The Armour Archive

how about a two step tin plating? first plate the iron with copper, then plate with tin.

there are large (20+ pound) capacity melting pots comercialy avalible, for casting pewter and lead so diping a shirt isn't that difficult. have you thought of bringing the mail up to liquid temprature in the oven and then shaking it to get rid of the excess tin? posibly puting it between two layers of cloth (when hot) and just hitting it to shake off the excess? have you thought about a rosin style paste flux like that used in soldering? the acid in it would clean and lightly etch the iron so that the tin would stick better at the higher temprature and not burn off.

sorry if you've tried these,
john tobako

I was able to get the tin to stick to the iron without a copper base. My problem was not with getting the tin to stick, but rather removing the excess tin before the tin solidified on the maille and soldered the rings together.

For fluxing I used "Ruby Fluid" which is nice because it has the viscocity of water, which makes it easy to dunk maille into, thus evenly coating it. I would think a paste flux would be difficult to apply evenly to maille.

I believe I may have found a solution, however. I will post results when I have them.

Steve

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