Solder, Pewter and "Terne"?

The "Delhi" telegraph yesterday had a clue in the Quick Crossword, "An alloy of lead and tin", to which the answer given today was, "Terne".

Anybody heard of this? It's not in any of my dictionaries or reference manuals.

Reply to
Airy R. Bean
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Just look it up on Google. The only dictionary reference is

------------------------------------------------- tern - a shorebird terne - alloy of lead and tin turn - rotate

------------------------------------------- But it refered to a lot as a coating on steel sheeting.

-- Dave Croft Warrington England

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Reply to
Dave Croft

Thanks ,OM, but as to Google, I don't use the Web from here due to the cost of phone calls.

Reply to
Airy R. Bean

Reply to
Michael Gray

That sent me scurrying to an old copy of "Thorndike and BarnHart" a US published dictionary, but to no avail!

Thanks, anyway.

Reply to
Airy R. Bean

snipped a bit Tubal Cain in simple model steam egines refers to ternplate - lead coated steel .

mike Cole

Reply to
joan arc

My dictionary is almost the same but gives 'Terne-plate (also terne) Thin iron or steel coated with an alloy of lead and tin, inferior tinplate. [Fr.terne dull, tarnished]

Reply to
Neil Ellwood

See

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There is nothing inferior (or unfriendly) about the latest version of terne-plate.

Reply to
use_reply_to_address

My Kempes Handbook 1968 issue lists Terne metal as 80.25 Pb (Lead)

1.75 Sb (Antimony) and 18 Sn (Tin) This would classify it as a solder. Quite close in fact to the old BS219N and not too far from the more modern SOLDER BS EN 29453/ISO 9453 - 17S-Pb78Sn20Sb2.

It might have been called Pewter in the days when your Tankard could kill you, but I would say it has little merit beyond being a cheap solder (and you could be even cheaper by leaving out the Tin, the most expensive element, and having Antimonial Lead - i.e. a hardened Lead

Phil Dando

Reply to
Phil Dando

Damn! I've got two copies of Kempe, 1948 and 1978, but since their use requires finding the reading spectacles which are not in the same room, I didn't even think of them!

I've looked through, under which topic is "Terne" found, as it does not appear in the indices? (And I can't find it in the sections on Alloys)

Reply to
Airy R. Bean

In the 1968 Vol 1 it is part of the chapter on 'Non Ferrous Metals & Alloys' which follows the one on 'Foundry Practice'. In an earlier chapter there is also a reference to Terne Plating which it describes as coating the material with an alloy of Lead and 50 -

75% Tin (Usually 70% Tin).

My 1940 Metals Handbook describes Terne Plate as "An inferior quality of tinplate coated with a lead-tin alloy instead of with pure tin as in the case of tinplate proper. It is frequently used for the insides of packing cases. (From the French, TERNE, dull)" And the same book describes Terne Coating as "A process whereby steel articles are immersed in a molten bath of an alloy containing from 12 to 40% of tin, the remainder being lead. A protective coating is thereby acquired by the steel articles."

I think the authors of some of those old reference books were paid by the word and, judging by their writings on some of the alloys I have experience of, they didn't mind using a bit of imagination if they were short of facts.

Phil

, >Damn! I've got two copies of Kempe, 1948 and 1978, but since

Reply to
Phil Dando

After such a fulsome response (thanks again) I was bound to pry further, and if nothing else, the effort has re-awakened me to the font of all knowledge that is Kempe's Engineer's Year Book!

In the 1948 edition, the chapter is "Metallurgy" which is then, upon reading, further divided down into sections on foundry work and then alloys, which arrangement seems to form the ancestor of what you describe below.

After much perusing OOO 15 minutes or so, I finally located it in a table on page 1250 under LEAD alloys (I had been looking for it under TIN.) where it is described as "Terne Metal", 80.25% Lead,

1.75 % Antimony and 18% Tin; which make-up agrees with your 1968 version.

The section on Lead alloys seems to have disappeared entirely in the 1978 edition (unless somebody knows differently!) Perhaps by this time had come awareness of the poisonous nature of the metal.

Reply to
Airy R. Bean

My copy of Mark's Engineering Handbook states that Terne Plate is LEAD coated steel, not tin-coated. The tin is there since lead doesn't wet steel well, and the tin aids this wetting. The main constituent of the coating is the lead, not the tin. The lead contains approximately 25% tin as the wetting agent. (Marks p663, ed 1941) On p.684, it states that if this coating is "free from pinholes, it is highly resistant to corrosion. Such plate has excellent holding properties for paint, and so it is fit for many processes in the building industry, also, its 'lubricating' properties in drawing and stamping processes assist greatly in the manufacture of containers and fuel tanks. Lead coatings are most efficient in highly polluted atmospheres as in industrial centres", p.685.

Dave

Reply to
speedy2

I believe that terne plate was used for many years as the material of preference for automotive fuel tanks. I was led to believe that it was a tin/lead coating on steel sheet that remained fracture free after drawing and so protected the steel from corrosion.

Reply to
David Bromell

Now you mention it about 20 years ago I bought the remaining stock of lead coated steel sheet from a radiator repair man. He used to do fuel tanks but had stopped. He never used the name "Terne" but I bet that was what is was. I used it up years ago making tanks for stationary engines.

-- Dave Croft Warrington England

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Reply to
Dave Croft

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