How to turn pewter into powder

I have about 10 pounds of scrap pewter (plates, cups, etc.) that I would like to break down into very small pieces, into powder, if possible. I would eventually like to do the same thing with other metals. I don't want to buy expensive equipment to do this. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thank you!

I don't know about powder, but if you liquify it, and then slowly pour into a large bucket of water, you will end up with little bits of pewter.

Originally Posted by ryanw

I don't know about powder, but if you liquify it, and then slowly pour into a large bucket of water, you will end up with little bits of pewter.

That might not produce powder, but it's a step in the right direction and I will give it a try.

Turning into a powder may involve chemical processes that aren't discussed on this forum. Also, pewter is an alloy, so keeping the different metals together may be a challenge.

For pouring into water, a metal collander may work well for creating even smaller droplets (pour the liquid pewter into the collander over the bucket), but you would have to keep it heated to keep the pewter from re-solidifying.

Originally Posted by miked

Why powder? Mike.

The smaller the pieces of metal, the better they work in chemical reactions.