Hi, I was the person who started the threat on pewter.
I hope that you know what Pewter is, it is a silvery, soft material
that is used to cast little statues of dragons, gnomes, fairies and
all kinds of fantasy items. I recently found a company that sells
sheets of pewter, they have many sizes in thickness, the sheets are
12" x 12", My metric ruler is not by my desk right now. Pewter used to
have lead in it, it now does not have lead content. It is very easy to
bend and is very soft.
I hope this helps, possibly someone else there knows the formula of
what it is made up of.
Peter answered your question about soldering. My post is just a
recommendation for Tim McCreight’s excellent reference, The Complete
Metalsmith. You can get it from Amazon, try this link:
Tim’s book provides the answers to most of my questions!
Fine Pewter is basically Tin and a small amount of Antomony. Most
all Pewter sold in the US these days is “fine” (containing NO lead).
Much of the pewter being imported into the US as small sculpture
forms and jewelry often does contain lead. Other uses for pewter are
buttons, service ware (plates and the like), all sorts of decorative
items (lamps, bowls, candle sticks, drawer pulls, belt buckles, etc).
There are many alloy formulas for pewter, each developed for specific
casting needs and use needs.
Roto Metals, 415-392-3285 (San Francisco, CA) has ingots, not sure
about sheet.
John Dach
MidLife Crisis Enterprises
C.T. Designs
Cynthias sculptures are at: http://www.mlce.net
Maiden Metals,
A small bronze foundry, no web site yet!!
