Casting tin

[Dunross]

Im trying to come up with ideas for casting small amounts of tin so I don't have to go the bother of cutting larger ingots.

If I cast pewter into two ounce lead sinker molds would the resulting pewter sinker come out weighing something close to an ounce?

[StuBach]

I just cast bullets out of straight pewter. Once I know weight of that bullet in tin it’s easy to calculate how many bullets to add to pot for desired mix.

[Minerat]

By weight Tin is 64.5% of lead so 2 oz sinker would be 1.26 oz of tin. If you know the lead weight of the object you can get the approximate weight of the same item cast with tin by multiplying the led weight by 0.645.

[rancher1913]

i just make a large batch of lead and tin to the proportions I want, then cast it into ingots, as i need it for casting I just add an ingot.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I just prop up the handle my Lyman ingot mold and pour little wedges of pewter that way. I have a good bit of pewter, pure lead, wheel weights and linotype so it is easy to batch alloy.

[ABJ]

I use a Lee 45-255 6 cavity and pour pure tin boolits. Same thing with superhard from Rotometals.
weigh each one on a grain scale and convert to pounds.
Then download a copy of the alloy calculator from this site and you can make any alloy you want.
I use a 2 lb pure lead ingot as my base metal.
Tony

[GregLaROCHE]

I have a project planned to melt down a lot of pewter objects I’ve collected. I plan to melt them in a Dutch oven and then pour into my Lee 4-20 casting pot and cast 500 grain boolits. It may take a little more time than making ingots, but should make it easier later.

[GhostHawk]

First I cast some 60% lead 40% tin into a 310 gr mold. Put them in a container next to my Lino.

Then when my wife brought home 7 lbs of Pewter I cast "Coins" essentially half a lyman dipper into a muffin pan lightly oiled.
They popped out nice and easy. Edges got trimmed with a tin snips. Clippings went back into the pot.

On my 20 lb magnum melter I normally leave it about 7/8ths full of COWW + soft lead, range scrap, water pipe mix.

If I want a little more tin for some rifle bullets I take a coin of tin, grab it with pliers, dip it half into the top. Stir, cast a couple. Examine. If it is nice and shiny with good fill I leave it there. If it needs a little more I drop the other half in.

I also have some Lino in long skinny ingots. Easy to add some if wanted.

The world is your oyster. As the tin is melting just think about what you have that could give you the flexibility you desire. And make it so. But I do keep all my tin bearing materials on a lower level of my casting table.

[Dunross]

Thanks folks!

[Whole Bunches]

I use a lot of 25/1 in big rolling block loads. Recently I bought close to a couple hundred pounds of lead ingots from an estate (ingots I handled in looking at the pile felt about like they were COWW). I offered and was accepted at $1 per pound. The seller helped load the ingots in my truck. As I was stacking it at home, I noticed some of the bars felt lighter and a different shape. I then noticed "SN" stamped in small letters on each on the bottom. My experiments showed they were pure/near pure or pure enough for my use tin. 12 lb worth. I later contacted the seller to pay more, and was told don't worry about it. He just wanted it gone and was happy with what I paid. So I ended up with tin ingots bigger than I normally use to make my mix. There was also 13 lb of 63/37 marked bars that I paid $5/lb for. That's the background.

Knowing that I use 6.5oz of pure/near pure tin to 10lb of lead for my mix, I set my Lee aluminum ingot mould on my pounds/ounces scale and zero the scale. I start melting the ingots. 2 fit in the small electric solder melter I use for tin. Using a small dipper, I pour tin into a mould section until the scale reads 6.5oz. I then pour into another section until the scale reads a total of 13oz, etc, etc. Let ingots cool and put in box labeled with their weight and how much lead to use to make my mix. When I get some 63/37 solder, again, knowing how much I use in my mix, I pre-melt into the appropriate weight/amount for my mix and label their box/container. That's my approach when confronted with tin/solder bars too big for me to use as-is. If I want to experiment with amounts of tin, I use my solder melter.

[Conditor22]

https://i.imgur.com/gHoM3nZ.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/gKCxmL5.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/K6Wcpe5.jpg

[bangerjim]

Use a LEE four cavity ingot mold, use the 1/2 cavity ONLY in the middle and pour only 1/4 to 3/8 inch deep.

Easy to melt off a bit or break off what you need. That way you will not get your pure TIN boolits mixed up with your regular alloy ones! Lie I would do! [smilie=b:

banger

[StuBach]

I use a Lee 45-255 6 cavity and pour pure tin boolits. Same thing with superhard from Rotometals.
weigh each one on a grain scale and convert to pounds.
Then download a copy of the alloy calculator from this site and you can make any alloy you want.
I use a 2 lb pure lead ingot as my base metal.
Tony

If your familiar with excel you can modify the calculator to have columns for pounds and ounces. Makes it easier to use small amounts in alloys like that rather than converting to pounds each time.

Just add two columns to the right or left of the pounds field. One for pound and one for ounce. Than make the existing pounds field calculate based on the other two fields and now you can make it a little easier. I suppose you could adjust it to use grain weight instead too if so desired.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210310/f35d15c3bd6a7265e5c492847f9f6481.jpg

[Burnt Fingers]

I use one of the many dozen sinker or lure molds I own.

[Wisest.fool]

5oz sinker mold x .645 = 3.225 oz tin from a 5 oz mold
10lbs lead x 16 oz = 160oz x 2 % = 3.2 oz tin

hence 1 sinker for every full pot of my lee 10lb melter. easy peasy.

[kevin c]

If you're going to cast nearly pure tin boolits have a care not to let the sprue set up really hard. They can be VERY tough to cut.

[Springfield]

I also prefer the small muffin tin to make coins. I can do 8 at a time with no sprue cutting involved. Muffin pans are cheap at Goodwill.

[Burnt Fingers]

5oz sinker mold x .645 = 3.225 oz tin from a 5 oz mold
10lbs lead x 16 oz = 160oz x 2 % = 3.2 oz tin

hence 1 sinker for every full pot of my lee 10lb melter. easy peasy.

Ya had to go and give out the secret.

[imashooter2]

A Lyman dipper will pour approximately 2 ounce ingots. It is easy to get very consistent with a little practice.

http://imashooter2.com/pictures/potter107.jpg http://imashooter2.com/pictures/pewz1.jpg

[fredj338]

If you already have an ingot mold, just cast partial ingots with your tin. It takes very little tin to alloy up anything but pure. Even pure, 25-1 lea/tin works great for HP.