Tin

[Hawnjigs]

Since tin is only 2/3 lead weight its a viable option for casting jig heads for slower shallow running over snaggy bottoms. My best choice for warm season night jigging off the rocks. Pure tin is a bit softer than lead so spike barb collars are bendy and barb tips are best trimmed short. More durably shiny than lead so maybe the unpainted flash is attractive at night? Pouring characteristics are different from lead and there might be problems with mold cavity fill out in tiny sizes, tho 1/8 and up mostly no problem. Melting point of tin is 172* lower than lead.

Posting this now because the expensive price of tin metal has been dropping.

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[Arne]

What temp. do you have to get it to melt? Will the same pots we use for lead get hot enough to use them? Just curious.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Tin melting pt 450*f and lead 622*f .

I pour pot & ladle but would guess a bottom pour would work fine at a lower heat setting than lead.

 

[Arne]

Mine is pot and ladle too, but it only has the preset heat setting. Arne.

 

[duffy]

Tin will actually fill cavities better. It’s usually added to lead to improve pour ability and it has a slight hardening effect. Pretty spendy to fill a #20 pot with tin. Linotype has high tin as well as lead and antimony. Is lighter than straight lead but much harder. If you drop your jugs out of the mold directly into a bucket of water they will harden some especially if the mix contains antimony.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Yup, when I was pouring lead commercially 3-5% tin added to pure or nearly so (aka soft) lead slightly improved pourability and strength while retarding oxidation of poured product. Back then tin was relatively inexpensive and could also be sourced from scrap solder or pewter ware.

Actual linotype from printing scrap was VERY hard and difficult to remove sprues from castings. Mostly useful for casting hard bullets, not so much fishing apps. Unless bashing jigs against above water rock or metal hard lead really had no advantages over soft except the surface of hard castings will resist corrosion.

Word of advice tho if adding tin based wire solder to a melt add a very small piece to check if has a flux core which will noticeably smoke. Haha, since its been many years since I created lead alloys for pouring back in Oct helping a bud get started with casting made the mistake of dumping a pound of wire solder into a pot of 28# of lead which made a huge mess off smoking liquid float which had to be spooned out of the melt and dumped onto the dirt floor which residual lead could be picked out for re-use. Those scraps still had to be flamed to burn up the residual flux.

Best not to attempt surface flame fluxing indoors unless setup with a air venting system to dispel smoke and fumes.

 

[hookup]

Nice tips Hawn