Experiment 11: Ultra-Dangerous Mossy Lead/Tin Alloy

I had some 60/40 tin/lead solder that I decided to experiment on, so I first melted it into a nice blob.  Pretty, hefty, and solid, but not super-exciting.  So, I decided to try pouring the molten alloy into water, to see what would happen and to hopefully make nice granular pellets for science experiments.  For those of you who don't know, "mossy" metal is what you get when you pour metal into water, so it makes really shiny oddly-shaped blobs.  I poured a coffee bean can full of water and then melted my solder in a tin can with a propane torch.  It melts quite easily.  Then, I poured it into the water, trying to pour slowly and make the solder fall in little blobs.  It worked pretty well:
As you can see, I got some really shiny mossy solder.  I also got three weird "fuzzy" spheres of alloy, which brings me to an extremely important point: this is dangerous.  I hypothesize that the fuzzy spheres are caused by a fairly large amount of molten (read: hot) tin/lead alloy exploding itself inside out while under water, kind of like popcorn.  They are really quite thoroughly exploded.  If this molten tin/lead mixture exploded onto your skin, eyes, or other important body parts, I can predict that you would not be happy.  I was wearing splash goggles and full winter clothing, but leather gloves and a face shield would have been even better.  Have fun, and be safe!