Pewter

[Richard Hed]

And you are the one that wanted to buy a heap of cast iron and machine it to form dust which inevitably a lot will be inhaled------- but think again that cast iron was probably coated with a lead based paint which you would would have to remove.

You were prepared to create and enter this scenario.
So I'm glad - for your sake- that you lost the sale and the subsequent dangers from paint inhalation.
And you were smoking!

Thanx. I am always looking for alternatives. Well, fellows on the forum convinced me to keep it in one piece and try to use it as was. But really, too little room in my pitifully small garage

 

[SmithDoor]

Would cast pewter be suitable for engine castings Steam and IC?
Thanks Ken

Pewter is not cheap it does melt about 700°F [ 370°C]
I would look at aluminum it has a pouring temperature of 1,400°F [760°C]
Pewter would for small models as you maybe able to use bullet casting equipment.

Dave

 

[goldstar31]

I can go happily along with the suggestion about tin being a useful material for model making.
I recall a firm selling some thing called a Picador Pup lathe in the 1950's and for the curious Google lathes.co.uk for a comprehensive write up.
But my own memory goes further because Picador made Plummer blocks in die cast aluminium and also a linishing belt machine which in my case was powered by a 1440 1/4HP machine salvaged from a washing machine.
Today, my linishing machine is Chinese plastic and with better metal rests would make a better addition to my workshop. Again, I have a little plastic faceplate sander out of pretty plastic and I actually have a wood router table made from injected plastic. No I haven't tried it but I thought it-- a good idea at the time

But back to the days of Noah, I made a wooden fixed steady for my old pools Major lathe( which few if any have heard about.

So I would find little to criticise if 'other metals and plastics were employed.
It would be great to see how today's people utilised them

 

[Shopgeezer]

While the Roman aristocrats quaffed their boiled ostrich and lark tongues from golden plates the food was prepared back in the kitchen in high lead pots. Lead water pipes were used widely and stone aqueducts were lined with lead. The real corker was wine sweetened with lead acetate (sugar of lead) and boiled down to reduce it and concentrate the sugars (and the lead). This sauce was widely used in cooking. What all this lead actually did to the population is just a wild guess. They knocked back a lot of wine in a day so the alcohol would probably get them first. Not to mention disease and pointy things with sharp edges.

 

[goldstar31]

Hi Shopgeezer!

Thank you for brightening my day. It's cold, raw and wet and I am scurrying to find a de-numbing
wine. However, looking at my own collection of sweeteners there is initially honey and a host of good sweet wines which 'enrich the day' For me, there is always a good vintage port which is a sweet Portuguese wine fortified with alcohol and if you like a dryer wine like the competing Spanish ones like Tio Pepe, there is white port and now 'pink'( Don't know about the latter). Again,, there is Muscatel and excellent with pork and chiches pois. From what I gather is the longer one leaves the grape the sugar content increases. Quite enervating pounding the grapes with athletes foot.
Of course, you are right about the amount of alcohol which was drunk in those days--- and now.
A great deal of water was undrinkable- and still is. Digressing, the London gin is a fine example and so is beer. Again, I do like the idea of 'sweet and sour ostrich' Marco polo DID get to China! Now was he born in Venice amongst all that ice cream or was it Korcula-- or have I got my dates wromg?
Speaking about dates, we had a little place overlooking the sea in Menorca which I bought for £7500- inflation they had been £450, the same price as a Mini. However my dear departed wife did want more vegetation around the place and bought a date palm for a ridiculous 1000 pesetas.
Siting it to get water in our absence was a problem and i her inimitable way hit on the septic tank. This would collect the night soil and the storm water in our absence and would be emptied by the 'gully gully man' and sprayed liberally on the island's tomatoes etc. It certainly DID grow. It also created a fine crop o dates. Say no more!
Diseases? Oh yes. I've mentioned malaria but there was a lot of other diseases and these are to be found damaging the bones. They had their share of Covid-55BC and a lot of things.
Lead poisoning really in endemic proportions was not found until the WW1 and subsequently.
It's all enough to persuade a person to drink- and see if the contents of this new bottle cause me to fall down without warning. It is becoming quite unpleasant-- and I don't know why.
All my mate and I are doing is trying to save our bit of what was Roaming Briton by re-cyclings as many bottles as we can. i supoose one should drink to that?

Your good health

Norman

 

[glue-itcom]

Thank you for brightening my day. It's cold, raw and wet and I am scurrying to find a de-numbing
wine.

Hi, how about a pewter and bog oak candlestick to brighten up the day? I made this some time ago as I just love the mix of materials. I did have to machine a mild steel bar that goes through the centre of the bog oak and threads into the pewter at each end. Sometimes the materials just work for certain applications.

I could have used aluminium, but there is a weight and feel to pewter that stands out, also, the patina that it gets over time is subtle, but lovely. The bog oak in this case is a very old piece of wood and more like balsa wood to machine, hence the steel support.

 

[goldstar31]

Thanks! I like the mention of Bog Oak. I came across it at perhaps the pimply, pus filled age of about 13. My long gone youth club leader had somehow got pieces of the wood which had been pulled out of the River Tyne from what remained of the Roman Bridge. The Swing Bridge- still in use today- replaced it. The bog oak went to make framings for oil paintings which adorned the old man's little study. I think it was a test for us youngsters as 'the other seat' was backed by a glass case containing a Bronze Age skeleton whilst on his study table was a trepanned skull.
Digressing many years later, my wife had a similar skull which she kept in a double sized Jacob's Cream cracker box. My daughter has it and I have no doubt that hr little grand daughter will find it equally fascinating. According to the research of my wife and her other dental associates, 'She', the lady in the box, was of African origin with teeth worn by sand.

 

[goldstar31]

Familiarity breeds contempt and I suddenly had a thought.
Has anyone actually tested the water in what was Roman?
I'd forgotten but I actually went around what is now the Croatian Littoral in a boat that was owned by the 9then) Yugoslave Tanker fleet. As I said, I did a first off Mljet. The Juglslavs( as they were called) had competitions between villages and towns as to which had the best water. Hell, it was once Roman, the Emperor Diocletian had a villa there! It was artesian stuff and came from the Alps.
It wasn't an invention of modern times.
And then there was a lady who used to go for a months at a time, took her couple of kids with her and at the end of those holidays took back a water sample to be analysed by her staff- to see how much fluoride or how little that came out of her tap- in the Land of the Roman stone throwers. Again, it was artesian and it actually came from the Alps to the North, it popped under the Mediteerranean and came up on Menorca. The lady was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons i Dentistry and had been one of the team who were curious as to why the children's teeth in North Shields on the River Tyne fell out whilst on the other ban- at South Shields were perfect. Of course the lady was my wife.
But, clears throat, we also had places in the Savoie and we had a place where the water might well have been peaty but it came off the granitic strata rather than the limestone further south.
The next silly thing came to mind me that the Austrians- and the French for that matter sheather their chalet roofs in copper and if they were poor- wood tiles.
Apart from the roches moutonnes and the U shaped glaciated valleys it was all Roman