Babbit material

Is babbit of any use to you guys who melt and cast?

Yep! There are different types of babbit (like pewter) so it helps to know what's in it but it's good stuff. Mine is mostly tin.

babbit can be used to sweeten a to soft alloy, it normally dosnt take a lot. Unlike wheel weights, or lino type babbit material does vary in its composition from use and maker to maker. Some also contained zinc which can be a issue.

Babbit is was a bearing material used in older machines. A lot of ships had babbit bears on the drive and thrust bearings older lathes and mills had babbit bearings. These were poured close then machined and hand scrapped to alignment.

Lead,tin & antimony,there are different grades high speed low load,low speed,etc. among the worst is old railroad babbit. When I rebabbit a steam engine or antique gas engine I usually keep the old babbit to mix with new babbit. We have a 1900’s Frick 60hp traction engine at the club steamshop that is on my list to be rebabbited this winter. I’ll be melting about 70lb of babbit of a known type out of this engine that for my use is at the end of its useful life. Service records that came with the engine state it was babbited with new high grade McMaster Carr babbit many years ago.

Lot of different lead based and tin based babbitt alloys:

http://www.lasc.us/FelixBabbitbulletAlloy.htm