The tinning of the inner surfaces of cooking utensils and other vessels of capacity is effected by scouring the surface until it is perfectly bright and clean; then heating the vessel, pouring in some melted tin and rolling it about, and rubbing the tin all over the surface with a piece of cloth or a handful of tow; powdered rosin is used to prevent the formation of oxide. Bridle bits, stirrups, and many other small articles, are tinned by immersing them in fluid tin. Tin-plate working, or the forming sheets of tinned iron into a variety of useful vessels and utensils, is carried on by means of bench and hand shears, mallets, and hammers, steel heads and wooden blocks, soldering irons and swages. In the formation of a vessel, the first operation is to cut the plate to the proper size and form with shears, and, when the dimensions of the article require it, to join them together, which is done either by simply laying the edge of one plate over that of the other, and then soldering them together, or by folding the edges together with laps and then soldering them. Similar joints are required when gores or other pieces are to be inserted, and also at the junction by which a cylinder is closed in. The usual method of forming laps, bends, or folds, for this or other purposes, is to lay the plate over the edge of the bench and to bend it by repeated strokes with a hammer; but a machine is sometimes used for this purpose.
Straight Snips. Scotch Snips. Large Shears. Bent Snips.
After a tin vessel has been rounded upon a block or mandril by striking it with a wooden mallet, and the seams finished, all its exterior edges are strengthened by bending a thick iron wire into the proper form, applying it to what would otherwise be the raw edges of the metal, and dexterously folding them over it with a hammer.
Two-handed Wrench. Soldering Pile. Pudding Stake. Punches. Hatchet Stake. Tongs.
A superior kind of tin ware, commonly known as block tin ware, is carefully finished by beating or planishing with a polished steel hammer upon a metal stake. The process of swaging is resorted to as a ready means of producing grooved or ridged borders, or other embossed ornaments. This process consists in striking the metal between two steel dies or swages, the faces of which bear the desired pattern, and are made counterparts of each other. Many ornamental articles are produced by embossing or stamping tin plate, in the same manner as other metallic sheets, with a fly-press or other machinery. Cheap coffin-plates are manufactured at Birmingham in this way; and these and similar articles are sometimes lacquered, painted, or japanned. Tin forms the principal ingredients in various kinds of pewter and other white-metal alloys, which are manufactured into domestic utensils by casting, stamping, and other processes.
Chisels. Charcoal Stove. Polishing Anvil.
Britannia metal is a mixture of tin, antimony, copper, and brass, which is melted, cast into slabs, and rolled into sheets. The principal use of this metal is for candlesticks, teapots, coffee-biggins, and other vessels for containing liquids. The feet of candlesticks, the bodies of teapots, and other articles containing embossed work, are stamped between dies; while articles of a more globular shape are stamped in two or more pieces, and afterwards soldered together. The sheet metal has a ductility which enables it to be bent into various curved forms by pressure on a model or core: this process is called spinning.