Toxic Mess Tins?

[sdf234]

Hello all!

I was looking into the BCB mess tins but I liked the regular mess tin setup better. I prefer stainless steel over aluminium so I checked to see if British mess tins (rectangular type) were ever made in steel. I found that the pattern 37 mess tins were made of steel and were tinned. However, some sources say that the tin material used in those mess tins contains lead, thereby making them unsafe to use for eating/cooking . Has anyone else heard of this? Also, I've seen that there were some Dutch mess tins made of steel. Does anyone know if the steel Dutch mess tins were made of regular stainless steel, or were they tinned, and if so do they contain lead?

Thanks!

 

[launditch1]

The earliest version of the british army mess tins( the rectangular version, not the kidney shaped) were aluminium but this was changed soon after the war started to economise for the war effort.They were then made from tinned steel.I have no idea if the tinning contained lead...probably the least of Tommy's worries!!I certainly wouldnt recommend using any old tinned eating vessel.Late war they reverted back to ali and have been ever since.A potted history of british army mess tins for you all!
As an aside the early wartime ali tins are worth a fair amount of money!
Not familiar with the dutch tins.

 

[Sabot]

The Dutch mess tins are listed on Endicott's as Stainless Steel.

http://www.endicotts.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=126&products_id=1283

 

[Gagnrad]

They don't look quite the same. Besides that ... if it's stainless steel it'll probably be only weakly magnetic, so see how it reacts to a magnet. (That's not foolproof and heating it directly, which may have happened with the pans, seems to make it a little more so—but worth a look.) I'd think the plating wouldn't be very thick, so if it's mild steel plated with tin, the plating may have worn through in places and you''ll see signs of rust, since mild steel, unlike stainless, rusts of course.

 

[torc]

This dealer certainly suggests not eating from them,
http://onlinemilitaria.com/shopexd.asp?id=1959&bc=no
http://onlinemilitaria.com/shopexd.asp?id=1415&bc=no
Is it something to do with the solder?
Happy trails...torc.

 

[rik_uk3]

There are some stainless steel British army mess tins around but you don't see them often.

 

[walker]

the dutch mess tins are stainless steel and are a very good tin to use last for years

 

[ged]

'Tinning' doesn't necessarily mean coated with solder. Before the widespread use of stainless steels and aluminium, a lot of cooking utensils were coated with pure tin, not with solder.

If you have access to a temperature-controlled soldering iron it's easy to tell if it's solder or tin on the utensil. Typical 60/40 tin/lead solder melts at about 188 degrees Celsius, tin melts at 232 degrees.
A soldering iron set to 200 degrees will melt most soft solders but won't be able to melt pure tin.

 

[WeThePeoplexfbm]

why not a US mess tin? i use them all the time.... so far havent died XD


---
Skipp

 

[MikeLA]

All good advice.
A lot of people prefer ali for cooking. Ali if bent can easily be bent back into shape. I myself prefer the regular square shape of a mess tin

 

[sdf234]

The US mess kit is okay (although limiting), but I like the British setup better. It has higher walls which means you can boil more. That also means that you can store more items in it (I like how it can be used as storage tin). It also has two tins, which the larger one can double as a lid for the smaller one. Whereas, the US mess kit is basically just two plates- one of which has a big divider in it further limiting its usefulness. I think the US mess kit was created and issued more for the purpose of receiving food on it from the field kitchen as opposed to actually cooking/boiling etc with it.