Talk:Tin pest

Regarding Napoleon's buttons
'''The tin buttons his troops wore on their uniforms allegedly fell to pieces in the cold. An invasion force of 600,000 returned as only 22,000 men.''' ... this sounds like the buttons' decomposition caused people to die - this is very vague. This sections needs references cited. --Abdull 11:57, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Rewrote the paragraph in question to include a counterpoint. The story is told once again in a recent and apparently much read popular science book, Napoleon's buttons. This myth seems in desperate need of being traced to its source and debunked (in the full sense of ridding it of bunk). Many of the soldiers lived to tell the tale, so did they? Surely, metal buttons mysteriously crumbling en masse would have been a noteworthy detail which should occur in contemporary reports. A Russian observer describing the retreating French as a ragged bunch is hardly enough. --Rallette 08:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Buttons of this era would have been of bone for enlisted, and brass for officers—not tin as the myth would have us believe—and I've included my citable source. Unrelated to Napoleon, tin solder failing due to extreme cold has been noted as a leading factor in explorer deaths (liquid fuel cans).
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 21:52, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Possible copy vio
Today's first edit (02:43 26 Sep 2008) adds 18 lines copied too directly from the reference added (although not cited in-line in the section added). This could constitute a copyright violation and needs to be rewritten.

In fact some of the information is already in the article. The rest is interesting and can certainly be added, but it has to be done in an encyclopedic style - select the most important points which are not already in the article, paraphrase, rearrange. Also remove phrases such as "I believe", and explain where the photo is to be found. Dirac66 (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC) Revised Dirac66 (talk) 15:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Scott expedition to Antarctica
I have heard this story elsewhere, about the loss of fuel brought about by crumbling solder, but could find no mention of it in Apsley Cherry-Garrard's book. What is its provenance? Moletrouser (talk) 21:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * May I suggest John Emsley's book, Nature's Building Blocks: an A-Z Guide to the Elements, published by Oxford University Press.
 * Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 21:57, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Merge from White tin stub
The information contained in the stub article, White tin, is easily found within the Tin article. I therefore suggest that the stub article be merged into the Tin pest article (some of the information is already contained therein). The White tin stub article is redundant. Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 22:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose I think that would be misleading. Grey tin, not white, is tin pest. If you want to merge something, then it would make more sense to merge white tin into tin. DuncanHill (talk) 01:24, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Closing, given the uncontested objection and no support. Klbrain (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2021 (UTC)