Composition of Dutch Boy Solder?

[Low Budget Shooter]

Casters,
In a large lots of stuff, I came across two bits of wire.
Do you know what this old Dutch Boy Acid Core Solder is made of?
329479
This loose wire was with it. Is there any way to know what it is made of?
329480
Thanks,
Jeff

[Sandspider500]

60/40

[Low Budget Shooter]

Thanks! Does that mean tin/lead or lead/tin?

[Sandspider500]

Well, maybe it's 40/60, it goes tin/lead

[Low Budget Shooter]

Thank you.

[elmacgyver0]

The acid is corrosive.

[Low Budget Shooter]

Is it good to use in a bullet casting melt?

[Delkal]

I would melt this and all spooled solder in a smelting pot and not in a dedicated electric casting pot you want to keep clean. All of the fluxed solder I melted left a residue that was difficult to clean and smoked a lot so I would do this outdoors. The melt was clean though.

[Low Budget Shooter]

Thanks for that tip. Sounds good.

[GlocksareGood]

I keep all of my unknown solder in one place. When I get ready to melt, I melt it all together and then send a sample out to be tested. Mark all the ingots when the report comes back. Easy peasy.

[lightman]

I keep all of my unknown solder in one place. When I get ready to melt, I melt it all together and then send a sample out to be tested. Mark all the ingots when the report comes back. Easy peasy.

I do the same thing. The last batch I did ended up being 49% lead and 51% tin. The burning flux smoked pretty bad.

[bangerjim]

BE VERY careful of the acid in there! It can act like water and cause the fairy to appear! Unless you are REEEEELY desperate for a solder-like alloy, I would just pass on melting it down. I have spools of the stuff around and NEVER melt it due to fumes and dangers of lead expulsion from liquid cores. Keep it away from any good steel tools or you will spend hours with 0000 steel wool scouring the surface off. And that can be3 feet away! The stuff is just down right NASTY!

banger

[Delkal]

I do remember spooled solder bubbling some when melted so I put a bunch of one yard strands together and slowly lower it in to the melt. Staying outside and upwind and using my dirty smelting pot. There is a lot of flux in acid or rosin cored solders that float to the top so I end up fluxing the flux with sawdust to skim it off.

[Low Budget Shooter]

Thanks for all the info. You all might have answered the question of why such an old object stayed around in some guys lead stash all these decades! It is such a small quantity, I think I'll just toss it.

[dondiego]

I just added a bunch of baking soda like flux to the pot when I melted mine and it was a no problem. Good stuff.