Need help with solder pot pls

[petemanuk]

Just bought a solder pot (actually a retangle 180mm x 140mm x 45mm) as i want to use it to take muilt pin connecters (288 pin) off boards so i can replace them, the problem is the tank/pot needs a lot of solder to fill it!!! and that's gonna cost a furtune . Would any one know it if it would be ok to put say a block of metal in the tanks to reduce the volume so i dont need to buy so much solder?

Thanks

[stj]

sounds reasonable, but make sure the item is copper for good heat transfer

[eccerr0r]

surprised solder costs so much nowadays...
a brick of copper technically should be more expensive than a brick of solder. Probably have to use a brick of iron or something and be damned about the heat conductivity.

[diif]

When I was looking for lead for making low melt solder there were sellers on ebay selling decent weights for not much. i found that the price of tin was much cheaper off Aliexpress though.

[petemanuk]

Thanks all for the info.

Bit of a wild card i've seen a roll of roofing lead for a resonable price only thing i cant find what its actual composition is?? so may not be suitable for soldering, i'll post my findings as soon as i can get some more info (unless anyone else on the forum knows)

Thanks again.

[diif]

Roofing lead is just lead. You might want to add some tin to lower the melting point.

[harp]

About 60% Pb and 40% Sn, for work with flame burner.
Information may be marked directly on stick, say 40% Sn.

[eccerr0r]

Interesting, wonder how cheaply you can get roofing lead flashings and try to make DIY lead acid batteries with them...

[alfatv]

Probably it would be better to use smaller pot.
Anyways, your idea about metal piece may work. I suggest to use aluminum, it has very good conductivity, much better than solder and not so expensive.

[eccerr0r]

Actually one problem that hasn't been considered... wouldn't a brick of aluminum float in a pool of solder? I think even iron may float in a pool of molten solder. Copper might actually sink, but again copper is more expensive than solder.

I'll need to test this the next time I remelt my pot of waste solder I've collected, I figure a lot of stuff could actually float.

[Daemoch]

not sure if youve already gotten a solution, but how does your cost compare to getting a cheap propane tank driven forge/casting/melting setup? (google amazon for examples). aside from having other potential uses, you could basically melt down whatever materials you wanted then and basically recycle stuff, make your own formulas, etc.

[eccerr0r]

Too easy to overheat the pcb using propane...