Tin Chloride testing

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H

Herman

Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2016
Messages
21
I read most of you are using tin powder to make your stannous chloride for testing.If i recall right Ammen said u can use tin cans.In the past i have used tin cans but I cut it into pieces and dont use any that were on the side overlap or the edges because I understand some cans have solder coated with something there.Has anyone tried both methods and see if there are any differences in a test?I cant see how but I have never used the actual tin powder.
Also I was using coffee filter paper for the paper.I have lots so figure I might as well use it up.
Herman
 
Tin cans used to have a thin plating of tin but were mostly steel cans, I do not know they still use tin, with modern epoxy or plastic coatings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_can
http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/epoxycan.html


Using cans would be a bad idea even if they were coated with tin, you do not want to rely on a test that may or may not work to determine if you have precious metals in solution.

Tin metal can be found in solder (read the label), look for 95% tin Sn and 5% antimony, there are other High tin solders that would work, but other metals can skew the test results. You can also buy tin powders. Some pewters were made of high tin alloys.Many sporting goods sell tin fishing sinkers (dangers in lead use)

personally, I prefer the 95% Sn 5% Sb solder, I just seem to have better luck with metal than the tin powder.

Ferrous sulfate crystals is another good test for gold (especially if you have gold and PGM in solutions) as well as used in recovering gold from solution, it is very easy to make with Pure soft iron scrap (metal plate from an old electronic transformer and sulfuric acid), if you are interested I have made several posts on how I make it. Harold gives some excellent details of using FeSO4 crystals in a spot plate to test solutions with several precious metals involved.
 
Thanks for the heads up.I think Ammen mentioned the ferrous test as well.What about solder that has tin and lead in it?I was at the hardware store in town and no tin/antimony solder,also went to the sporting goods store and got the tin sinkers but I dont think they are tin.made in China.doesnt say on the pack what the metal content is.I would be willing to try them if I had a proper tin cloride solution to test to compare.
Herman
 
Tin is used in most "lead-free" metal products like fishing weights and wheel weights. It must say "lead-free" on the packaging. This doesn't mean that it is pure tin but only that it is "lead-free". Also a good indicator is price. Most tin metal products cost more than lead products of the same type. One way of obtaining pure tin or even test solution is to buy it. Ebay, or maybe some member on here will be willing to sell you some if you can not make your own.
 
Tin-led solder works, just flatten it out first because the lead will form a lot of lead chloride and inhibit the dissolving.
If the solder has any internal flux just melt it once to get rid of it first.
Cool the solution down and filter off any lead after you have dissolved the solder. Then store it with some solder in the bottle. Keep it in an air tight container as the oxygen from the air oxidizes the tin chloride.

I bought a scrap pewter bowl for a dollar from a second hand store. It will last me many years.

Göran
 
thanks for the pewter tip.never thought of that one for the future.I have to work with as much material as I have here as its not a matter of just buying something here where I am .I'm in the middle of nowhere and I'm not that far from Vancouver.Its just the road getting here.Lets put it this way if you had to drive this road once every 2 weeks and you have a used vehicle it would last you about 6 months to a year before you would have to do several major repairs.New vehicles last about 1 year to 2 before the big repairs start.I am in the mountains in Canada which has 3 world country type roads all over British Columbia and if you have a break down then be prepared to loose your vehicle and everything in it.Vandalism out here from the Indians and tourists are horrendous.Its still the wild west out here.
I have some tin lead solder which Ill give a try unless some of the electrical connections and other parts around here are made of all tin?how do you know?test?This an old logging mining camp ghost town so lots of stuff still around.
Thanks for the inputs
Herman
 
imp.hacene said:
id anyone tried copperas crystal to test for gold ??????? :G
Click to expand...
From everything I've seen here on the forum, the stannous chloride test is much more sensitive--presumably because a suspension of colloidal gold is easier to see with the naked eye than a few specks of precipitated gold powder.
 
Copperas + spot plate = best test for gold and pgm pregnant solution.

Put a small crystal of copperas in a spot plate cavity, with a small amount of the solution in question. After the copperas crystal has precipitated the gold out, then move the now gold-barren solution to a new cavity and test it with stannous to get a better idea of what is left in solution. DMG is also good for knowing if palladium is in solution too.

Download the other Hoke book, "testing precious metals", its a good one
 

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