Melting point of tin is 232°C, and lead melts at 327°C, well below the temperature at which they start to glow at all (~600°C)
You just need to keep the colors in context of iron, and also explain what that means for melting softer metals. Red-hot iron (such as a stove) is not as hot as a white-hot iron. I think that's pretty universal.
- Base 5 Heat an object enough to make it glow red-hot if it is made of iron (which is enough to melt lead, zinc and tin).
- Base 10 Heat an object enough to make it white-hot if it is made of iron (which is enough to melt silver and gold).
And perhaps add a new base to complete the progression:
- Base 15 Heat an object enough to melt iron or rock.
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There are many different types of iron, depending on purity and what elements are there.
Cast iron will start to melt before it becomes white-hot.
Wrought iron on the other hand will become white-hot shortly before it melts.
There are lots, and lots, and lots of different types of rock, with quite varying melting points. Some rocks melt at temperatures as low as 600°C - which is about the point at which metals start glowing red-hot.
That is all true, but this is a game system. It does not need to be perfect, nor perfectly accurate. Let's all remember that these are guidelines.
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Those are two completely separate usages of "warm" and "cool" to describe colors.
Red and orange - like a fire - are called "warm" colors, while white and pale blue - like snow and ice - are called "cold" colors.
Which is just the opposite of the colors you get from blackbody radiation at cool vs warm temperatures.
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There does seem to be an enchanted item that uses the "red-hot" guideline: Magical Oven in Covenants p51, which would need errata.
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I know. That's the point. The point is that people thing of color and temperature in very, very different ways. So assuming everyone will read color and temperature as black-body radiation is inviting mistakes.
Edit: Do note that when I talk about light bulbs, people are commonly talking about the color from the black-body radiation of heated tungsten when they term it "warm" v. "cool." So people really do refer to hot metals colors with this terminology.
The only colour-hots that I think are common are red-hot and white-hot, and white-hot is hotter. (Google agrees with me, so this is general usage.)
So, what about the following pair:
Level 5: Heat something to be red-hot. This is hot enough to melt tin or lead.
Level 10: Heat something to be white-hot. This is hot enough to melt almost all metals, and many rocks.
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That's the level of clarification and simplification I appreciate: close enough to reality, yet easy to understand for - hopefully - most people.
By the way, for Level 5, I would add (just in case). "This is hot enough to melt tin or lead and to forge iron."
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Yes, that's good. With the added bits about what it's hot enough to melt, misunderstanding about temperatures based on light will be avoided.
This is not at all hypothetical.
I have been super confused about how to apply the CrIg guideline for a spell that bakes pottery.
I like that it is being reworked.
If you could add something about what the relevant temperature for baking pottery is, I would be even happier.
e.g. if red hot is enough, then something like
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My group actually listed temps for the Bases, since we found it easier to work with. The temps are the max, so if you want something higher than that and below the max of the next Mag you use the higher Mag.
Base 2: 85 F, this is at the bottom of the range where people begin going from warm to hot feeling
Base 3: 140 F, this is the temp that most people can touch for a few seconds without actually burning
Base 4: Boil water, so at least 212 F but we use a higher 300 F so it can be use for some cooking
Base 5: Red Hot so 900 F, most cooking uses this Mag (though at lower temp)
Base 10: Melt lead so 621 F which is too low and iron melts at 2,800 F to high, so we use 1,800 F
Base 15: 3200 F (Lead Boils), we use this in our variable temp forge so we can smelt any metals
EDIT: This is my groups numbers, not suggestions for an edit to the rules. Base 10 hot enough to make steel white hot would be 2,400 F and seems like a better number. Forging is done 2,000~2,500 F. Base 5 around 900 F would make it right for tempering.
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For reference, there is one spell (Last Flight of the Phoenix) which does +40 damage within four paces, which is hot enough to melt steel, and +20 damage between four and six paces. This spell uses base 35 with a size modifier. I've taken that to mean that melting steel is pretty high end in terms of Creo Ignem effect, but I'm open to new guidelines that make sense. 
It is as far as I know the only published effect melting high end metals.
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You cannot really go right between +Damage and how hot because when using +Damage you don't use immersion rules. For example, molten iron is +12 while boiling oil is +6 and boiling water is +3, each multiplied by 1, 2, 3, or 4. So a CrIg spell doing +12 damage be as hot as what? It could be the equivalent to molten iron on a small part of someone's body, boiling oil over a larger section (x2) of their body, or boiling water over their entire (x4) body.
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I looked it up online, and it seems that both red-hot and white-hot are appropriate, depending on the type of pottery. That's too complex for spell guidelines.
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Looking through Realms of Power: Faerie, I've noticed that the Enchantment/Grant rite A Proper Blessing (pg. 127) violates the requirements of D: Hidden, which requires that a significant portion of the caster or target be kept hidden. The rite instead requires that a stone given by the caster be kept hidden, and used to perform a ceremonial charm. Maybe it should have a special duration, since it also requires the target to invoke the charm like a Charmed Virtue?
I'm inclined to read that as commentary clarifying how the Duration can be used. The target isn't allowed to hide the stone by burying it someone — they have to carry it with them. In this case, the Duration and rite were written by the same person, after all.
I am late to this party, but wouldn't it be simpler to remove the glowing guideline? Does it serve a purpose?
Aside from that, objects in general don't really have a glowing temperature. Specific objects do, and listing all of those brings me back to my question of purpose.
On Covenants pg. 102, the examples for the number of objects needed to make a Quality 6 collection of realia seems off by one. The formula seems to be 2^(n-1) for the first three examples (1, 2, 4, etc.), but that would make quality 6 consist of 32 items, not 64.
(Accidentally did this as a reply to a specific post earlier).
Edit: Callen pointed out that this was already errataed, didn't see it in my search earlier.
So may as well bring this up;
Criamon initiation on the Path of Strife, The Avenue that Splinters and the Station of Blood and Bronze
Originally it used to say you would quadruple your meditation weapon's usual Attack Bonus. While the Attack modifier of a weapon is never explicitly named as such, the Core Book did have instances of using "Defense Bonus" or "Damage Bonus" when talking about a weapon or shield. Plus, given the talk of meditation weapon a sentence earlier, it should have been fairly clear what it was referring to.
But the more recent errata changed this so that this initiation quadruples your entire attack total which makes the whole thing ridiculous. Was this wording intentional or did they mean to change it to "Attack Modifier" to clear things up but somehow ended up with the whole total?