Tinning

[Jack Schmidling]

This doesn't have much to do with jewelry but neither do most of the other
subjects.

I suppose I should have asked before I did this but...

I have a wonderful solid copper saucepan that was plated with something
silver on the inside when I bought it years ago. This wore off over time
and left me with copper pan. Some things react with the copper and take on
a green color.

So I decided to play tinker and got it hot enough to melt tin, added some
acid flux and sloshed the molten tin around to cover the inside. Then wiped
out the excess and it is now tin coated... imagine that.

My concern is that it did not take much heat to melt the tin and it seems
like just hot frying could just about get there.

Was this a good idea? What was it likely coated with in the first place?

js

[Peter W.. Rowe,]

Post by Jack Schmidling
This doesn't have much to do with jewelry but neither do most of the other
subjects.

the group has generally been considering as "on-topic" the general range of
"metalsmithing" as applied not only by goldsmiths making jewelry, but also
silversmiths doing holloware, or any other of the similar hand working metal
crafts. People doing work with machine tools generally are happier with
rec.crafts.metalworking, and I'm not sure where the artist-blacksmiths go on
usenet, but they'd be welcome here too. It's more the range of crafts skills and
similar topics that defines the group, rather than whether you specifically use
them to make jewelry.

Post by Jack Schmidling
I suppose I should have asked before I did this but...
I have a wonderful solid copper saucepan that was plated with something
silver on the inside when I bought it years ago. This wore off over time
and left me with copper pan. Some things react with the copper and take on
a green color.
So I decided to play tinker and got it hot enough to melt tin, added some
acid flux and sloshed the molten tin around to cover the inside. Then wiped
out the excess and it is now tin coated... imagine that.
My concern is that it did not take much heat to melt the tin and it seems
like just hot frying could just about get there.
Was this a good idea? What was it likely coated with in the first place?

I can't tell you what it was originally covered with, but were it silver, you'd
have known it because it would have tarnished quickly, especially upon heating.

Tin, if it's pure tin, and not some tin/lead mixture, is the classic coating for
the insides of copper cooking vessels. So long as you actually did use pure tin,
then you did exactly what has been done to a very many copper cookpots and
frypans for a long time. The tin bonds well to the copper, and though it seemed
like you didn't get it that hot, you actually were likely well above the
temperature range normally used for cooking. your frying oil would have been
smoking quite a bit at that temp. Even then, if the tin is properly wiped off
(the excess, that is), the remaining film won't melt off or otherwise cause
problems at cooking (even frying) temps, since when you applied it, the thin
layer of tin actually penetrates a bit into the copper, bonding to it and
beginning to alloy with it. That surface film becomes harder to melt than the
bulk of the tin (what you wiped out) was.

Peter

[Bert]

Post by Peter W.. Rowe,
the group has generally been considering as "on-topic" the general range of
"metalsmithing" as applied not only by goldsmiths making jewelry, but also
silversmiths doing holloware, or any other of the similar hand working metal
crafts. People doing work with machine tools generally are happier with
rec.crafts.metalworking, and I'm not sure where the artist-blacksmiths go on
usenet, but they'd be welcome here too. It's more the range of crafts skills and
similar topics that defines the group, rather than whether you specifically use
them to make jewelry.

Blacksmithing, artistic and otherwise: alt.crafts.blacksmithing

Welding: sci.engr.joining.welding

(Posts to both of these groups are frequently cross-posted to
rec.crafts.metalworking.)

Bert

[Abrasha]

Post by Jack Schmidling
This doesn't have much to do with jewelry but neither do most of the other
subjects.
I suppose I should have asked before I did this but...
I have a wonderful solid copper saucepan that was plated with something
silver on the inside when I bought it years ago. This wore off over time
and left me with copper pan. Some things react with the copper and take on
a green color.
So I decided to play tinker and got it hot enough to melt tin, added some
acid flux and sloshed the molten tin around to cover the inside. Then wiped
out the excess and it is now tin coated... imagine that.
My concern is that it did not take much heat to melt the tin and it seems
like just hot frying could just about get there.
Was this a good idea? What was it likely coated with in the first place?

Traditionally, copper cooking pots and pans were coated with pure tin. IIRC

Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

[Ted Frater]

Post by Jack Schmidling
This doesn't have much to do with jewelry but neither do most of the other
subjects.
I suppose I should have asked before I did this but...
I have a wonderful solid copper saucepan that was plated with something
silver on the inside when I bought it years ago. This wore off over time
and left me with copper pan. Some things react with the copper and take on
a green color.
So I decided to play tinker and got it hot enough to melt tin, added some
acid flux and sloshed the molten tin around to cover the inside. Then wiped
out the excess and it is now tin coated... imagine that.
My concern is that it did not take much heat to melt the tin and it seems
like just hot frying could just about get there.
Was this a good idea? What was it likely coated with in the first place?
js

Your last but one paragraph concerns me, like it did Peter.
Aer you absolutely 100% sure you used PURE tin?
From what you said it could be that you have used plumbers solder
which is 40tin/ 60 lead.
If theres the remotest chance you have, just hang your copper pot on
the wall as a decoration. Never use it , if you do youll become a lead
poisoning statistic, apart from the loss to this newsgroup.
Pure tin melts at a higher temp than the afoementioned solder.
If youve any of this materiasl left over, did you save it for another
day? get it checked for lead.

[Jack Schmidling]

"Ted Frater"

Post by Ted Frater
Never use it , if you do youll become a lead
poisoning statistic, apart from the loss to this newsgroup.

No such luck.

It is "pure virgin tin" per McMaster catalog. I just rubbed the bar on the
surface of the pan.

Nice to know that I got something right for a change without 10 years
enslavement to a master.

js

[Ted Frater]

Post by Jack Schmidling
"Ted Frater"

Post by Ted Frater
Never use it , if you do youll become a lead
poisoning statistic, apart from the loss to this newsgroup.

No such luck.
It is "pure virgin tin" per McMaster catalog. I just rubbed the bar on the
surface of the pan.
Nice to know that I got something right for a change without 10 years
enslavement to a master.
js

Here we go again, what looks like a deliberate attempt to annoy us some
more. OK ill accept you challenge and respond.
Lets look at this jibe of your of 10 years of enslavement injust a
little more detail.
IF
you went to just watch and perhaps later on to work in a silver smith
workshop not a jewellers,
you wouldnt need to ask all the 1001 questions youve been asking
everyone here,
you would see silver being cast into rod in cast ron moulds and rolled
down and drawn into wire.
you would see the smiths using steel stakes and hammers raising hollow
ware from flat sheet.
you would see how binding wire is used and how jigs are made up to speed
up production runs.
You would see the piercing saws being used by hand and if you were lucky
enough to visit a production silversmiths youd see all sorts of advanced
production techniques which you havnt yet dreamed of.( just like I have
here)
All to make the hard work of moving metal easier and therefore more
enjoyable.
As for the tinning, you had the law of averages worhking for you on
that occasion.
Now we have,on this news group, advised you to visit a silversmiths
not just for our sanity but to help you get the results you want with
the least amount of frustration. You seem to have had plenty of that
recently. Maybe you actually like it. Only you can answer that.
Before you tackle any new project do try and do your reading aka
research first. youll be pleasntly surprised how much easier it makes
your hobby.
Being a deadly serious precious and exotic metal smith I have to get the
right answers to the really difficult technical questions I have to
answer IF im to push the boundaries of my craft forward.
If I can do it so can you.
were only trying to point you in the right direction,
there is an easy way to do most things why choose the difficult one?
by not accepting our advice?

[Howard Fairchild]

Post by Ted Frater

Post by Jack Schmidling
"Ted Frater"

Post by Ted Frater
Never use it , if you do youll become a lead
poisoning statistic, apart from the loss to this newsgroup.

No such luck.
It is "pure virgin tin" per McMaster catalog. I just rubbed the bar on the
surface of the pan.
Nice to know that I got something right for a change without 10 years
enslavement to a master.
js

Here we go again, what looks like a deliberate attempt to annoy us some
more. OK ill accept you challenge and respond.
Lets look at this jibe of your of 10 years of enslavement injust a
little more detail.
IF
you went to just watch and perhaps later on to work in a silver smith
workshop not a jewellers,
you wouldnt need to ask all the 1001 questions youve been asking
everyone here,

-----snipped---

Post by Ted Frater

Post by Jack Schmidling
Being a deadly serious precious and exotic metal smith I have to get the

right answers to the really difficult technical questions I have to
answer IF im to push the boundaries of my craft forward.

Ted,
If you find it annoying to answer Jack's questions, please feel free to just
keep your fingers off your keyboard.
You complained about his not following the advice given here. This thread
was about tinning a pot, and it seems to me he did that one right all by
himself. Jack wanted to know if pure Tin is the proper metal for this
repair. He mentioned he did this without having spent a lot of time in
apprenticeship to get the proper results. Gave himself an attaboy. I doubt
it was a slap at the professionals here, but you jumped right on him.
You also mentioned doing research. This group is part of said research.

Good day,
Howard

[Bob Edwards]

Post by Jack Schmidling
This doesn't have much to do with jewelry but neither do most of the other
subjects.
I suppose I should have asked before I did this but...
I have a wonderful solid copper saucepan that was plated with something
silver on the inside when I bought it years ago. This wore off over time
and left me with copper pan. Some things react with the copper and take on
a green color.
So I decided to play tinker and got it hot enough to melt tin, added some
acid flux and sloshed the molten tin around to cover the inside. Then wiped
out the excess and it is now tin coated... imagine that.
My concern is that it did not take much heat to melt the tin and it seems
like just hot frying could just about get there.
Was this a good idea? What was it likely coated with in the first place?
js

Jack:

A couple weeks ago, I visited a copperware factory in northern France,
which has been in continuous operation for a couple hundred years,
making high-end cooking pots and just about every other copper utensil
imagineable. The day I was there, they were making copper pot-still
components. But they had a video demonstrating how they make the
"classic" french copper saucepan, and they tin them exactly like you
did, except they used ammonium chloride as a flux, and coated the
outside with a resist to keep the tin from staining the outside of the
pan. After fluxing, they heat the pan over a gas ring, rub some pure
tin on the inside, and wipe it around with a heavy rag. That's all
there is to it.

The pans themselves used to be hand-raised, but now they are drawn on
a deep-draw hydraulic press. Takes about 30 seconds to draw a
saucepan from a flat disk of copper.

The smiths were hand-raising domed lids for the still components when
I was there. These were copper pots about 4 feet high, a couple feet
in diameter, with a domed top and some complicated plumbing. I think
they are filters, of some type, rather than the stills themselves.

The workshoup itself has changed little, I suspect, since its
beginning. Many of the old overhead shaft-driven power tools are
still there, only now motor-driven, instead of from the (originally)
steam-powered shaft. They have added one CNC duplicating spinning
lathe and a cnc plasma cutter, but other than that, the shop probably
looked much the same at the turn of the 20th century.

Regards,

Bob

[Jack Schmidling]

"Bob Edwards"

Post by Bob Edwards
But they had a video demonstrating how they make the
"classic" french copper saucepan, and they tin them exactly like you
did....

Small world. Not sure but mine is probably a Chineese knockoff but you
wouldn't know it. It even has the brass handle that requires a potholder to
handle.

Post by Bob Edwards
The smiths were hand-raising domed lids for the still components when
I was there.....

Another idea for a project. The lid for my copper fish poacher got lost
somehow and it would be fun to make a lid for it.

Cool report. Thanks.

js