whats this metal??

[69daytona]

I bought 40 lbs of pewter today and one piece was shiny like silver and when I tried to melt it with the oxy acetelyne it took a lot to get it to melt and and soon as the heat was taken away it would stop and when cooled has a slight copper tint to it.
Couldnt find and silver proof marks, any ideas, it shines up real nice like silver, I havent found any warewolfs to kill lately so dont need silver bullets.

[lwknight]

Maybe you did get silver. Could be anything from 40 to 100 percent. Silver is hard and rings.

[Edubya]

I'm by no means an expert but from your coloration description and the intense heat, I would think that it is silver.
EW

[69daytona]

it rings like a bell when tapped. I will have to send it with my son, he is in a jewelery casting class, if its silver I will have a set of grips made for my 1914 colt SAA, he is making a mold for the snakes like on clint eastwoods speggetti western guns.

[Gelandangan]

If the metal can be smelted in your pot, it is good to cast! and most likely it is NOT silver.
Silver require a LOT of heat to melt (pure silver melt at 1760 F and lowest melting temp alloy is about 1100 F ) and I am sure a standard electric lead pot cannot get hot enough to melt silver.

Silver would run when it is glowing red hot.

I got about 200 grams of almost pure silver flakes given to me from a mate and I have big problem trying to smelt it.

[docone31]

It sounds like it might be silver plate.
That is a central core, usually a white metal with an high temp melt point, and Sterling outer and inner layers.
It is not plateing, it is literally silver filled stock.
My guess is Silver Plate.
Melted down, it can be cast, but it will have an high percentage of base metal for the alloy.
Still, it will be a good casting. Will just tarnish quickly.

With the silver flakes,
Get a piece of wood. Carve a small crucible into it. Mix the flakes with Boric acid and water. concentrate the flakes in a paper towel. This keeps the flakes from flying away under a torch heat. The velocity of the flame can push them away.
You need a back flame with melting silver with conventional torches. With the piece of wood as a back flame, you can melt it with a plumbers torch. A single gas torch.
Once you get the silver molten, you can add more. Keep a layer of Borax on the melt. It takes the contaminants out of the mix. The white Borax turns quite dark from the crud. The main thing is to keep the flakes of silver from blowing away under the velocity of the torch flame. The paper towel and wet silver/Boric acid keeps the silver stationary long enough to begin the melting. The flux, Boric Acid, will fluff white as it gets up to heat, then it gets liquid and settles down. The silver will make small balls with each flake melting.
Take a small pencil and move the balls together one at a time. They will "pop" together and the ball will get larger. In time, you will get a large ball. If you need to, stop the flame, remove the ball from the wood, and restart the flame. The silver will burn into the wood. This is good. It acts as an O2 absorber during melting. You want that.
Good luck.

[Gelandangan]

Ok I am back to eat a crow! Typical of me..:roll:

Apparently there are a lot of other (unusual) silver alloy that melt at low temperature:

Lead 97.5% and Silver 2.5% would make an eutectic alloy that melt at 579F
Lithium 89% and Silver 11% make alloy that melt as low as 293F :shock:

Both of which can easily be smelted in a standard electric lead pot..

[softpoint]

There is some "fake" pewter around. I don't know what the composition is, But it ain't NO good for casting.
There have been some other threads here on this. I have a piece I'd gladly spend the postage on to find out what it is, if someone wants it.:cbpour:

[trooperdan]

Could be an aluminum alloy. I can't recall the brand name right off-hand but I've seen some I thought was pewter but was AL.

[MJR007]

Softpoint if you want send me a small sample and I can do a spectrum analyses on it. If you add a stamp I will send you your sample and print out of % elements. It only takes a few minutes.