Metal Casting Zone

at a garage sale for 50 cents and was thinking that I would melt it down. Anyone have a good guess for what type of metal is typically silverplated for this sort of application? I would love it if I could get my metal used like this in the future. The areas that are worn down look like brass to my untrained eye. It was only 50 cents so no big loss if I cannot melt it. It weights about 1.5lbs if that info is useful. I guess I could try to determine the density next if that would help.

oops sorry about the big ugly ebay link.

Further investigation (breaking off a piece) has reveled that the metal is quite soft and the inside metal is a dull sparkly gray color. Maybe it is lead or pewter with copper and then silver plating?

crude measurements: 9.45g/ml

I doubt if it has Lead in it. It might be Nickle or if it's from China it could be anything. I hope you don't find out it was worth a lot of Money!
Might be a non-lead pewter.

I found it on the web starting at like $20 in decent shape and this one had a lot of plating missing so I have now qualms melting it. I would love to buy all my metal like this. There was a lot more similar stuff to this at the sale but it was in better condition and a few bucks a piece so I did not go for it.

I hope it is a non lead pewter. That would be good for a nice sculpture casting. It was 50cents for 1.5 lbs so a decent deal for pewter. It would be even a decent deal for zinc or lead.

If you can get most of the plating off and send me a small piece, about the size of a thick quarter, I'll take it to work and analyse it on our spectrometer. It won't be exact but it will give a good idea whats in it. I'll take a piece of my printer's lead today and see if it will work out for that. It won't read anything above Sodium On the periodic table. That means I can't test for Carbon, we have another machine for that but it's only set up for low alloy steel.

Wow. What kind of work do you do? I could definitely send a sample but I will not have a chance till this weekend. Does this work with alloys? I have only worked with IR and Mass spec but only with organic compounds. I guess I will have to do some reading.

I work in a steel mill. I do the chemical and physical testing on our products. In the past we could only test low alloy steel. Now we have a machine that will read most of the elements so I've been able to test some brass and aluminum. I can also test oxides like lime and silica. I can't set up any kind of testing business but I can do a few samples for friends now and then.
I forgot the lead last night, that's from my other hobby, letterpress printing. Like I have time for two hobbies and work 60 hours a week. Oh, and I forgot fishing, which I've only got to do a few times this year.

This is our machine, pretty cool CSI kind of stuff. We aren't even close to using it to it full potential.
www.bruker-axs.com/s2_ranger.html

Steelmill? is it in Pittsburgh?
Looks like a fun toy. It seems like it would be tempting to try it on all kinds of things. I guess it is hard to find much of anything in elemental form. Do you combine your hobbies and cast sinkers and printing parts?