[TheForge] looking for info

[Mike Spencer]

> My friend is looking for information on "tinning" a copper
> vessel....Any information written or video would be great.

I was about to recommend, as I have in the past, the Canada Metal
product called TinRite.  But a quick check of their web site fails to
reveal any mention of it.

When my supply purchased about 1980 ran out in 2004, I called Canada
Metal with great optimism.  After numerous exchanges of phone calls
and email (and some months), I eventually got a call from a guy whom I
took, perhaps erroneously, to work in some deep cellar of the Skunk
Works.  He sent me a couple of cans.

Ho hum.

But you might ask at one or more of your local industrial supply
vendors if they might have some on hand.  Shelf life is very long if
it's unopened or kept tightly covered.  It's pure tin granules and an
ammoniacal flux.  But it works way more easily and uniformly than
using bar tin and ammonium chloride. I re-tinned one of my own cook
pots with bar tin and ammonium chloride that a friend raided from her
now-grown son's old chemistry set.  Did a poor job.  Did it over when
I got the new supply of TinRite and got okay-to-good results.
Re-tinned a red brass (? I think, made from an unrolled piece of 4"
pipe that looked like copper but was wayyyy harder to form) omelet pan
with TinRite and got excellent results.

It's also a handy means to solder together flat surfaces such as
bearing caps.  Heat both pieces with a torch or oven, sprinkle on the
TinRite, swab it on  and you get a bright tinned surface.  Then just
glom the two pieces together (in correct alignment, of course) and let
cool.

You might try emailing Richard Hall <rhall at canadametal.com> if you
want to pursue it beyond your local suppliers.

Otherwise, clean as well as possible, apply heat, bar tin or other
pure tin product and ammonium chloride, swab with cotton or leather as
Mike Graf says. (I don't know about using zinc chloride.) One slight
variation I've used is to swab with steel wool.  But then you have to
make a final, sometimes infuriatingly tedious effort to get any adhering
strands of steel wool out/off of the tin before it hardens.


FWIW,
- Mike

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