Patbretagne

Hi, thanks for the help. Over here in France the majority of gutters on house roofs are made of zinc, the person who solders this all together in situ has a gas soldering iron with a large copper bit to conserve the heat, he rubs the iron on a white pad that is apparently a block of Sal Ammoniac acid which cleans the iron perfectly so that the solder will run easily and adhere to the iron. It seems that this could be the best flux for copper? One thing that I have found in soldering copper (not tinning) is the heat, do not overheat it or it goes sort of oily and the solder will not adhere to it, even if fresh flux is applied to it, could this be the problem Pans perhaps also linked with a lack of abrasive cleaning beforehand? Now that the method has been brought out into the open for us, now can someone shine a little light on where one can get pure tin? As an aside I heard the other day that in Cornwall UK (the real home of tin-mining in England for centuries) someone is sinking a new shaft at one of the oldest and richest mines (Crofty I think) that has been closed for many years. The environmentalists are up in arms about it. Thanks for your help Pat

Just having read the thread about tinning etc and finding a link to Johnson Metals, I am wondering where I can find babbit metal. It is that white metal that is used as bearing material in plain rotating bearings. I restore old tractors and have several mono-cylinder tractors where there is a "Big End" that has a babbit metal bearing surface. Just to the moment I have managed to cobble together enough odds and ends to give a reasonable bearing surface. However I would very much like to have a suuply for the next time I need to cast a bearing. Anyone help please? PS I should say that I am in France. Pat

That is the question, or perhaps not all of the question! The main question is why tin the inside of cooking pans? My understanding is that there is too much inter-reaction between the foodstuff and the copper, the tinning process isolating the base metal making it safe for food. However having said that, it is only my understanding. I still ask the question why tin copper cooking pans? Thanks for the reply Pat

Hi Pans, this is a question that has been going around in my head for a long number of years. My old mum used to have her kitchen pans re-tinned every so often (i'm 6+4 now so going back a bit), since then I have gradually built up a small collection of cooking pots, one of which I dug up in my garden! I would very much like to use them on the stove and as copper is showing through inside most of them they are not useable. So what should one use. The term "tinning" has such a wide meaning and surely does not some solders have lead in them along with tin and antimony two of which I believe are poisons!!! Some help would be very much appreciated. What do/did they use? Best wishes Pat

Hi Rob and welder, Thanks for your welcome, I look forward to having more time on my hands (Ha Ha Ha!) to get deeper into the forums and info. Once I'm onto forge-build I will certainly start asking. Thanks again Pat

Hi, Pat from Finist