ><>

[Mitch]

I live near where i was born and raised Napoleon> been thinking of a weekend trip down that way.Will see how the Carona crap turns out.will give you a shout if I come down that way.I bet most everything in that area pretty much looks the same.i rember a few things on the way down the dirt road tward where we camped.there was an old country house that had a small Duck pnd out front and some little old lady would be out in th yard now and then.That would have been in the mid 80s.By the erlay 90s the duck were gone and the place looked empty.Then there was Moon Shine capital of the world New Striatsville.I think it was 91 or 92 my last deer hunting trip there.

As for the pipe joints gain.i got from 4 to 6% just with cut off pipe joints.And around 20% when i melted the solder off the joints and some adds and ends of bar and wads of wire solder.Still all good i allways wait till i have a good batch in the buckst befor isend it for testing

[caffe]

I had a batch of that stuff years ago. It ruined bigger and bigger batches of lead that I mixed it with. Got both frost and folds on the same bullet. I finally buried the stuff so nobody else would scrap it.

[Drm50]

I just poured about 200-300 .25cal 80gr HPs out of solder joints from water pipes. They are shiny as a new dime. I’ve loaded 10 to see if they are going to shoot ok. Probably not going to expand at all. The batch will be uniform the pipe all came out of same old house. The inside of pipe had a layer of white that looked like egg shell. Calcium I think, it wasn’t lead oxide.