On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:09:17 -0500, Wes wrote:

"Tom Gardner" wrote:

A few times but not every time I've gotten lucky and been able to replace
babited bearings with ball, roller or needle bearings. A bit of strange
thinking can sometimes come up with a way to do it simply and accurately.
If not, you should still be able to get sticks of material. I'd be thinking
twice about changing the alloy.


This thing is old and cranked by hand. Rolling element bearings would be
overkill. Copper based babbitt is likely overkill but I'm curious how they
alloy the copper into a much lower melting point metal.

Wes

I can only comment from melting aluminium alloys.
I once needed to stir some dross out of a crucible of aluminium melt.
what to use? what to use? as I looked around the workshop.
a pair of leather gloves for the heat and an offcut of copper pipe
since that melts at about 1500 degrees.

I dont think I got it stirred around twice before it was all gone.
totally dissolved into the aluminium.

if the tin behaves the same when melted you just stir the copper in.
and watch in amazement as it vanishes into the melt.

Stealth Pilot