[TheForge] Re: tinsmithing books and tools

[Mike Spencer]

Terry Ridder wrote:

> mike, are canada metal pacific limited and canada metal eastern
> limited the same company? i found the tinrite #41 tinning compound
> on the canada metal pacific limited web site.

Sorry for the delayed reply, Terry.  I kept forgetting to look at my
new cans ("plastic", actually) of TinRite.

I don't have any idea about "Pacific" and "Eastern" divisions,
separate companies so-named or anything that would clarify the
distinction.  I do know that, at the corporate level, there have been
alarums and excursions due to legacy environmental problems with
lead.  CM has been for decades a big producer of lead products and
I gather some present or former company site(s) are envronmental
disaster areas.  This may have led to strategic corporate strucure
changes that I haven't heard about.  We've seen stuff like that with
AP Green and other refractories companies.

My TinRite isn't labeled #41.  It's just a typed label that says
TinRite.  I have the printed label from a can I bought circa 1978 and
it has no #xx either, altho it does have a bunch of "Oh, Wow, isn't
this a great product?" -type hype characteristic of product labels
from the 1930s.

The only reason that I know the product is available *anywhere* in the
US is that, when I went to my industrial supplier for it, he told me
that it was back-ordered at Canada Metal but he could re-import some
from a retailer (somewhere) in the US for approximately 300% of
Canadian price.  That's what led me to months of phoning all over
Canada to various CM reps and employees, what I described earlier as
"poking them with a stick".

Sorry if that's no help at all.

- Mike

PS: A quick google shows that a bunch of stuff about Canada Metal and
    lead contamination has appeared on the web since I last looked.
    Some company history is here:

     http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/entrepreneur/canadametal.html

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^