Subject: TIN

From: [email-masked] (Brian Adam)
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 1995 10:22:17

Lately I've been experimenting with pure 999 tin; making jewellery with it.
I prefer tin to Brittania Pewter (89% tin) as tin is whiter and stays 
relatively shiny. Plus I have a tendency towards pure metals in a lot of
my work. Like I use 999 silver, 24K gold, copper.
I've some experience with tin, but I'd like more information please.
I know the 292deg C liquidus/solidus point, I've made bronzes with 90% and 95%
copper, and I've binary-alloyed it with both 20% and 10% silver (a useful 
white metal), and I've found that it does work harden and will anneal at 
about 2/3 the liquidus.
But now I'm after more metallurgical information.   Anything. Phase diagrams
with other metals, f'rinstance. I can sort of read binary phase diagrams, 
but ternery alloy phase diagrams are a bit beyond me at the moment.
I've not been able to find much reference to tin in the metals books here.
Jewellery books just gloss over it, mentioning only that it's a useful
alloying metal (bronze). Sure, that's how I got into tin
but now I want to use it straight. I pour it into shaped wooden molds for 
repeatable castings, and into steel ingot molds to make sheet.
 
Is it ok for rings? It doesn't leave a mark on my finger.

---

From: [email-masked] (James Kirkpatrick)
Date: 13 Jul 95 08:19:32 MDT

[questions about phase diagrams etc]

For technical metallurgical questions, you might try a different
newsgroup: sci.engr.metallurgy.

See also rec.crafts.jewelry for jewelry-related questions.

This assumes you don't get the needed answers here!

Jim