Anyone ever use this stuff?
I have a few cakes of it and would like to use it for loco`s.
Any ideas or tip`s?
I used to use it years ago. It can be used to put extra weight in locos but make sure that it can’t fall out of place.
What would be the best way to melt and pour it?
According to Walthers, you can melt it in hot water.
Back in the late 50s, early 60s, MRR had a series of articles on using these low temperature alloys. Pretty much you can get away using an old tablespoon or a small gravy serving ladle in hot/boiling water. They suggested quite a variety of materials for molds, including plaster, silicon, cardboard, and wood.
Walther’s TempLo is about the same as CerroBend, which is still available from McMaster’s Carr. It melts in boiling water. Molten, it can be poured into locomotive boilers, the undersides of flat cars, or molds made out of nearly anything. A friend ballasted a scratch built wood flatcar with it. He poured it into recesses in the underside of the stripwood and duco cement car with no problems.
Cool, the stuff isn’t very strong, but it makes good ballast and you can cast detail parts in molds made from plaster, cardboard, that rubbery stuff used for casting resin parts, wood. Ordinary metal casting with lead or brass needs fairly rugged molds that can take the heat of the molten metal. With the low temperature alloy, no problems with molds melting, cracking, or going pop from a steam explosion.
I checked out the site for McMaster Carr and found several types of Cerrobend…also seamed more expensive than Temp-Lo