Smelting Tin/Questions

[steveb]

I made some tin ingots and they can out with a golden hue or copper color on some parts of the ingots.Is this normal???
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a199/steveb3006/goldentin.jpg

[GLL]

Steve:


Would you please test the hardness of a couple of your Tin ingots. The information in the literature shows the BHN to be all over the place ( 3.9-30) ! Any help would be appreciated.

Jerry

[steveb]

Jerry,im sorry I dont have any way to test the hardness.Ive yet to get a hardness tester.

[Bullshop]

A little yellow color is normal.
BIC/BS

[montana_charlie]

The information in the literature shows the BHN [for tin] to be all over the place.
According to these guys ( http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm ) the BNH for Tin is 7. That is also what my Lee tester seems to indicate on some certified ingots I have.
CM

[GLL]

Charlie:

Thanks ! I did see the BHN= 7 on the lasc page but the range elsewhere was extreme. My bar of Kestler pure (100% ??) tin measures 11.5. I appreciate your confirmation of the BHN 7 on your tester.

Steve:

Where did you find so much nice tin ? :) :)

Jerry

[steveb]

Jerry,At the local scrapyard.We got about 120lbs of tin and about 80lbs worth of WW for around .10 cents a lb.Dad worked there for 30+ years and can get the tin at cost.Out of the 120lbs of tin about 40lbs or better was CerroTru ingots.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a199/steveb3006/cerrotrualloy.jpg

Which im under the immpression cant be used for casting??

[steveb]

As said before im just starting out in casting,I just checked out www.midwayusa.com and had no idea that tin was that expensive.15.00 bucks for 2lbs of tin,!Ouch!The scrapyard said they dont get tin in very often and this had been sitting around a long while.So we bought all they had.We lucked out bigtime it seems.Got a little over 200lb of WW and tin for $22.65!

[Lloyd Smale]

The copper colar is the trace of copper that is in tin babbit. I used to try to get it out by heating and cooling the pot and skiming just as it started cooling but when you figure that theres about 2 percent copper in tin babbit and your only using 2-5 percent tin with your lead you can see that the amount of copper is so minute that it wont hurt a thing.

[carpetman]

Steveb---Tin is $15.00 for two p[ounds,you might look around and find some for $7.50 per pound.

[Dale53]

I have a friend who was in the custom bullet casting business. He picked up 25 lbs of tin for me at refiners prices. It came in extruded bars of about .8 of a lb. They just cut it off a long extrusion so that it'll go in the box. They keep filling it up until they get to 25 lbs.

I weigh my base metal (whatever, pure lead if for Schuetzen or WW if for other uses), use my calculator to figure the weight of tin needed to add to the pot . I then weigh one of the sticks of tin on a postal scale, then dip the tin in the pot of melted base metal and melt off what I need (ckecking the weight left in my hand). It is accurate, quick and easy to do. I can handled irregular amounts of base metal and tin and still arrive at the proper mix with little fussin'.

Dale53

[steveb]

Thanks fellas!I still wonder what to do with those CerroTru blocks now?Most of them were melted into Lee molds but I was told in contained 58% bismuth and 42% tin.

[njmj]

Just Googled cerro tru. It looks like it's used to fill pipe to prevent it from collapsing when bending. It melts at 281 F. NJMJ

[Beau Cassidy]

It's not the same thing as cerrosafe used in chamber casting is it?

[steveb]

Beau,No its not I found out its for(thansk again Hobie)

CERROTRU alloy is used for holding jet turbine engine blades for machining, anchoring shafts in permanent magnet rotors, locator members in aircraft assembly fixtures. It is ideal for making nests for parts in jigs and dial feed stations; cores for duplicate foundry and tracer model in profiling. It is great for molds for plaster, plastic, and encapsulating; forming sheet plastics, plastic teeth, prosthetic development and potting electronic components. It is a nice low temperature solder and used for laps in rifle barrels. It also can be used for inlays in wooden handles. Cerrotru is a eutectic alloy with a melting temperature of 281º F. It has a net expansion of .0005" per inch. CERROTRU DOES NOT CONTAIN LEAD OR CADMIUM.


CERROSAFE alloy was originally made for toy soldier castings. One of its most popular uses today is casting to check gun chambers. Cerrosafe shrinks during the first 30 minutes and at the end of one hour is EXACTLY the chamber size. Some other uses are casting cavities such as threads, dies, molds, blind holes, duplicate patterns in foundry matchplate making, support work pieces while machining; spray coating wooden patterns, dental lab techniques, masks for electroplating. Cerrosafe is a non-eutectic alloy with a yield temperature of 162.5º F.

[Wayne Smith]

So what's "eutectic"?

[felix]

Wayne, eutectic means zero slush stage from melted to solid, and vice versa. ... felix

[steveb]

still would be nice to know what I could do with the stuff,but I dont beleive bullet casting is one of them,maybe a local smith would be interested in the stuff.

[trk]

still would be nice to know what I could do with the stuff,but I dont beleive bullet casting is one of them,maybe a local smith would be interested in the stuff.

It is usefull in machining operations, as you noted. I picked up a pound of CeroBASE and have used it for chamber casts. Sure, it may not be exact (as cerosafe can be) but it gave me a good picture from the inside of diameters and details.

Try EBAY.

(What do you want for a couple of pounds?)

[trk]

So what's "eutectic"?

In other words, it melts at the lowest temperature of any percentage of the metals in the alloy.

[steveb]

It is usefull in machining operations, as you noted. I picked up a pound of CeroBASE and have used it for chamber casts. Sure, it may not be exact (as cerosafe can be) but it gave me a good picture from the inside of diameters and details.

Try EBAY.

(What do you want for a couple of pounds?)

Trk,how about 50 cents per APPROX 1lb ingots???Is this robbery ???give me somefeedback.50 cents an ingot plus shipping.I didnt give that much for it,just thought id make my money back off it and go get some WW,Like I said there were 30-40 ingots of the stuff and we melted all but one down in the Lee ingots.ANYONE???

[Wayne Smith]

LOML, the geologist, saw this and said that "Any igneous melt has a eutectic point when it solidifies, what that point is depends on it's composition. I'll have to get my minerology text out." Then went out the door to work!

I think I'm in for another education - she's good at that. Ask me about the Smithsonian Rock display sometime. Hey, I'm a psychologist, what do I know?

[steveb]

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