Separate Tin ingots from Lead?

Many years ago I had a buddy with a radiator shop who used to give me his scrap solder. He never reused it. I cast it up into 2lb Lyman ingots, the same as my wheel weights. I marked them with a felt pen. Well, I kinda got out of casting for several years and now that I've gotten back to it, guess what? The pen marks have all but disappeared. Any ideas on how to differentiate between the solder and the wheel weight? I do remember the solder was 40% tin if that helps.

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They'll sound different if dropped on the floor.....

https://i.imgur.com/ffkEM4Hh.jpg

I had 60/40 solder and cast it into ingots with a plain steel muffin pan I used for lead ingots and it took on a yellowish hue. That's weird.

The same 60/40 cast into a small aluminum muffin pan was silver in color. Same batch of 60/40 cast the same day.

I don't know what to do to tell them apart?

The solder ingots should be noticeably lighter in weight. If you have a suitable scale to weigh them one at a time, that should make quick work of sorting them.

The 40/60 solder ingots will be softer than the COWW ingots.

I would think the ingots with tin would be lighter than the ingots of wheel weights. Get some stencils and a hammer and mark them OS OK .

I had markings on lead and alloy ingots wear off also.
So that is why when I cast my ingots , I Stamp them with numbers or letters.
I am lucky.
I have several sets of Metal Stamp tools from 1/16" up to a set of numbers that is about 1/2" size.
On the mixed stuff I made.
I stamp them with the ratio numbers.
Things like pure Tin gets stamped with a letter T
Pure lead with an L

Being roughly the same age--
The more pure Lead ingots should be a duller gray than the ones with a fair amount of Tin.

Old ingots with a bit of a shine should have at least some Tin in them.

I marked range scrap ingots with a Sharpie over ten years ago and they are still easy to read.

If the ingots are the same size, I vote for the weight method first. For different sizes, density measurement is the same idea, but weighing the ingots and then measuring displacement by submersion is a hassle. If you had an easy to use hardness tester like a LBT, that’s an option too, but still tedious.

True that the little bit of solder I have is brighter than pure lead and casting alloy ingots made up around the same time, but I’m not comfortable using appearance as the main thing to tell COWW from solder.

I also have accumulated a number of solder ingots over the years.
I have marked them with a sharpie.
To be absolutely sure that they are kept separate and easily identified I put them in well-marked metal ammo cans.
Sorry be i cant help you much with your ID problem.

I too have solder ingots that are mixed in with WW and lead!
The lead makes a thud when dropped on concrete and the WW ring.
The solder should be a lighter color than either.

I use the empty kitty litter rectangular empty pails with lids to store ingots. About 40# per pail. Mark the front of each pail with the particular alloy. The stack 3-4 high and take up very little space. I use a larger permanent marker for ease of visibility. I agree with the comments of weighing the ingots.

Since we are talking shapes, sizes & marking of our ingots...we might consider how well the shape works with your pot...
Below is the small & large muffin pan...many like the muffin...some like all kinds of shapes found in baking ware, corn cob, triangles & squares and using sizes/shapes that'll make about a 2.5 pound ingot or less if you wish.
This is a 60/40 ingot casting where I wanted all different weights of the sweetener for full pots or just sweetening up a pot with a little dab of Sn...

https://i.imgur.com/xeNxVy2h.jpg

Some time ago I bought some corn cob ingots of soft lead...I thought that was a unique way to distinguish between lead stocks in storage...
but...they really stink when it comes to loading any appreciable weight into a pot, they don't like to share space very well.

https://i.imgur.com/xmHjUxCh.jpg?1

I find the muffin almost as tough to deal with & especially so if your trying to load 16 to 18 pounds for a full pot. You have to manage them as they slowly melt down, watch the stack so they don't tip over...it'za pain in the butt.

https://i.imgur.com/B2MFDSBh.jpg

Then someone suggested using a DIY ingot mould made of angle iron, this is the deal for sure, you can see how well they like to stack in a minimal amount of space...

https://i.imgur.com/IX8dorHh.jpg

This is 5 different sources of lead all cast the same day & color coded with a rattle can...

https://i.imgur.com/G2sMlWLh.jpg

You can come back to them in a week or two and do whatever testing you like and add further notes to the samples...

https://i.imgur.com/xhrFIuih.jpg

Then keep your marked, color coded samples with the entire load of lead and have it in a minimal amount of storage space...

https://i.imgur.com/5dYyNoxh.jpg

The real benefit was discovering that this shape of ingot will allow me to load an entire pot of 16 to 18 pounds of lead into a cold pot first thing in the morning as I tend to other details of mould prep & preheating or whatever else I have to do. I don't have to tend that pot, don't have to worry about the muffins falling out as they melt down or do I have to keep feeding the pot with more cold ingots.
You can add preheated ingots to save a little time if you like...each to his own in casting.

https://i.imgur.com/bXSaT38h.jpg

Wow! Obviously most of you guys are far more squared away than me. My ingots are pretty much different sizes so weighing them is out. I do notice some color difference so I think I'll start there then do a drop test. I could probably weigh similar sized ingots too and see if there is an obvious difference. And yes, I'll be stamping them in the future. I like the idea of the homemade ingot mold too. Easier storage. Thanks for the help!

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Good Luck to you, getting them sorted out. Between the different sound from dropping them and the color difference maybe you can tell the difference.

I started stamping my ingots a few years ago, after discovering that my sharpie marks had faded. I bought a cheap set of steel stamps at Harbor Freight and tack welded some of them together. PB for soft lead, WW for wheelweights, sol for solder, ect.

Your ww in a lyman mold will be about 1# & softer than tin. Just weigh them. I cast diff alloy into dff types of ingots. Easy to know any moment, I’ll try & get rid of it all before i die, no one else will know whats what.

Try the hardness pencils @OP. Looking for my copy of results.

Pretty sure you cannot compare tin hardness to lead hardness.