Acid core solder 40/60

[catmasher]

A friend of mine that has a Ace hardware store had several 1/4 pound roles of the acid core solder and he was having a hard time selling so he just gave it to me for nothing.
Is there any problem using this solder? It has 40/60 on it so I figure it must be 40% tin, right?

Thanks for any help.

Van

[Papa Jack]

A friend of mine that has a Ace hardware store had several 1/4 pound roles of the acid core solder and he was having a hard time selling so he just gave it to me for nothing.
Is there any problem using this solder? It has 40/60 on it so I figure it must be 40% tin, right?

Thanks for any help.

Van

There is a post here someplace about problems with acid core solder......You might search.
If it was me...I would unroll the solder, and open one end and roll the acid out of it before putting it in the smelting pot. You really don't need to breathe those fumes, and you don't need the acid in your mixture...
"PJ"

[felix]

Maybe, but I suspect it is 63/37, tin/lead. The solder plant, whoever that is, won't change the mix just because of a label unless tons of the stuff were ordered differently. So, call Ace for plant info, and then trace back what you have with them. They will need to know the lot number of the solder somehow. ... felix

[catmasher]

couldn't i just melt down all the solder and burn off the acid somehow, outside of course.:?: I got about 40#'s of this stuff, got to use it somehow. Bar solder is getting real hard to get in this part of the country.

[shotman]

melt in pot and use soda and sawdust or oildry/cat litter to get acid out it will cast ok but will rust a mold . if you use aluminum molds may be ok I know from past of using drippings from a raditor repair shop as they use it

[lwknight]

The acid is probably zinc-cloride and will stay in tact if you are careful to not overheat he solder. It can be messy and will tin up almost anything.
I suggest using a disposable crucible like a coffee can to melt it down then dip or pour into ingots.
It will gunk up your lead pot and be annoying till you get it burned out. Also the residue will wash off with hot soapy water.

[leadman]

Coffee can idea sounds good. Do it in small amount so the fumes can be avoided. If you put sawdust on the top this will absorb the acid and can be scooped off before the fumes get real bad.

[catmasher]

thanks will try small amounts tomorrow and see what happens

thaks again for the help catmasher:-P

[GabbyM]

I melted down 250lbs of scrap solder one day last year.
Quite a bit of it appeared to be unused rosin core. It would form a fairly heavy layer of oily appearing liquid on top. I’d burn it until it wouldn’t burn anymore then cook the pot until the stuff got dry enough to skim off. Pretty nasty smoke that you definitely don’t want inside a house. The rosin seamed to act like a flux, imagine that. So the resulting one pound ingots are very clean and make great boolit alloys. If you own a respirator used for painting I’d use it but I’d not run out and buy one. Just set the pot up down wind, toss in the solder, then get way back away from it.

As for gunking up your gear. I think it may have cruded up my skimming spoon and maybe the pot. But it all gets burned out eventually. Compared to roofing scrap lead with asphalt tar on it rosin solder is a piece of cake to melt down. Any scrap material is pretty messy to melt down.

[randyrat]

Just melt it down and hold your breath if you have to or stay out of the fumes. Use a dry saw dust to soak up the resin, it will be a dark nasty liquid floating on top of the melt. Dry leaves work also, dispose in the garbage. Mark your ingots so you will know what they are, years from now.