Well, I got some tin- now what......?

[HammerMTB]

This was going to be easy. I ordered some 1 lb sticks of tin from our friends at Rotometals.
I ordered enough, they sent me 4 lb sticks, not 1 lb.
Not too big a deal, I think.
But I don't want to put a lot more tin in the alloy than I need.
I was putting about 3 oz in a 10 lb melt of WW.
Now I have this 4 lb stick.
Cut in quarters, it's still a pound chunk.
Got any suggestions on how I can get smaller qtys of tin at a time?
One way I thought of is to smelt it down and pour some itty-bitty ingots.
I might have to trial and error a few to find a size I want.
I thought of casting some boolits of tin and tossing in the needed amount, but that seems too labor intensive.
What's your suggestion?

[arcticbreeze]

Melt the tin in a pot on a hot plate and cast it in what ever your biggest boolit mold is. Now you weigh them put them in a jar near your casting pot and use however many it takes to get your desired alloy.

Example

437.5 gr per ounce so if you cast 200 gr tin boolits you would need 6-7 tin boolits for 10 lbs of alloy.

[geargnasher]

Figure out the volume of 1oz of tin, find a mini-muffin tin at wal-mart, figure how deep to pour the tin in the cavities, melt the ingot in your casting furnace and pour yourself some easy-to-calculate ingots.

Gear

[lwknight]

I use the "marked 1/2 lb" small slots on a Lee ingot mold. it makes about 4oz ingots.
If you know that you want say 1/2 of a given ingot, just hold it with pliers halfway into the lead melt and melt off what you want.
Smaller ingots cut with pvc pipe cutters too.

[outdoorfan]

[QUOTE=lwknight;728371]... just hold it with pliers halfway into the lead melt and melt off what you want.
QUOTE]

Bingo!! This method works VERY well for me.

[Shiloh]

Melt the tin in a pot on a hot plate and cast it in what ever your biggest boolit mold is. Now you weigh them put them in a jar near your casting pot and use however many it takes to get your desired alloy.

Example

437.5 gr per ounce so if you cast 200 gr tin boolits you would need 6-7 tin boolits for 10 lbs of alloy.

Good Idea!!

Before you start adding all of it in, add some of it and see if things work out. They very well may. If not, add more.

Shiloh

[HammerMTB]

Melt the tin in a pot on a hot plate and cast it in what ever your biggest boolit mold is. Now you weigh them put them in a jar near your casting pot and use however many it takes to get your desired alloy.

Example

437.5 gr per ounce so if you cast 200 gr tin boolits you would need 6-7 tin boolits for 10 lbs of alloy.

I ruled that out as a bit too labor intensive. My biggest moulds right now are 300 gr .45 and 320 gr. 50 cal.
Something twice that size is still small for what I'm thinking.


Figure out the volume of 1oz of tin, find a mini-muffin tin at wal-mart, figure how deep to pour the tin in the cavities, melt the ingot in your casting furnace and pour yourself some easy-to-calculate ingots.

Gear

This was more my thought, and I already have a buncha muffin tins for ingot smelting, so I'm 1/2 way there. What's left is to figger how much to pour in a muffin tin. I may just wing it a bit, weigh and mark 'em, and call that close enough.

Thanks for the input, all! :lovebooli

[Fugowii]

I ruled that out as a bit too labor intensive. My biggest moulds right now are 300 gr .45 and 320 gr. 50 cal.
Something twice that size is still small for what I'm thinking.


This was more my thought, and I already have a buncha muffin tins for ingot smelting, so I'm 1/2 way there. What's left is to figger how much to pour in a muffin tin. I may just wing it a bit, weigh and mark 'em, and call that close enough.

Thanks for the input, all! :lovebooli

When you pour them, pour thin, just enough to cover the bottom of the muffin tin.
It's much easier to combine thin ones than it is to hack up thick ones. I did these
when I melted some pewter and I made some too thick to come up with the 1.5%
on a 20 pound pot fill.

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i227/BP_2006/09_29_2009002a.jpg

[runfiverun]

get you a small piece of angle iron like 1" and pour some long thin ingots weigh them and make a mark on them with a ruler/magic marker at your desired weights.
hold in pot to that line.

[HammerMTB]

Well, that was pretty easy..... :roll:

It took maybe 15 minutes to melt and make "tingots"
The math said 21 tingots made ~3 oz each. I wound up with 28 tingots just eyeball pouring them. I'll mark them for weight once they're cool.
Again, thanks for the input, all! :D

[lwknight]

Awesome! Another delima put to rest.