Tinning Brass

[fiddler]

Taught myself to tin brass...

 

[Harry Marinakis]

Tips from the school of hard knocks?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Taught myself to tin brass...


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I missed this back in June, mea culpa

HOW did you do it?

I ask as I have a nice brass bucket, except for the horizontal gash put in the side a few years ago in camp. I've always wanted to patch it with tin, and then tin the whole interior. I've got the tin, and I also have "button metal", which is a faux pewter, and is food safe too.

LD

 

[fiddler]

I did the initial cleaning with a wire wheel on my cordless drill. Then I put a water/muriatic acid solution in the kettle overnight and then wire brushed again. I made a paste of water and ammonium chloride as flux and painted it on. I put the kettle on the heat and let it heat up. When the flux starts to smoke, throw in a piece of tin and waited for it to melt. I used a piece of fiberglass insulation to wipe the melted tin around. Spray some liquid flux on the fiber glass before you start. You will have to reheat where the handles join because they are a heat sink and I sprayed some liquid flux on areas where the tin would not flow as needed. Then dump out the excess melted tin, give it another wipe to make everything even and give it a bath in water.

 

[skwerleater]

I have a couple brass buckets. We use them to boil water for camp mostly. It would be nice to tin one for cooking. I am unfamiliar with ammonium chloride. Can you tell me what exactly it’s is and what to buy?
I may try this myself. Oh, and where is a good supplier for tin?

 

[fiddler]

I have a couple brass buckets. We use them to boil water for camp mostly. It would be nice to tin one for cooking. I am unfamiliar with ammonium chloride. Can you tell me what exactly it’s is and what to buy?
I may try this myself. Oh, and where is a good supplier for tin?

 

[fiddler]

Ammonium chloride comes in powder form. I bought it on-line from walmart. Its water soluble so I just mixed it with water in a jar to the consistency of paste and used a paint brush to apply it to the kettle.

I got the tin on-line from roto-metals. They have bags of tin pellets. One pellet goes a long way.

I got some liquid flux from the hardware and put it in an old windex bottle so that I could spray it on areas that needed a little extra fluxing during the process and also to dampen the piece of fiberglass insulation I used to spread the molten tin around.

If you do a search on youtube for tinning brass, you will find a bunch of stuff.

My first attempt I didnt clean properly , didnt use the flux and used a piece of cotton as a wiper. The tin wouldn’t spread, the cotton burned and it was basically a big fail. My second attempt using the method described above went pretty easily

 

[skwerleater]

Hey thanks for the reply. I appreciate it. If I try it I will post it. Thank you!!!