Seeking tin? How 'bout babbit?

[montana_charlie]

I didn't post this in Swap-n-Sell because I don't have anything to sell. But I know a guy who does...

John York is a guy I used to buy tin from. He always treated me well. Looking through some old emails, I ran across the series which detailed my last tin purchase. Curious, I emailed him to see if he was still in the tin business. He has a little, but the price is 'high'.

He mentiond that he has some babbit metal he could let go of for six bucks a pound, so I asked for the alloy specifics.
What he has is:

RotoMetals Nickel Babbit
89% tin
3.45% copper
7.5% antimony
.15% monel (copper nickel)

If you are interested, his email address is york (at) napanet (dot) net.

Tell 'im Charlie sent ya'...
CM

[JeffinNZ]

Sounds about what I am using right now to enhance the brew and works really well.

[Boerrancher]

Years ago when I was a kid I ran a cable tool drilling rig. Some of you old timers will remember these machines from the oil fields and having your farm well drilled. I ran a Bicyrus Erie 22 that used babbit for bearings on the bull gear shaft. Every couple of years I would have to melt it out and re-pour the bearings because they would wear out. I used to save any of the babbit that dropped on the ground to add to my boolit casting pot. It worked great to harden WWs.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[Slowpoke]

Years ago when I was a kid I ran a cable tool drilling rig. Some of you old timers will remember these machines from the oil fields and having your farm well drilled. I ran a Bicyrus Erie 22 that used babbit for bearings on the bull gear shaft. Every couple of years I would have to melt it out and re-pour the bearings because they would wear out. I used to save any of the babbit that dropped on the ground to add to my boolit casting pot. It worked great to harden WWs.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

I grew up working on cable tool rigs, BE 22W, BE 24 L ,71 Speed star.

What did you use for the rope socket ?

After WW 2 the open pit copper mines in S AZ used cable tool rigs to drill all there blast holes, I have a picture of 6 BE 22's that are mounted on Cat under carriages all lined up drilling, shortly before they switched over to rotaries.

The last well I worked on start to finish was in 1980, my father and I did a 20 inch irrigation well 600 feet deep with a 24 L, the drilling was easy, the welding sucked.

good luck

[Slowpoke]

The reason I asked about the rope socket is because it is also poured with Babbitt.

The rope socket is what connects the drill cable to the tool string via a mandrel inside the rope socket, the tool string is made up with a rope socket , drill stem, and bit, if in rocky ground you add a set of jars between the stem and bit this allows you to get loose if a big boulder falls in and captures your bit.

Experienced deep well drillers will pour a new rope socket every time they start a new hole. Depending on the diameter of the hole being drilled the tool string can weigh over a ton and can cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace.

Rotary rigs have pretty much made the cable tool rig obsolete because of their speed for most domestic well applications.

But the old cable tool rig still shines in area's with out much water, a rotary by the nature of it's function will seal off any small aquifers and that may be the only water there, the cable tool won't.

There are a few more unique situations where the cable tool is still king for domestic applications but my finger is tired.

good luck

[leftiye]

I've been interested in copper in boolit alloys for a while now. Haven't done anything yet about it. Seems that copper could be added to the babbit to bring it up to say 10% (I think copper alloys well with tin). This could then be mixed with 9 lbs. of pure to give 10% tin, 1% copper for "tough" boolits?

[floodgate]

I believe that another "socket metal" brand was "Cerromatrix", an expanding bismuth alloy by the British(?) Cerro de Pasco company, maxers of "Cerrosafe", "Cerrobend" (for filling thinwall tubing to keep it from collapsing when bent), and other specialty alloys.

floodgate

[Boerrancher]

I grew up working on cable tool rigs, BE 22W, BE 24 L ,71 Speed star.

What did you use for the rope socket ?

good luck

We used Babbit as well in the rope socket. It was a bit easier to deal with as we would cut off 8 to 10 ft of cable, pull the cable out, and use the torch to melt the babbit out of the mandrel. After we restrung the rope socket, and made sure the cable was running through it and also in the right direction, (nothing like taking the time to get every thing perfect on the mandrel, pour the babbit and then realize that the cable is not through the rope socket or you run it through the wrong way) we would put the mandrel on and splay the end of the cable, pull it into the mandrel and pour the babbit back in. Generally we would wire the mandrel to the main line brake handle before re-pouring the babbit.

I hated running Jars. There was some operations like reaming where you had to have them, or if the hole kept trying to collapse. I learned real quick how to sharpen a bit properly so I didn't have to run them. I could get 6 to 8 ft an hour in good limestone while punching a 6 in hole. Where I use to really out shine a Rotary rig was in the areas where there was lots of small caves and broken limestone, or even better yet River bottoms where there was lots of Gravel. I liked Gravel, because with a drive shoe on the bottom of the casing and the 1200 lb drill stem, I could drive some pipe. I sure miss those days.

Thanks for reminding me of days long gone.

Joe