Search long enough and someone claims home kalai works fine. The videos are real; the full story isn't shown.
What professional lining needs:
Tin melts around 230 degrees Celsius, achievable on stoves technically. But successful lining needs controlled heating across the entire surface simultaneously, flux chemistry applied at exact moments, molten tin wiped and distributed evenly before solidifying, and ventilation handling fumes safely.
That combination lives in workshops with practice, tools and repetition. It doesn't live in kitchens between Tuesday's dal and Wednesday's rice.
What home attempts actually produce:
Pooled tin gathering thick at centres, thin-to-absent at walls: protection exactly inverted from useful.
Flux residues left etching surfaces underneath.
Wrinkled, lumpy linings trapping food particles in every fold.
Occasionally worse: overheated brass losing temper, warped bodies, or tin smoke filling homes, an indoor-air problem nobody signed up for.
Cost comparison honesty:
Professional re-tinning costs modestly relative to vessel value and lasts years. Home attempts cost materials plus risk plus likely eventual professional redo anyway.
What owners can legitimately do themselves:
Inspect lining honestly (that's free and valuable).
Maintain what exists through proper washing habits.
Extend lining life via wooden and silicone tools over metal scraping.
Find and build relationship with a local thinsmith before urgency strikes. The search guide exists precisely because this skill concentrates in older neighbourhoods.
The pattern repeats across crafts: watching experts makes everything look achievable until materials cost money. Some jobs belong to benches. This is one.
Workshop tinning station with torch and tin ingots beside kitchen stove contrast.