Littledog
07-30-2010, 05:20 PM
I thought I had a major problem today when I was alloying up some babbitt ingots, wheel weights and lead. I charged my 50 pound capacity plumbers pot with a ratio of 1 pound babbitt per 7 pounds lead and 11 pounds wheel weights.
After the ingots melted down I ended up with a notable slushy mix on top of the melt. I stirred the melt with a wood stick and threw in some fluxing agent with little success. At first, i thought the melt was contaminated with zinc or some other inimical metal and was ready to toss it. Instead, I cranked up the heat a little more and threw in a couple of tablespoons of Frankford Arsenal flux and stirred and poured the melt repeatedly back into itself for about 5 minutes. To my surprise, the slush went away and after skimming some normal looking black junk off, I was left with a nice mirror finish on the melt.
Is it possible that the slushy stuff was tin? This was the first time I used babbitt and I'm thinking it must have a really high tin content, which needs a fair amount of fluxing and mixing to get it to go into solution.
After the ingots melted down I ended up with a notable slushy mix on top of the melt. I stirred the melt with a wood stick and threw in some fluxing agent with little success. At first, i thought the melt was contaminated with zinc or some other inimical metal and was ready to toss it. Instead, I cranked up the heat a little more and threw in a couple of tablespoons of Frankford Arsenal flux and stirred and poured the melt repeatedly back into itself for about 5 minutes. To my surprise, the slush went away and after skimming some normal looking black junk off, I was left with a nice mirror finish on the melt.
Is it possible that the slushy stuff was tin? This was the first time I used babbitt and I'm thinking it must have a really high tin content, which needs a fair amount of fluxing and mixing to get it to go into solution.