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How and where to hot dip a lead strip by continuous process

January 15, 2013

Q. We had a couple of suppliers of lead strip that was coated with Tin, about a year ago from overseas (UK).
Now we are in need of some more and our supplier said he decommissioned the line and can no longer offer this product.

The product specs are:

Lead tape dim's .394" x .043"
This needs to be coated with pig tin per ASTM 339 type ll grade A for hot dipped applications; the tin needs to be amalgamated with the lead.
Coating thickness .00035"
The lead needs to be conforming to QQ-L-171 grade C.

So far I tried almost everybody in the US and found a few lead tape suppliers but nobody wants to mess with the lead tinning?
Some of them say they don't want to pollute their tin bath because of RoHS requirements in other products going thru the same line.

Instead of making the tape to dim's above we could consider to have a round rod extruded of for example 6mm round and run that thru the tinning process and then use a roller set to roll it to the above dim's. The round rod is maybe easier to handle through the tinning process.

We are talking about approx. 30,000 lbs. of lead tape per year.

Do you know somebody who can and wants to do this?
Is it possible for me to buy my own tinning line and do the tinning in house?
We are a cable and hose manufacturer and not familiar with all tricks of the trade of tinning.
What do you advise?

Marcel Wolring
- Stafford, Texas

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