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Empty Paint Tube: Soldered Sheet Lead, Rand 1841
John Rand's 1841 patent names grain-tin, lead and pewter for paint tubes. The metal only has to be thin enough to yield to pressure and stay collapsed. His own tube was drawn tin about 1/75 inch thick, but he writes that a tube of sheet metal with a soldered seam works as well. This is that route in lead: roll a strip round a former, solder the seam, close one end, and leave the other open for filling.
Source: J. Rand, US 2,252 (1841). The sheet thickness, former, flux, size and tools are ours. The picture is the patent's drawing sheet.
Intermediate
1 hour
Instructions
1
1
Cut the strip
Cut the strip
Cut a strip of thin lead sheet as long as the tube and wide enough to go once round the former with a narrow overlap. Rand asks only for metal thin enough to yield to pressure and stay collapsed; ours is Ure's thinner cast sheet, 1/48 in (0.5 mm). Longer tubes need somewhat thicker metal.
Materials for this step:
Lead Sheet1 as requiredTools needed:
Tin Snips
Ruler2
2
Roll it round a former
Roll it round a former
Roll the strip round a round wooden dowel so the edges overlap, and press the seam flat. The dowel and the overlap are ours.
Tools needed:
Wooden Dowel3
3
Solder the seam
Solder the seam
Join the edges by soldering, one of the two ways Rand gives (the other is melting the edges together). Ours: a little rosin flux and tin-lead solder run along the seam with a hot iron, on the dowel. Slide the tube off.
Materials for this step:
Tin-Lead Solder1 as required
Soldering Flux Paste (Rosin-Based)1 as requiredTools needed:
Soldering IronWooden Dowel4
4
Close one end
Close one end
Press the edges of one end together with flat pliers (Rand used forceps that leave a groove along the end). Close it by adding a little solder with a hot iron. Leave the other end open: the tube is filled from there and then closed the same way.
Materials for this step:
Tin-Lead Solder1 as requiredTools needed:
Flat-Nose PliersSoldering IronMaterials
3- 1 as requiredPlaceholder
- 2 as requiredPlaceholder
- 1 as requiredPlaceholder
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