You can get the lead in your home town wherever you live at any plumbing shop but you may not be able to get the tin so easily. You can, however, get it by sending to the Conley Tin Foil Company, 521 West 25th Street, New York, and at the present time they are quoting pig tin in blocks at 75 cents a pound.
When you have the lead and the tin melt the lead in an iron ladle, see [Fig. 39], over the kitchen fire and skim off the dross, that is, the impurities in it that come to the surface, and then put in the tin. After both are melted stir them well and then pour the alloy thus formed, which is pewter, in a pan that is oiled with sweet oil, to keep it from sticking and so make sheets of it of whatever thickness you want.
Fig. 39. iron ladle for melting pewter
About Working Pewter.
—Pewter can be worked like any other malleable metal, only easier because it is softer and more ductile, hence it can be hammered into any shape.
It can be cast as you will presently see and it can be soldered by using a flux of tallow, Gallipoli oil or Venice turpentine and pewterer’s solder, which is made of 1 part of lead, 1 part of tin and 2 parts of bismuth.[32] This solder melts at 203 degrees Fahrenheit, that is at a temperature of 9 degrees less than that at which water boils.
[32] Bismuth is a reddish white metal.
How to Cast Pewter.
—The way in which pewter is usually cast is by making molds of iron and brass and pouring the metal into them. But you can do a very good job of casting pewter by making and using plaster of Paris molds.