------------------------------------------------------------------ This is just one of some 80 files about machining and metalworking and useful workshop subjects that can be read at: http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ Here find many users' tips on soldering. Soldering skills are very useful in the home workshop in many ways. The electrical joining of wires and components by soldering is a common use, but only scratches the surface of soldering's potential. A few other applications include: - joining sheet metal as in making metal trays for the workshop; - soft and hard (silver) soldering according to the need of the metal parts; - joining small parts together when the whole could not have been machined on a small metal lathe or milling machine; - joining machined smaller parts together for a complex shape when no casting was available. And for more information on torches that can be used for soldering and brazing and heat treating metals, also read the file here called "Heat Treating". Lots of good tips there. If you got to this file directly from my HOME PAGE, return there by using your browser's back button. BUT if you came to this file as the result of a web search engine, see many additional files on my home page Machining and Metalworking at Home http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html SAFETY WARNING BEWARE: DO NOT ASSUME that any subject matter or procedure or process is safe or correct or appropriate just because it was mentioned in a news/user group or was included in these files or on this site or on any other web site or was published in a magazine or book or video. Working with metals and machinery and chemicals and electrical equipment is inherently dangerous. Wear safety devices and clothing as appropriate. Remove watches, rings, and jewellery -- and secure or remove loose clothing -- before operating any machine. Read, understand and follow the latest operating procedures and safety instructions provided by the manufacturer of your machine or tool or product. If you do not have those most recent official instructions, acquire a copy through the manufacturer before operating or using their product. Where the company no longer exists, use the appropriate news or user group to locate an official copy. Be careful -- original instructions may not meet current safety standards. Updated safety information and operating instructions may also be available through a local club, a local professional in the trade, a local business, or an appropriate government agency. In every case, use your common sense before beginning or taking the next step; and do not proceed if you have any questions or doubts about any procedure, or the safety of any procedure. Follow all laws and codes, and employ certified or licenced professionals as required by those laws or codes. Hazardous tasks beyond your competence or expertise should also be contracted to professionals. Let's be really careful out there. (c) Copyright 2003 - 2014 Machining and Metalworking at Home The form of the collected work in this text file (including editing, additions, and notes) is copyrighted and this file is not to be reproduced by any means, including electronic, without written permission except for strictly personal use. =========================================================================== Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 08:12:34 -0800 From: "David Goodfellow" Subject: Re: Re: Steam Engine > Quick question: What did you use to solder the intake tubes to the > aluminum backing plate? Hi Dean: I used a low-temperature solder/flux mix that comes in a tube. Forget its name. It's a specific for aluminum to other metals such as brass, etc. It's in the Micro-Mark catalog. As to self-starting a single-acting wobbler, I think you're right. Others have commented similarly, and have told me why, in this morning's messages to the list. Have to study those. Dave Goodfellow ------- Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 03:55:56 -0400 From: Pavel Korensky Subject: Re: Re: First project with my new rotary table Hmmm, do you remember when I mentioned you (in the e-mail) that I am doing the inlayed titanium ring for my girlfriend ? Since this time, I made couple of similar rings with radial, axial and angular inlays from various kinds of gold for my friends (and girlfriends of my friends) and I never used anything you mentioned above. All inlays are OK, rock solid and everything what I used was a cutting tool, small endmills, small hammer and pliers. And of course the Sherline mill and lathe ;-) Although I am not professional, IMHO the inlays are not rocket science. Just watch the tolerances, use eyes and hands. If all else fails (especially with radial inlays made from hard gold), use soldering iron - the normal material which is used for soldering electronic components is OK. The gold will colour the Sn-Pb solder and after cleaning, you will not be able to see the connection. Best regards PavelK ------- Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 17:13:09 -0700 From: "Keith Yundt" Subject: sticky situation unstuck! [NOTE: had gotten soft solder in the teeth of a gear and was looking for ways to remove same: Soft solder: heat and use copper wicking, or desoldering bulb or wipe with cloth or blast with compressed air. Some solder colour might remain but will do no harm. For hard silver solder - the real stuff - it may be impossible to remove except by mechanical means such as filing or re-milling.] Just to let everyone know as a follow-up to my silver solder problem, I just finished heating up the gear (had to get it pretty much dull red), and blowing off the solder with air pressure. Worked perfectly, just needs a little polish and I'm ready for a re-match! Thanks to everyone who offered solutions; yet again I have learned some valuable lessons from you all! Keith ------- Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 23:45:16 -0700 From: "YK Chan" Subject: Re: Digest Number 405 There are good and bad quality solder wick. Higher number (qty) of strands per unit cross-section area is higher quality. High quality wicks more and wicks fast, it does not leave any more excess solder behind except metal alloy. Those are not normally stock at Radio Shack. Some research in its sourcing is necessary. An alternative is to mount it on an good fit arbor of 0.125" shank and spin it on a dremel. "Brush" it with flame off a plumber torch. (Wear eye protection and keep kids away.) Try not to over heat it or run heat down the shank. Hope that helps. YK ------- Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 08:45:00 +1200 From: "Richard T. Perry" Subject: OT ( a little): Propane torch? Can anyone out there point me in the right direction for something? I know this doesn't have anything to do with Sherline equipment, but metalworking is metalworking, I guess.... I'm looking for a propane torch, but not the standard "Benz-o-matic" screw-it-on-the-top-of-the-cylinder model. I'm looking for something I saw in a video, once (it was the Rudy K video on "Building a Sterling Cycle Engine") - it's a torch head that looks much like a oxy welding rig - a head with a valve, and a hose down to a large cylinder on the floor. I need to do some fairly precise silver-soldering work (clockmaking), and the "top-of-the-cylinder" rig I've got just isn't cutting it (plus, getting those little cylinders is a problem for me out here in the Central Pacific, but the big propane bottles isn't - BBQ's are a full- time deal out here!) Regards, Richard T. Perry ------- Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 14:07:27 -0700 From: "Wm. Dubin" Subject: Re: OT ( a little): Propane torch? Richard: You might want to look at what's called "The Little Torch". It's used by jewelers. I use mine with Oxy/propane, and it gets far hotter than the Benz-o-matic. There is also a special 'tip' for melting metals in a flask for casting. I've used this tip on mine to do major silver solder jobs. Rio Grande carries a full line of these, other small torches, and everything you'll need for them. They have a web-site. Hope this helps. Wm. ------- Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 17:39:46 -0400 From: RichD Subject: Re: OT ( a little): Propane torch? The Turbo-Torch line has all what you are looking for and is Propane. Maximum heat from propane - blasts the "Bernz-o-matic" out of the water! Silver soldering and light steel forging are no problem. RichD ------- Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 16:43:42 -0500 From: Dennis Cranston Subject: RE: OT ( a little): Propane torch? A little larger is a Sievert torch. Sulpher Springs carries them. http://www.sssmodels.com/ Click on machine tools. They have many heads and attachments. Not cheap but good. You may check with some suppliers in the UK or in Austrialia as it is a brand carried world wide. Dennis Cranston ------- Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 22:30:43 -0000 From: "n2562001" Subject: Re: OT ( a little): Propane torch? Richard, if you are trying to do small precise joints where you need to control the flow area there is no substitute for the mini oxygen- acetylene torches by Smith or Victor. I am making the assumption that you are using the 1200-1300 degree silver solder. The torches and tanks would be around $300.00 but you would never regret it. They can be purchased at any welding shop and they may know someone in the area that has a set that would be willing to Demo it. Jerry Kieffer ------- Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 19:13:57 -0400 From: RichD Subject: Re: Easyflo Solders Alan Marconett KM6VV wrote: > Hi Rich, Tom, > I use the Turbo Torch as well. With a little 2 Lb bottle. I do silver > brazing with it, using a white "Ultra Flux". What's the black? > Alan KM6VV > RichD wrote: >>Tom, I use the silver alloy soft solders as well. They have their place. >>If it's not to large, welding suppliers usually sell 1/16" dia 45% SS >>in coils. I pound it down to small thicknesses or chips as needed >>and place in the joint prior to heating. Also, the "Black Flux" is well >>worth getting. Much better than the white stuff. I may as well add, >>the Turbo Torch (swirl mixing) will almost equal small acetylene >>torches without the expense and higher scale/crud formation. RichD Alan: J.W. Harris p/n 40051 Stay-Silv Black Flux. There may be other brands now. This flux absorbs more oxides and lasts longer than the white. Great for extended heating periods that modelers may have do to fiddling about trying to "get it perfect". Works very well, especially for joining steel. Except for the color it is used the same way. I find it at the welding trade stores. RichD ------- Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 14:25:49 -0400 From: RichD Subject: Re: Turbo Torch/silver soldering George: Look at this pdf file: http://www.thermadyne.com/tt/literature/HandTorches.asp?div=tt I use the STK-9 kit with the ST-3 tip. It's hard to see in the pictures of the bubble pack cards. I also use the ST-3 tip attached directly to the bernz-o-matic valve for max output (use a self made adapter). The gas is fully mixed with air before leaving the tip chamber and is already burning. VERY HOT! With this outfit screwed to a 14 oz propane canister I can forge 1/4 steel bar at red heat or silver solder dainty brass fittings with no problem over heating. Propane has the additional benefit that it does not introduce carbon or excess oxygen theyby making the cleanest joints possible. There are many other versions of this torch head using Mapp, Air/Acet, etc. http://www.thermadyne.com/ Sellers are welding and HVAC trade stores, hardware and home centers. The best selection willl be the trade store. RichD ------- Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 14:37:11 -0000 From: "askme" Subject: Re: Multiple layers of different metals, how to bond correctly? In sherlinex~xxyahoogroups.com, catboat wrote: > problem. You could not use solder on the stainless or aluminum so Incorrect. Aluminum can be soldered to aluminum with special solders, it just doesn't solder to anything else. Stainless can also be "hard" soldered with high silver content solders but you do run into the expansion rate problem with dissimilar metals and the heat is high enough that brass may start to liquify. Martensic stainless alloys solder easier and better than austenitic alloys. The following will work for all but the aluminum: You could also solder everything he mentions at a lower heat than the high silver content solder needs with indium solder and its special flux. The drawback is cost, indium solder runs about $1000/pound depending on the spot price for platinum group metals and the flux is about $200 per bottle. Of course it is only available from a few places and only sold in one pound rolls. TIX solder would probably work as well, still expensive compared to Sn/Pb solders and low heat silver bearing types but it should work for what he wants. If it was me, I'd abrade each surface of the parts on 600 grit paper while wearing nitrile gloves and then place them in isopropyl alcohol. One piece at a time I'd "tin" the parts with TIX and clean the flux. when each piece was tinned I'd apply a thin wipe of fresh flux to all sides and bind the bundle very tightly with iron wire. When I'm sure everything's right, then I'd place the bundle in a chunk of clean steel U channel just bigger than the part and at least 1/4" thick, then evenly heat the U channel with an acetylene torch until the solder on the work piece flowed. Nice even heating without direct flame contact. Just get it out of the U channel and ontop a firebrick or some similar heat resistant material before the solder sticks to the U channel. Clean the flux, remove the iron wire and you're good to go. BTW-what he's wanting to do is very similar to a japanese jewelry technique called mokume gama. ------- Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2003 21:19:32 -0000 From: "Ron Smith" Subject: Re: Multiple layers of different metals, how to bond correctly? TIX is a brand of solder for dissimilar metals and hard to solder alloys. Indium, iridium, rhodium, palladium and platimun are all platinum group metals...... ------- Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 23:10:42 EDT From: catboat15x~xxaol.com Subject: Re: Multiple layers of different metals, how to bond correctly? > solder on the stainless or aluminum I was speaking in general terms. I use ordinary lead/tin solder on aluminum. The trick I learned someplace was to load up a Dremil grinder wheel with solder (Just run the wheel against some wire solder till it becomes loaded). Then use that wheel to grind on the aluminum where you want to solder. Then you can go ahead and solder brass or copper to aluminum. The reason it works is that aluminum forms an oxide almost instantly when exposed to air and most flux will not cut the oxide. But a grinding disk or wheel cuts the oxide and the heat melts the solder so you have a tinned place to solder to. John LBSC Virginia LBSC Tich ------- Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 11:18:58 -0500 From: "Carl Corbeau" Subject: Re: hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel Original Message ---From: silverwaterh To: sherlinex~xxyahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2003 4:32 AM Subject: [sherline] hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel >>> I recently purchased a butane microflame locally (in Israel), for simple hard soldering of brass and steel (dissimilar metals). I'm making simple pneumatic engines for educational purposes with my Sherline lathe and mill. The butane tourch advertises up to 1300 C (2372 F) heat. I also bought two silversolder rods, one 20% and one 30%. The rods are 1.5 mm dia (0.06 inch dia) and has the flux caked on. I have had very little success with the hard soldering. I am trying to hard solder a 4 mm dia (.157 inch) soft steel rod into a 4 mm dia hole drilled out of brass 6 mm deep. (For a picture of the part, see: the crank shaft for a "simease engine" http://www.good- fellow.net/twins.html by Dave Goodfellow). The fit is a tad bit larger than a sliding fit...I would estimate 0.05 mm (0.002 inch). Here are the problems: 1. I see that the silver rod does not melt, even after heating the brass and steel rod (as much as 3-5 minutes). 2. On a similair test part, the joint did seem to be held strongly in place (it passed my moderate destructive vise grip twist test), despite that no visible silver solder went into the joint. Did some microscopic capillary action occur?. I did not heat the silversolder... I heated the joint. In another separate experiment I did heat the silver solder and it did bead into a sphere (ball)... after about 30 seconds... (then I cut off that piece since I probably burned off some of the different metals changing the composition and/or melting point). What I think the solution is... 1. use a smaller diameter silver solder rod with a much lower melting temperature. 2. use a separate flux. Where could I purchase this? Am I in the right direction? Any hints for hard soldering the above project? Thanks in advance for your time and effort in reading and answering. Howard Silverwater silverwaterx~xxbezeqint.net <<< Howard, Yes you can buy paste flux separately. What I would try, is........ make a silver solder paste ... mix finely divided solder with the flux and coat your joints. You may be able to buy prepared paste in your area...if not ,you could try filing the solder with a fine file(the finer the better). Another problem is burning the flux........so keep the flame envelope on the joint continually, this will help exclude the atmosphere. One of the nice things about the solder paste is it is protected when down in the joint. Once you have the joint tinned this way, you can add a little more solder with the wire if needed. Also make sure your joints are not too tight. Carl ------- Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1970 16:08:06 -0800 From: "Wm. Dubin" Subject: Re: hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel Howard, The microflame torches simply do not have the power to do what you want, you need a wider, and hotter flame. You can use them, if you change to soft solder. You also need to set-up a cave like enclosure built of fire bricks to contain your heat. Another thing to try, is put the parts into your oven in a light baking pan, turn the heat to full, and give it a half hour, transfer to your torch area, and apply the torch to your pre-warmed parts. I would recommend whats called "The Little Torch". Check on line, or, if you have a jewelry supply Co. near you, they would know what this is. You can use either butane & oxygen, or oxy-actelyn with this torch. The variety of tips will allow anything from the smallest flame, up to a huge burner I used to solder a 6" dia. tube, 14" long to 2 end caps, each 1/4" thick. This was done with soft solder, and afterwards I dropped it on the floor from app. 5' to see how well it would hold... it held perfectly. If you can't locate this on line, letr me know and I can supply you with some URL's for it. Hope this helps. Wm. ------- Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 02:42:46 -0000 From: "mileagemayvary" Subject: Re: hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel You must use a flux paste designed for silver soldering. Welding suppliers or plumbers supplies carry it. If you cannot get it then you can make similar by mixing powdered borax in water to a creamy paste. Use 1mm 45% silver rod without any flux in or on it. Those coated rods are only used with OA brazing setups. Apply the flux to the joint. Areas where you do not want the solder to go, wipe off the flux. Solder will only flow to areas where there is flux which prevents oxidation. Heat the joint until the white paste goes clear (looks like a layer of water). Give it about 5 seconds more heat. Apply the rod to the joint with just a little of the flame hitting the rod. You will see a lovely shiny silver flow. Apply enough heat so solder wicks into the joint. DO NOT OVERHEAT. This causes the flux to burn to carbon and produces a lousy join. A Mapp gas torch (2500C)is best. The torch you have with that small area may be just doable. Generally 45% silver solder goes liquid state at about 700C IIRC. ------- Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 23:44:41 EST From: catboat15x~xxaol.com Subject: Re: hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel With your small torch, you may reach melting point of the solder but the part being soldered takes the heat away before the joint is soldered. It is not just temperature, but heat supplied that does the job. Look at it this way, a burning match is wood and a fire in the fireplace is wood. The match may burn your finger, but the fireplace warms all of you. I would get a larger torch, one of those where the tank is about 3 or 4 inches diameter and the head is maybe 3/4 inch. Next mate your parts and hold them together in some way. Heat the parts, not the solder (most important) Heat the parts with them laying on a brick or some surface that can take the heat and not conduct it away from your metal. Then when the metal shows a good red heat touch the solder stick to the joint. If your rod is flexible try forming a ring to fit around the rod part, then heat from the side away from the solder and when the proper heat is reached you will see the solder flash into a thin ring around where you are heating. Remember solder follows the heat. Your statement that the solder turns to balls indicate not enough heat and/or the parts are not clean enough for the solder to flow. If some of Kozo Heroka's books on locomotive building are avalable where you are (copies of Live Steam magazine) he has a lot of good info about silver soldering various parts together. This includes how to prepare the work, applying the solder (he often uses short bits of wire solder) setting the clearance for the joint (about .003 inches usually) and where to heat with the torch. When a substance changes phase from solid to liquid it absorbs a certain amount of heat just as you can't melt an ice cube with our afore mentioned match, you need a certain amount of BTUs or Calories at the melting temperature to do the job. Good luck. John ------- Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 01:31:29 -0700 From: "Larry Teague" Subject: Re: Digest Number 1348 Howard, I believe you have several issues you need to address. Your microtorch produces a high temperature but not enough heat to get the joint to brazing temperature. Flux serves several important purposes. A. It protects the joint materials during heating B. It cleans oxides from the materials being brazed C. Promotes the flow of the brazing material D. Serves as a temperature indicator. A rod with a flux coating can't fulfil A and probably does a poor job at B and C. It may do D pretty well, but you would need to heat the rod. You can buy two basic types of flux. One is referred to as LTF or low temperature flux. And surprise, the other is HTF or high temperature flux. LTF generally melt at about 550 C and HTF at around 850 C. Assuming you are using Cadmium free rod, your 20% rod will need an HTF. Your 30% rod might work with an LTF. You can probably buy fluxes at either a welding supply dealer or at a jewelry supplier. Heat the joint until the flux melts. Apply a small amount of silver to the joint. The silver will flash into the joint if the joint is hot enough and was fluxed properly. When I heat a joint I apply heat primarily to the heaviest part. I'm not a professional welder (brazier?) but this works for me. Your mileage may vary. Larry Teague ------- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 01:48:41 EST From: catboat15x~xxaol.com Subject: Re: Re: hard soldering (silver solder) brass and steel > I would take one or the other piece and re-do it so you have an > interference fit. Not for silver solder. You need about .003 clearance so the solder will be drawn into the joint by capillary action. ------- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 19:34:18 -0500 From: "Jim Kirk" To: ffmlx~xxairage.com Subject: soldering piano wire trying to solder piano wire to piano wire... torch doesn't work, solder beads and dribbles.... I want to make solder flow on the joining wires and bond. what solder will work? do I need paste? TIA Jim Kirk ------- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 19:54:50 -0500 From: wombat To: ffmlx~xxairage.com Subject: soldering Probably need acid core, Jim, rosin flux isn't very aggressive. Also, you might try wrapping the joint with a few turns of bare copper wire, you can get that from something like speaker wire. Also, I think a good soldering iron (copper) would be better than the torch unless you can use a reducing (NOT oxidizing) flame. wombat ------- Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:02:30 +1100 From: "Danny Maslowicz" To: Subject: Re: [FFML] soldering piano wire >trying to solder piano wire to piano wire... torch doesn't work, solder beads and dribbles.... I want to make solder flow on the joining wires and bond. what solder will work? do I need paste? < Hi Jim et al. To solder piano wire the following works for me. 1. Clean the wire throughly and scuff with some dry, wet & dry, paper at the join area. 2. Bind the join with soft copper wire (fusewire in the old days, still available here). Solder alone ain't got much strength. Jig the job such that it can't move around. 3. Use a hard (plumbers/tinman's solder), save the resin cored stuff for the electrical work it's designed for. Check trademan's suppliers. 4. Obtain some active flux, if you found the solder they should should stock the appropriate stuff. "Baker's Fluid" is common here in Oz. 5. Use a big enough iron/torch for the job. You want the heat of the job to melt the solder, not the flame itself. I prefer my ancient 80W electric iron with a 3/8" bit as it can deliver heat to the job quickly. Some of the little handheld propane irons with a copper bit work ok. 5. Brush some flux onto the joint, tin the iron with solder, dip quickly into the flux and apply bit to the job alongwith the solder stick. Hopefully the solder will flow/wick into the join. This is a good sign. The result you should be able to see all the bindings, any more solder than this is cargo. 6. Inspect the joint, if all is well clean it with water and a toothbrush and coat with a smear of oil. The flux is corrosive and will rust the wire quickly if excess is not neautralised. 7. Go fly the model. Cu later * Danny M * ------- Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:17:46 -0000 From: "Graham Knight" To: Subject: Re: [FFML] soldering piano wire The high temperature needed to silver solder softens the piano wire, it will bend easily at the joint. Soft solder is quite adequate if the joint is bound with copper wire then soldered, but the piano wire must be cleaned first with sandpaper or wire wool, and a seperate flux should be used. The joint should be scrubbed with hot soapy water afterwards to neutralise any remaining flux which will corrode the wire. Graham in Shepperton, England S.A.M. Zero, 35 & 1066 Raynes Park MAC Secretary http://website.lineone.net/~raynes.pk.mac/ ------- Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 04:03:40 -0500 From: DaMo123x~xxworldnet.att.net To: ffmlx~xxairage.com Subject: Re: [FFML] soldering piano wire Graham Knight wrote: > The high temperature needed to silver solder softens the piano wire, Graham, there's a relatively high strength silver bearing solder available in the USA which has 3% to 5% silver, the remainder being tin. It melts at 430 to 470 degrees F depending on the amount of silver present. I think this is the "silver solder" which is being referenced by Marty. I believe you are thinking of silver brazing, which needs a temperature of 1100 degrees or higher. Easyflo used to be one of the UK brand names of the "solder". The dull red heat needed for silver brazing will certainly soften the wire. I don't believe that the heat required to melt the tin/silver alloy will soften the wire appreciably more than that needed for conventional tin lead solder. Tin/silver is stronger than tin/lead, and the difference in cost here is small for the quantities used in model airplanes. Pete Money Paraippany, NJ ------- Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:44:02 -0000 From: "Graham Knight" To: Subject: Re: [FFML] soldering piano wire You're right Pete, different terms for different countries! I think most people here here call it silver soldering rather than silver brazing, brazing being a similar process but using brass of course. I've used the tin/silver soft solder myself but found it brittle without the addition of copper wire binding, but if you bind it then ordinary tin/lead soft solder is quite adequate and easier to use! I thought I was being clever a few years ago using silver solder/braze to make undercarriages, until on the first landing the axles bent backwards! I also tried binding the joints with a thin sheet copper or brass strip, or a little triangular clip, but found it was nowhere near as strong as a wire bound joint; it was also harder to do a neat job. I have reels of tinned copper wire from RS Components for binding, it solders really easily and a reel will last a lifetime for our purposes. Graham in Shepperton, England ------- Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 17:38:01 -0000 From: "Graham Knight" To: Subject: Re: [FFML] soldering piano wire "Hank Sperzel" wrote: Yes that would work just as well. I usually paint the wire, on larger models at least, and washing with detergent ensures the wire is free of grease and any other contaminates. Graham in Shepperton, England ------- Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:46:26 -0000 From: "jerigonzacl" Subject: Silver solder [LittleEngines] Hi All: I'm having some problems soldering a boiler. Anybody know a way to seal those pinholes besides beginning all the silver solder again? Andrés ------- Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 23:14:45 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Silver solder When you say "pinholes" do you mean porosity in the solder? There are many grades of silver solder with varying percentages of silver in the alloy. Johnson Matthey UK make a number of grades; in my opinion the best is their "easy silver solder" as opposed to "easy flo", this has a higher silver content and consequently less gassing (vaporization of the alloys). Overheating can also be the cause of pinholes; ideally use no more heat than is required. It is important also to understand the difference of heat and temperature, you can have a very hot flame that is small and does not put out enough heat to bring the boiler up to soldering temp. To make a comparison, water flowing through a small bore pipe may be traveling fast (the temp) but a small volume is flowing (the heat). Through a large bore pipe it would be slower (lower temp) but a much higher volume (the heat). It is also good practice to use a hearth even with a charcoal fire to preheat the boiler, so that you can easily bring the part to be soldered up to soldering temp. Hope this helps. Frank ------- Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 18:29:02 -0500 (CDT) From: Andrés Gonzalez Subject: RE: Silver solder Frank: Thanks for your answer. You are right, the real problem is porosity. Here the only silver solder I can find is "hard silver solder" or "soft silver solder". I'm using two torches in a fire brick housing. Both torches have a medium flame, so, I have enough heat; then the problem is I´m probably overheating the solder. Now the question is: How can I repair that porosity. Andrés ------- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 06:01:08 -0400 From: "Robert Breton" Subject: Re: Silver solder Andres: What I have done in the past is use a lower melting temperature silver solder to re-solder those little pin holes and missed spots; that way there is less danger of undoing all your work that has been done. http://www.cupalloys.com/content.php has some good information on different types of silver solders. Bob ------- Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 08:36:14 -0500 (EST) From: "Gary M. Reese" Subject: RE: Silver solder What kind of flux are you using with the silver solder? I always liked that yellow liquid stuff. I didn't heat the whole piece cause it was so hard to control where the solder ran to. It never went where I wanted it to go. GaryR ------- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 00:04:57 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Silver solder Gary, I am a jeweller by trade. The #1 rule is that the solder will flow to the hottest part (unlike oil which goes away from the heat, which is one reason why a bearing seizes when it runs hot). We frequently use a solder pick, a piece of nichrome wire in a suitable holder and filed to a point; this can be used to encourage the solder to go where you want it. Experiment to get the feel, and observe the results you are getting; even a piece of piano wire will work, but builds up an oxide layer very quickly. I am not sure what you mean by "the yellow stuff" but flux from any reputable supplier should be OK. You heat the whole piece up to a temp of a hundred degrees or so below the solder mp; then using the soldering torch concentrate the heat where you want the solder to go. Again this is something you get with practice; after doing this for 46 yrs I don't even think about what I am doing, like riding a bike or driving a car. Frank ------- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 09:09:10 -0500 (EST) From: "Gary M. Reese" Subject: RE: Silver solder Frank: The oxide formation is one of the reasons I didn't use a pick. I think when you're working on a ring 3/4" dia., the whole thing is heated. In the post I was commenting on, it read like he was heating a piece much larger, up to temp of solder flow. Then again, I only worked sterling silver and brass for 20 years so I may be wrong. The yellow stuff is a fluorine based solder. Don't remember the brand name. The fumes can be nasty, but I like it better. GaryR ------- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 16:57:09 -0000 From: "buffaloman97405" Subject: Re: Silver solder Andres: Pinholes indicate, to me, that you are soldering a closed container (or surfaces not clean enough). You should probably have all your boiler fittings holes drilled before you attempt to solder on the end plates. This will allow gases to escape. If the container is completely sealed gas pressure will build up in the container and blow the solder out to form a pin hole. Soldering something like a boiler end on is not easy as Frank said. Solder flows to the heat. Most people use some kind of torch arrangement to solder with, and that puts the flame at one hot spot at a time. As you move the torch the previously heated side cools. It is better that you heat it more uniformly. Build a wall up around your boiler with fire brick to hold the heat in. In refrigeration I used a stethoscope type torch which heated both sides of a tube at a time. The torch was just air acetyline type and it worked great on tube up to two inches in diameter. For miniature glass blowing I made a similar torch but with adjustable length between the two tips so I could work on larger pieces. I don't see why something similar should not work on making a boiler. Bill -------- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:24:14 -0000 From: "jerigonzacl" Subject: Silver solder finished Hi: Thanks to all of you for your advice. All of them were useful to get finished with the soldering. There is still a pinhole and I will seal it tomorrow. Maybe I will try with some ginger just to have a good smelling steam :) I think the main problem was that I was overheating the boiler. I started using a commercial flux, then tried with borax and finished using liquid flux. The boiler has all the fitting holes already open so it was not gases escaping. I cleaned and removed all the excess of solder and get back to use only one torch, heated the boiler body instead of the caps and waited until the copper reached the necessary temperature, so, it was also a patience problem. I'm building a little vertical boiler to learn silver soldering. I read in some place that if you rub some soft pencil over some areas you will restrict the alloy flow. Flux will not remove graphite nor will an alloy bond to it; I haven't tried. I almost finished my steam ship and I think my next project will be a little loco like JANET from PPS steam engines. Someone knows where I can found plans for this? If someone wants to see my ship steaming go here: ( 1.9 MB ) http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/bc/6f7b1678/bc/Mis+documentos/Lechalasmovie4 .MPG?CC_8UYDBMD5V4lEO Thanks again, Andrés ------- Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 23:38:02 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Silver solder finished Another very good thing is to use TIPEX correction fluid, this is very good for restricting the flow of solder, I use it on brooch pins and hinges to prevent them being soldered up and useless, simply paint on to those areas you want to keep the solder away from. Frank ------- Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 16:11:42 +0100 (BST) From: Kevin Steele Subject: Re: Silver Solder / brazil The web address for Brazil, which someone mentioned recently is http://www.geocities.com/minidampf/brazil_uk/contents.html Well worth a read, even if you don't plan to build that loco. Someone also mentioned recently in a post the use of tip-ex for stopping silver solder flowing where you don't want it. This does work, but be aware that heating tip-ex gives off highly toxic fumes -- so plenty of ventilation would be a good idea (but if you're silver soldering you should have plenty of ventilation anyway). Regards Kevin ------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 01:53:41 -0000 From: "patmack_1" Subject: Learning silver soldering [LittleEngines] Have pretty well learned the trick of proper heat for proper flow. Have lots of trouble removing the flux remains -- could use advice from experts !!! ------- Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 19:20:08 -0700 From: "Tom Faragher" Subject: Re: Learning silver soldering The glassy, hard flux remains will dissolve in hot water. ------- Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:08:15 -0400 From: Subject: Re: Learning silver soldering I don't know about experts, but I use acetone most of the time. Course it depends on what flux you are using. GaryR ------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:24:36 -0000 From: "patmack_1" Subject: Flux removal Thanks for the tips. I had modest success with hot water before but I seem to develop a charred crusty stuff that sticks pretty tight. If acetone works, MEK might work also. The steel was cleaned and polished to a mirror finish so not sure what is causing the crusty residue! ------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 08:17:16 -0400 From: Subject: Re: Flux removal Yes, the MEK should work about the same as acetone. The charred crusty stuff sounds like the result of a reaction between the steel and the flux. What is it you are using for flux? GaryR ------- Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:01:02 -0700 From: "Tom Faragher" Subject: Re: Flux removal It sounds like you are burning the flux. You should try to avoid getting the flame directly on the flux if you can. I use Handy & Harman "Handy Flux" for all silver soldering and never have had a problem getting the residue off. It will get black and crusty if it gets burned by the flame but still comes off with hot water with a little more time. ------- Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 03:09:13 -0000 From: "patmack_1" Subject: Re: Flux removal Not sure the brand of Flux-I'm away from the shop. Came with the Solder at the Store. No question but that I put the flame of the torch directly on the joint where I put the flux--didn't know any better--thought that is where I wanted the heat! The flux quickly melted and seemed to disappear. What is the trick to getting it hot enough without putting the flame on the fluxed joint? I've been using a regular gas welding torch. ------- Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:30:43 -0700 From: "Alan Marconett" Subject: RE: Re: Flux removal Hi Patmack, I assume we're talking about hi-temp SILVER BRAZING (1100+ degree F stuff)? If possible, heat the BACKSIDE of the joint; it will draw the silver solder into the joint. Also saves the flux, as mentioned. Add heat until the flux appears to boil down, then add the silver solder. Do you "flux up" the joint before you apply heat? BETTER, if possible, make a pre-form of the silver solder. Flux up, then snip an appropriately sized piece of silver solder, and place it in the joint. Paint on a little additional flux to hold in place. Heat as mentioned. An acid pickle is often used on copper (and brass) to remove flux afterwards. I use quite dilute sulfuric acid (CAUTIONS HERE!), with hydrogen peroxide. Check the internet for a recipe. Alan KM6VV ------- Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:48:51 -0700 From: "Tom Faragher" Subject: Re: Re: Flux removal If the gas welding torch you are using is oxy/acetylene then you will have to be very careful about getting the flame on the flux. Try heating alternate sides of the joint, or the back of the joint if possible, and quickly move the flame across the flux area. Oxy/acetylene is extremely hot for silver soldering. Oxy/propane works much better and is much more forgiving about burning the flux. If you have a propane tank handy for your barbecue or other gas appliance, connect your acetylene regulator to the propane tank and give it a try. ------- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:40:58 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Re: Flux removal I now use oxy/propane instead of oxy/acetylene, acetylene is very expensive here. I checked with my gas supplier and they said I do not need to use a regulator with propane, just take direct from the tank; I have been using it like this for several years now with no problems. Frank. ------- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 14:35:49 -0000 From: "patmack_1" Subject: Flux Removal Thanks everyone for the many comments and tips. Clearly, I need a lot more practice, and perhaps convert to Propane. It did appear I was getting too much heat in some places and not enough in others with the torch. Next time it might help if I use the smaller 'aircraft' type torch with a smaller flame. Will get back to it when back home in about ten days. ------- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 08:06:05 -0700 From: "Tom Faragher" Subject: Re: Re: Flux removal Frank: If someone already has a gas welding set with an acetylene regulator it is simpler to use the regulator because it fits right into the propane valve. Otherwise you need to rig something to get the gas to the torch. Also for the small torches it is easier to adjust the flame if you start out with a regulated gas pressure of less than 10 psi. The fixed pressure regulators used for barbecues would work fine if the fittings could be adapted to the torch hose. Tom Faragher ------- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:44:55 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Re: Flux removal Maybe for you, our regulators do not fit our propane bottles; I am using a Micro-Flame torch for jewellery work, particularly soldering platinum at temps of 1100 to 1500 deg C mp. Frank. ------- Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2006 19:35:41 +0200 From: "Frank Hasieber" Subject: RE: Flux Removal I would recommend a larger torch/tip. You need to get more heat into the job as opposed to getting it to a higher temperature; there is a difference to the two. You can have a very high temperature flame that is very small, and cannot get the job up to the required temperature, whereas a larger and cooler flame will do the job without burning the flux excessively. Sometimes, like for soldering copper boilers (which rapidly conduct the heat away) for steam locos one will use 2 torches, one with a large bushy flame or even a charcoal hearth, to bring the entire piece close to the required temp, then a smaller torch to bring the local area to be soldered up to soldering temperature. Remember that the solder flows to the higher temperature area, which is a reason for applying the heat at the back of the joint to draw the solder through. Ideally keep the temperature as low as possible to avoid burning out some of the alloys in the silver solder and so causing an inferior joint. Frank ------- Removing Black Scale [LittleEngines] Posted by: "Ron Gerlach" r7734gx~xxhotmail.com Date: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:42 pm ((PST)) I'm looking for some advice from all the wise sages out there on removing the black scale from steel parts after brazing. I have removed the glass like flux residue in boiling water but still have to contend with the tough black scale remaining after brazing or silver brazing. A wire wheel usually does little more than turn it into polished black scale. Belt sanding works on accessible parts but there are places sometimes that you just cannot easily sand. Ron ------- Re: Removing Black Scale Posted by: "Tom Faragher" tfaraghex~xxadelphia.net Date: Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:09 pm ((PST)) Ron: What you are dealing with is iron oxide. If it is not too heavy you can remove it with a pickling solution. You can avoid forming the iron oxide if you use a neutral or carburizing flame on your brazing torch. An oxidizing flame (sharp, well defined blue point) will oxidize the surface of the steel when it is hot. Tom ------- Re: Removing Black Scale Posted by: "Brian Lindsay" brian458666x~xxgenext.net Date: Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:33 pm ((PST)) There are a number of coatings available to prevent the scale forming in the first place, and since anhydrous borax makes a great forging flux you may be able to use some regular borax (not boraxo and not soap) to take care of things. If you sprinkle some on a HOT part the water in the (hydrated) crystals will boil off and be ready to go. You said you use boiling water to remove the glassy flux from your parts; does that mean you haven't tried dropping the just-brazed part into water before it has had a chance to cool? Even a spray bottle of some sort should work, like a squeeze bottle for soap or condiments....I once tried using a pot of boiling vinegar to remove scale. Once. Only. Evidently the steel is not nearly as resistant to etching as the oxide layer. Brian ------- Re: Removing Black Scale Posted by: "Ron Gerlach" r7734gx~xxhotmail.com Date: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:53 am ((PST)) Tom/Brian: Thanks for the suggestions. I used a pickling solution consisting of diluted Muriatic acid and the parts cleaned up nicely. I followed the pickling with a light kitchen cleanser scrub and the parts look great. Muriatic acid is another name for hydrochloric acid and is commonly available for pool use. Ron ------- Re: Progress on the control arm for the Springfield shaper [Metal_Shapers] Posted by: "Jim B." btdtrfandmwx~xxcomcast.net eeengineer1 Date: Sat Jun 2, 2007 7:44 am ((PDT)) Eric wrote: > I need to silver braze a piece of a shifter fork. I've got the > supplies but have never done it. Do you have any advice on technique? Silver brazing is rather easy. 1) Clean everything. 2) Spread the flux liberally. 3) If you want to prevent solder from flowing anywhere, paint it with Milk of Magnesia 4) Heat both sides of both parts uniformly. Use a slightly reducing flame. (One with a bit of a tail). The flux will start of bubble and then turn clear and then runny. At this point the parts are just about at the correct temperature. 5) Start touching the braze rod to the area to be welded. A bit of direct heat from the torch on the rod is helpful but don't over do it or you will get a big blob that just lays there. If the parts are CI [cast iron], they will show just a bit of color. The braze flows by capillary action to the hottest parts so uniform heating is paramount. Jim B. p.s. One more point on silver brazing CI or brazing CI in general. If it's cast iron you must cool it slowly. Have a metal container of vermiculite (best) or sand ready. After the braze is finished, change over to a very reducing flame, very long tail, and take about 5 minutes to cool the part to the point where the braze is solid. Then put it in the container and cover it and let it cool for several hours. Vermiculite is expanded mica; it's used as a pour-in insulation and also used to start potted plants. It should be available at a good lumber yard (HD is unlikely) or a nursery. ------- Re: Progress on the control arm for the Springfield shaper Posted by: "David G. LeVine" dlevinex~xxspeakeasy.net Date: Sat Jun 2, 2007 9:28 pm ((PDT)) You can also use Pearlite (to 2,000º anyway) which is available at Wal*Mart David G. LeVine Nashua, NH 03060 ------- NOTE TO FILE: Some sources of vermiculite may contain significant amounts of asbestos. See: http://www.epa.gov/asbestos/ In some jurisdictions, asbestos may be present up to a low percentage and the product package can still legally carry a label of "asbestos-free". Pearlite or sand is my choice. ------- silver soldering [taigtools] Posted by: "leeharrysouth" EDAVIS93x~xxComcast.Net Date: Mon Aug 13, 2007 6:26 pm ((PDT)) Hi all: Can any one recommend an on line source of information on silver soldering. I need some basic instruction on tools, type of solder, solder paste and/or flux to use for working with brass. A long time ago, I did plenty of soldering on copper pipe for air conditioning and plumbing systems. Would the procedure for brass be about the same? Thanks, Johnny ------- Re: silver soldering Posted by: "kuhncw" kuhncwx~xxyahoo.com Date: Mon Aug 13, 2007 8:03 pm ((PDT)) Hello Johnny: A quick Google brought up a lot of hits on silver soldering. This one may be helpful. http://www.pollymodelengineering.co.uk/global/technical-notes/basic- silver-soldering.asp You might also checkout Harris and their Safety-Silv alloys. http://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/consumables/alloys.asp?id=30 In my opinion, the best info on silver soldering relative to model building is by Kozo Hiraoka and published by Village Press. These are books about building model steam locomotives from scratch. Kozo includes a short chapter on silver soldering in the books. His fabrication techniques can apply to any sort of item, not just locos. Regards, Chuck Kuhn ------- Re: silver soldering Posted by: "Chris Manning" kenricx~xxlozengy.net Date: Mon Aug 13, 2007 10:22 pm ((PDT)) Hi Johnny. What you are asking about is called hard soldering (soft soldering is the kind done for plumbing.) It is used extensively in jewellery fabrication. I do a fair bit of experimentation with brass for my jewellery projects before executing them in silver or gold. Here is what you'll need: Torch- Depending on the mass of the object you are soldering, you can use anything from a cheap propane torch for plumbing, up to an expensive jeweller's torch. For most people who aren't doing a lot of this, I recommend getting one of the Bernzomatic torches that can handle both a gas, and oxygen tank. http://www.bernzomatic.com/bernzomatic/consumer/jhtml/detail.jht ml?prodId=BernzoProd100044 You should be able to find something like that at Home Depot for $50-60. If you start doing a lot of this type of thing, then you can get into an expensive torch with larger tanks. BTW, you can use propane with this torch as well. It doesn't get quite as hot as MAPP, but it's cheaper and the extra heat won't make much difference for you. Flux- You need to use a different type of flux than what is used for plumbing work. This is a high temp flux that will help protect the material from oxidizing during soldering, as well as help the solder flow. I would recommend Handy Flux. You can order it from Rio Grande (PN-504083 8-oz Jar $7.35, 504086 1lb Jar $10.75. The 1lb Jar is worth it since you can go through a fair bit.) Buy some cheap acid swab brushes to apply the flux with. Oh and don't leave the jar open for weeks at a time. It'll dry up and it takes a while to reconstitute. Solder- For brass you will want to use silver solder (you can also get gold solder, but obviously it's a *little* more expensive.) Generally there are three types, hard, medium and easy (there are some other specialty solders but they really aren't useful to you.) The quality refers to the temperature at which it flows (the hard flows at 1450F, medium at 1360F and easy at 1325F.) It is easiest to purchase as wire. I believe Rio Grande has a minimum purchase of 1oz on silver orders so you're looking at roughly $18 for each type of solder, but that'll get you 21' of it (they may sell 1/2oz spools as well, be sure to ask.) If you are only making one solder joint on each piece, you should buy just the hard. If you need to make two or more, then you need the medium and possibly the easy as well (I'll explain further below.) PN- Hard 101704, Medium 101703, Easy 101100. Pickle- It is worthwhile purchasing pickle as well. Pickle is used for removing leftover flux, and firescale from the piece after soldering is finished. It saves you having to clean a lot of the crap off manually. You buy it as a powder, and mix it with water. It works best if heated (I use a crock pot I purchased specifically for this.) Again, Rio Grande PN 5010233 $10. I generally leave pieces in the pickle for at least 10-15mins. Don't leave the piece in over night, and don't stick ferrous metals in it (everything will become copper plated.) To get a hold of Rio Grande, call them at 800-545-6566. You'll need to setup an account, but you don't need a business. You can pay by CC over the phone. They are good people to deal with, and I have had very few problems over the years. I would recommend ordering their Tools and Equipment catalogue while you're on the phone. All sorts of handy stuff in there (they won't charge you for it if you order it with other things.) Now for the how to. First of all, hard soldering differs from soft soldering in a couple of significant ways. First is the heat. You need to get the whole piece up to the flow temperature of the solder before anything useful will happen. It is important to get the whole piece up to temperature. Hard solder flows towards the heat. If one side of the joint is hotter than the other, you won't get much solder in the joint which is where you want it. Be sure to move the torch around while you are heating the piece so that everything heats up at the same time. Don't just hold it in one place and hope for the best. When you use the Handy Flux, you'll see it turn clear and glassy at one point. Once it's done that you know you've reached roughly 1200F. Because the solder follows the heat, you can use the torch to paint the solder around where you want it to some degree. Second, you need to make sure that the pieces all fit very well together. A couple of thou is the most you want as a gap. This solder *will not* fill a gap like soft solder will. Because of the small gap, you also don't need very much. Less is more with hard solder. Two pieces of wire a 1/16th long each will fill a straight joint an inch long with little trouble. Third, make sure everything is clean. The flux will help with keeping things clean, but it helps to clean everything up before soldering. I tend to flux the entire piece. It will help keep the oxidation down (any part of the metal not protected by the flux will oxidize very quickly at temperature.) If you have more than one joint in the piece, you'll have to either solder them at the same time, or use solders with different flow temperatures. Always solder using the hard first, then medium, then easy. If you try to go in the other direction, all your earlier joints will fall apart as the solder melts. As I mentioned above, once the flux gets to 1200F, it'll stop bubbling (that's the water boiling off,) and go glassy. This is generally when I apply the solder. Take a couple of small pieces, and place them along the joint. They'll move around a little so it's often helpful to have something to poke them back into place (remember the temps involved when picking a poker...) When you're getting close to the magic temperature, the solder will melt into a little puddle. You aren't quite at flow temperature yet. Keep going with the heat, and once you get to flow temperature, you'll see the solder get sucked into the joint. I make it sound easy, and it is once you've got it down. In the mean time it'll be really frustrating and slow (while helping a friend with soldering pins on some brooches, I was able to solder a dozen in 30mins, while it took him 2.5hrs to do 4. Nothing beats experience when it comes to soldering.) Take your time with learning it. Experiment on different pieces that are similar to what you want to work with. Try to solder pieces that are similar in mass (they'll heat up at the same rate.) If you have any questions about materials or techniques, or if something doesn't make sense, either email the list, or me directly and I'll see what I can do to help you out. Chris ------- Re: silver soldering Posted by: "benedict-listx~xxhawaii.rr.com" Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:40 am ((PDT)) Some of the best sources of info I've found have been jeweler's references. Tim McCreight did a nice video that included some silver soldering. Kozo Hiraoka had a good bit on silver soldering in his book, "Building the Shay". I don't know of any online sources off-hand, though. Get some brass, grab a torch, get some solder and flux that matches it, and play. That's more or less how I learned. If you've done plumbing, your experience should stand you in good stead. Same principles apply: A good clean joint, proper choice of solder and flux, appropriate clearance (solder won't flow into a press-fit joint), and "solder flows toward heat" covers a lot of it. It's still worth checking up on other references, though. I could solder, but I couldn't solder neatly until I did some reading and some watching. I'm still a work in progress. (And oh in how many ways THAT's true...) Tom ------- Re: silver soldering Posted by: "Tony Jeffree" tonyx~xxjeffree.co.uk tonyjeffree Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:36 am ((PDT)) you wrote: >..."solder flows toward heat" or to put it another way, heat the joint, not the solder. Regards, Tony ------- Re: Silver soldering Posted by: "leeharrysouth" EDAVIS93x~xxComcast.Net Date: Tue Aug 14, 2007 5:29 pm ((PDT)) Thanks to all for your help with silver soldering. Johnny ------- NOTE TO FILE: A conversation about a project involving silver soldering or brazing or welding can be found in the file "Shaper Bits and Toolholders" starting Dec 1, 2007 and titled "Building Shaper Toolholder". It contins some interesting comparisons of the three processes. The silver solder process (which is actually a form of brazing) proved very successful in this application. ------- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:41:26 +1000 From: "John Manners" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Restoring the #51/52 - the saga is renewed! James Thompson writes: > Brazing cast iron works, but I have never been able to get silver > solder to flow on cast. What solder are you using? (metals content > of the solder.) > Would you please describe the technique used? Maybe I am using the > wrong material. Baker's fluid for C.I. (cast iron) is a good flux for soldering ordinary cast iron with plumber's solder, i.e. 30/70 tin/lead. No flow problems encountered. Needs pretty hefty cleaning by grinding or, when joining a broken part, a stiff wire brush. Traditional flux was zinc chloride ("killed spirits"?)(15 parts), sodium chloride (salt) 3 parts and ammonium chloride (common name?) (1 part). General purpose Baker's soldering fluid also seems to work O.K. Never tried (told it would not work) hard (silver) solder on ordinary cast iron but it works O.K. on malleable iron. Better to test it before undertaking a big job. There are lots of "cast irons" out there. Main trick is to get the cast iron hot enough to melt the solder and not simply to melt the solder with the blowlamp, torch or soldering iron. Heating the parts from the underside of the joint, if possible, is the way to go. Incorrect to form a bead. Properly sweated joints are quite strong if they are not to be heated much after being made. Regards from Brisbane, John Manners ------- Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:23:49 -0800 (PST) From: John Odom Subject: [OldTools] Re: Silver brazing Cast Iron The key is the flux. I use Harris Silflow flus and Harris Saftey-Silv filler metal. The liquidus temp is 1200 F. It works well, the metal must be CLEAN and HOT. John L. Odom Chemist/Microscopist ------- Silver solder [sherline] Posted by: "Ron Ginger" rongingerx~xxroadrunner.com Date: Mon Apr 7, 2008 6:29 pm ((PDT)) Please don't confuse the low temp 'silver bearing' solder with what is more properly called silver brazing or hard soldering. The low temp stuff sold in hardware stores is in no way a substitute for the hard solder. Its a 5% sliver, melts around 400F and is no better than old lead-tin solder. The only use I see for it is a temporary holding of a work piece that cannot otherwise be clamped. Hard solder is often simply called silver solder, but its a 1200F product, about 45% silver. Steel needs to be red for it to flow. Real silver solder is stronger than the base metal- 60-70K psi tensile strength. I silver solder my band saw blades for example. Carbide tips are silver soldered to steel shanks for lathe tools. NEVER even think about using that 5% solder for soldering a model boiler. It's not even close to good enough for a boiler. ron ginger ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "a3sigma" dcclark111x~xxcomcast.net Date: Tue Apr 8, 2008 7:15 am ((PDT)) Thanks Ron, and Jerry K. for your contributions to this interesting and useful subject area. To be more specific; would one or both of you, or other knowledgeable members, please take a look at http://www.mcmaster.com/ pages 3311-3313 and tell us what products you recommend for hard or soft soldering brass (alloy 360) to stainless steel feeler stock? Also 12L14 to itself and to brass. Substitute gray cast iron for the 12L14 and any machinable brass for the 360 if that would produce a better result. And hard soldering (brazing) structural extruded aluminum. TIA, DC ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "n2562001" jlkiefferx~xxcharter.net Date: Tue Apr 8, 2008 8:26 am ((PDT)) DC: Soft solder in general has been pretty well covered in the last few threads. It will work with any type of brass or steel but not stainless unless specified for that purpose. These products are readly available locally at the just about any place that carries tools. Read the instructions for specific uses. High Temp. silver solder is a slightly different animal. First I would suggest all high Temp. Silver Solder products be purchased at a local welding supply shop. This offers the advantage of IN PERSON knowledgeable recommendations for your exact needs. In many cases it will also be your least expensive option. With 1200 degree silver solder it is very important to have the proper heat source especially with small or light work pieces. Personally I have found oxygen/acetylene to be the best option without exception. I use a small Smith Mini touch for small work and a larger common typical torch for larger projects. Anything that will provide enough heat will work, however in many cases high temperature needs to be contained to a specific small area to prevent work piece damage. This is where the O/A really shines especially small pieces. I am able to rapidly heat a small or tiny area and complete the solder joint before heat can spread and damage the work piece from over heating. For larger work pieces in all types of steel and stainless I would suggest 45% silver solder. For all types of brass and small steel/stainless projects I would suggest 56% silver solder because it has a slightly lower melting point. Silver solder Flux will generally and most commonly come in white paste and black paste form. White paste is for general use and black is supposed to offer better performance/protection on small parts. This may be true however I have found that many times it will block visual observation of solder melting points and cause over heating/damage to the part. I now only use white flux on all projects large or small without problems. Like many others I have talked to, I have not truely mastered the art of Aluminum welding. I will leave that to someone else or the welding supply shop as suggested above. Jerry Kieffer ------- Re: Jerry Kieffer Photos Posted by: "rsojerry" gfeldman2904x~xxpacbell.net Date: Mon Apr 7, 2008 8:49 pm ((PDT)) I'm not the Jerry to whom you sent the message, but perhaps I can help. If you are soft soldering with tin-lead-silver solder (the 450 degree stuff), and cannot find any commercial flux, go to you druggest and see if he/she will sell you a bit of Ammonium Chloride. This is the "active ingredient" in most of the old paste fluxes. (A block of "sal amoniac" was also used in the past to clean and help tin soldering coppers. Just mix the crystals with a bit of water and put some on the joint after thoroughly cleaning (as previously mentioned by others). Make sure you clean all the flux off after soldering as it will continue to do a number on the metal. If you are hard soldering with real (high temperature) silver solder and cannot get hold of the commercial acid flux, just run down to your market and purchase a small box of sodium borate (i.e., Borax) and use it instead. Heat the work with your torch, add some crystals of borax and continue to heat until the borax melts, then apply the silver solder. Hope this helps. Jerry Feldman ------- Re: Jerry Kieffer Photos Posted by: "chieftoolmaker" chieftoolmakerx~xxearthlink.net Date: Tue Apr 8, 2008 5:24 pm ((PDT)) From yet another Jerry, Go to the nearest industrial supplier, and buy a jar of "Handy Flux", some "Easy Flo # 3", and you have it made.... Jerry G (Glickstein) P.S. For silver soldering various materials, there are other fluxes and alloys available. ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "Ron Ginger" rongingerx~xxroadrunner.com Date: Tue Apr 8, 2008 6:55 pm ((PDT)) Torches are an interesting problem. You must get the work hot enough, but you can overheat it. You can also melt most brass or bronze alloys with an O/A torch. I was once trying to solder together several parts for a carburetor with an O/A torch when I suddenly had a puddle of brass where I used to have parts. I think the real master of silver solder is Kozo Hiroaka. I have purchased all his books, even thought I don't expect to ever build one of the models. His use of fabrications instead of castings is simply brilliant. He often makes a very complicated part by making pieces that are held together with small brass screws until the solder flows. He is also a strong advocate of placing a tiny 'snipet' of solder just where you want it, then heating from the backside until the solder flows. Dabbing at the joint with a piece of solder wire is guaranteed to put to much solder on the joint. Heating the solder and dripping it onto the joint is totally useless, the base material must be hot enough to melt the solder, not the flame. He also suggests a piece of steel wire, filed to a point, used as a scratch hook to draw the solder along a joint. I think silver solder is one of the most important techniques to be learned by a model maker. ron ginger ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "n2562001" jlkiefferx~xxcharter.net Date: Wed Apr 9, 2008 8:01 am ((PDT)) Ron: For the benefit of those who may wish to learn the Art of High Temp. Silver Soldering I would like to comment further. You made a couple of very good points. First having the option to silver solder WILL be one of the most valuable options a model builder can have. Second it is NOT HOW one accomplishes the job but that you are able to accomplish a good job. Unfortunately it is one of those tasks where one must teach yourself the methods that work for each of use as an individual. My personal experiece I think is a good example since at least in part has not been the same as you have described. Again we must work with what works for use as an individual. I personally prefer the A/O torch for two reasons. First it offers a more concentrated controlled heat source than other fuels. I find this offers greater control over where I wish to have the solder flow. Second it is used to limit/eliminate any metal damage from overheating. Metal damage is controlled by selecting the proper wide range of tip sizes that are available. For example a .003" jeweled tip on a mini torch will not melt or damage much of anything. While I have used the technique of a small piece of solder on one side while heating the other, I have found it to be a very difficult process to master. One issue is that as the flux bubbles from heating it pushes the solder bit away from the seam. Also on small parts when enough heat is applied on one side to melt solder on the other, you can easily damage detail on the heated side from overheating. Personally I find it much easier to heat the parts and solder from the flame side. With the concentrated A/O torch flame I can heat until almost ready to melt the solder and then melt a drop of solder off of the stick at the edge of the flame. This small drop will then follow the hot flame until it flows in the joint under the flame. Once perfected this process allows one to silver solder detail in small concentrated areas without heating the whole part. This also offers the advantage of being able to solder more than one detail on a part without having others fall off. In many cases holding screws are just not an option. Some excessive solder in most cases when building scale model parts will be desirable. This will allow you to form "Fillets" or "Contours" in the corner of the seam duplicating the original appearance of the part or casting. The solder fillets or contours can then be shaped, sized and or removed as part or whole by Bead Blasting. Of course samples of the above process will be available for inspection by request next weekend at NAMES. Jerry Kieffer ------- Re: Brazing/soldering 101 [sherline] Posted by: "WILLARD WHEATON" wwheatonjrx~xxverizon.net Date: Tue Sep 9, 2008 4:49 pm ((PDT)) Charles Fox wrote: > Plan B . . . So I got the little butane torch and flux and solder > (rods). I fluxed (can we say that in mixed company?) the break I'm > trying to heal. I heated the thing -- it's plated metal of some sort, > kinda grainy, but I don't know anything more about it. Then I tried > to touch the solder rod to it. Small balls formed on the > surface, nothing seemed to migrate into the break. > Can you suggest modifications to my first attempt at this? Charles: If you're trying to solder on top of the chrome plating, I doubt that the solder will stick to the chrome. If the base metal is cast iron (? magnet sticks to it) then you may have old oil down in the crack. Degrease with naptha and blow dry or use a hair dryer. Depending on the width and depth of the opening, and the type of flux you are using, it may not become fluid enough to run down into the crack, prior to the solder melting temperature. There is a fairly large mass you have to get up to temperature, as the heat wants to run away from the joint, into the cooler part of the casting, thereby sucking the heat from the point where you want it to get hot. With a piece this size, you are probably going to have to get the entire casting up to solder flow temperature, and then it has a chance to penetrate into the crack, before solidifying. You are going to have to remove the chrome adjacent to the crack, with a dremel grinder or the likes, with shiny metal exposed. Absolutely no grease or rust on any surface you want the solder to wet. The solder, once hot will seek out the heat, and flow towards it. To get penetration, you have to apply the heat from the opposite side, being careful to bring up the heat gradually, to avoid additional cracking. Cast iron doesn't like rapid changes in temperature (thermal stress). In order to get any kind of strength in the joint, you have to get flow down into the crack, not just puddle over the surface. To illustrate this point, old time farmers, who wanted to braze a broken cast iron engine part, would build a wood fire around the part, and when the hot coals began to form, they would gradually rake the coals over the part, until the part got red hot. Then, while still red hot, wire brush the carbon away from the joint, and use their torch to flow the brass brazing rod. Then after brazing, the part was still hot, so they buried it in colder ashes to allow it to cool gradually. That was before they had welding shops to go to. In soldering or brazing, cleanliness is next to Godliness! Also heating from the back or side of the crack will tend to keep the flame from oxidizing the surface before reaching temperature. I don't recall if your torch is only gas, or oxy/gas combination. If you can adjust the flame, you should use more gas than oxygen (called a reducing flame) which helps keep the atmospheric oxygen from the hot metal, keeping the surface oxide-free, but if you can bring your heat to the joint from the back, your soldering surface is the last to get hot, and will oxidize the least, and the flux should be able to handle this without difficulty. Keep trying, the answer is in there, and when you find it, you will be smarter than you were yesterday. Your failures are learning experiences. The law of averages is on your side. Regards, Willard Wheaton Jr. ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair [sherline] Posted by: "yaginger" rongingerx~xxroadrunner.com Date: Sat Jan 17, 2009 5:07 pm ((PST)) "chieftoolmaker" wrote: > Dan, On Bandsaw Blade repair. > The cheapest way is to go to a local machine shop. No, I think the cheapest way is to silver solder it yourself. It takes just about 1 minute, use a very tiny piece of sliver, and just a minute's worth of propane. I bought a couple 100ft rolls of bandsaw blade at a flea market in Orange MA (home of Starrett Co) yeas ago and have made many blades from it. I cut a piece of the right length, flip it end to end and hold it with a vise grip. I grind a short bevel across the ends. Since the 2 ends are held together the angle doesn't matter, both ends will be the same. I made a jig from a piece of angle iron with a rebate along one edge to hold the blade aligned and a cut-away for the torch to reach the blade. Just slip the 2 ends together, wipe on a little flux and slip a bit of solder in the joint. Heat until it flows, let it cool, knock off the flux and put the blade back to work. I'll bet I've done a hundred joints and have not had more than a couple break. When they break I just clean it and re-solder. Of course, eventually the blade is dull, and breaks. Then it's time to trash it. ron ginger ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair Posted by: "Marcus" marcusx~xximplant-mechanix.com Date: Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:36 pm ((PST)) Hi All: I silver solder all my bandsaw blades. I bought a roll of blade stock, and just make up a new one whenever I need it. I scarf the joint about 10 to 1 and use a little home made jig to align and clamp the blade ends. A minute with the propane torch completes the job. It's not difficult at all, so long as you make the scarf joints properly. I use a beater file for everything except the hardened zone (teeth) and dress those down with a Dremel. I made a scarfing jig too, just a block with a ditch in it, and then split lengthwise for a bit so it can clamp the blade by its edges. It's made double depth: the blade can be laid one end on top of the other and staggered, so both scarves are cut at the same time...this trick makes the angles match properly. The end of the jig has the correct angle milled on it...this gets chewed up eventually by the file, so I just re-mill it from time to time to get a nice clean reference face again. Making a new blade from scrach takes me about ten minutes...more expensive at my shop rate than just buying them, but I do it so rarely that I accept the cost to gain the convenience if I break a blade on a weekend. Cheers Marcus ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair Posted by: "a3sigma" dcclark111x~xxcomcast.net Date: Sat Jan 17, 2009 8:55 pm ((PST)) Another advantage of being able to join your own bandsaw blades: you can put the blade through a hole in a part, join the ends, and then install the blade in the saw. This makes it possible to rough out a large hole in the middle of a part. Break the blade, remove the part, then re-join the blade. Hint: break an old dull blade into several pieces and practice on these before you risk wasting a good one. Another hint: if you visit a machine shop that has any large bandsaws equipped with blade welders, take a look at the floor nearby. I bet you'll see some lines marked on the floor to indicate the lengths to cut blades for welding. Our shop floor was tarred wood bricks. We drove lines of nails to mark off lengths for blades. DC David Clark in Southern Maryland ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair Posted by: "Thayer Syme" thayerx~xxgryffinaero.com Date: Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:09 pm ((PST)) >I have the equipment to silver braze, I never thought about silver >soldering (brazing) bandsaw blades! >What's a scarf joint? And 10 to 1? The overlap length? Let's say the blade was 1mm thick. A 10:1 scarf joint would be a bevel from one side of the blade to the other across 10mm. Joining two ends with such a scarf joint would result in a 10mm overlap. This page has a cross section view of a scarf joint in plywood. Note that the "unit" dimension would be the blade thickness, not the blade width as might be assumed from this image. http://www.oneoceankayaks.com/stitchglue/plyshophtm/scarfjig2.htm Thayer ------- NOTE TO FILE: A scarf joint looks like this but with shallower slant: _____ _____ _____\ \_____ ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair/supplier at NAMES Posted by: "karlw144" karlw144x~xxaol.com Date: Mon Jan 19, 2009 7:20 am ((PST)) In sherlinex~xxyahoogroups.com, Karl Peters wrote: > If I recall correctly, there was a person at the N.A.M.E.S. show two years ago selling both a similiar jig and supplies for silver soldering your own bandsaw blades. Can't remember his name or company, though. < The guy that sells the kit at NAMES is Joe Katona. I have used his product for over 5 years and never had a problem with the product (sometimes my technique was questionable). Here is a little detail about the process/ cost/availability of his Sure Splice Kit. There are 3 critical elements that combine together to silver solder band saw blades successfully. 1.The Blades need to be beveled at the joint. I recommend a bevel that is at least 5 x the thickness of the blade. For a standard hard-edge flex-back blade, that is .025 x 5= .125 long bevel. I show a simple technique to get about 1/4" bevel with repeatability by using a simple grinding jig. 2. The blades must be in alignment so that the completed joint provides a continuous straight line along its back edge. This ensures smooth running in the saw and better durability of the joint. Sure-Splice jig allows you to position the blade for silver soldering so that the blade is in perfect alignment after being joined together. It has an adjustment feature that allows the teeth to overhang the fixture, thus prevent the set of the teeth from affecting blade alignment during the soldering process. 3. The silver solder must have a sufficiently high silver content. The stuff that is offered at the hardware store is usually about 2% silver --that will not work for this application. Sure-Splice kit uses 50% silver and some other critical alloying elements that provide a very high tensile strength and an even higher shear strength (remember that the joint is in shear because of the bevel joint). Note that there is no annealing required with the silver soldering process because the parent metal of the blade is not melted. This removed a primary source of failed welds. The joint of a silver-soldered blade is actually more ductile than its surrounding blade material, rather than being more brittle, as in a welded blade. The kit can be ordered by writing to: katonajoex~xxaol.com. The base kit includes the Sure-Splice fixture, enough solder/flux to join about 30 blades and instructions. The cost is $32.99 + $7.15 shipping within US. There is a deluxe kit that includes enough solder/flux for 150 blades for $50.00. Replacement silver solder (the 150-blade size) is $19.99 + $3 shipping. You can also purchase from Ebay by searching on "band saw blade repair". MY ONLY CONNECTION IS THAT AS A SATISFIED CUSTOMER, WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW WHAT WAS AVAILABLE. karl ------- Re: Bandsaw Blade repair/supplier at NAMES Posted by: "Kevin Martin" kpmartinx~xxthinkage.ca Date: Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:26 am ((PST)) This sounds like the same splicing kit that is available through Lee Valley Tools, for pretty much the same price. You can see a photo of it at their web site www.LeeValley.com; look for item number 03J59.01 I have one and got good results from it on the few occasions when I've had to splice a blade. The only problem I recall is the flux drying out between uses, but a little water cured that. Kevin Martin ------- Re: rust magic [also tip for soldering difficult metals][atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "catboat15x~xxaol.com" Date: Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:31 pm ((PDT)) Well, gun "blue" is a form of iron oxide also. It is a controlled oxidation as a shield against the "red rust" that is the rust that keeps on rusting. Any chemists out there should be able to tell us if the "blue" is one oxygen over or one oxygen atom under the more usual "red" rust. (It has been too many years since chemistry class.) But, I don't think "blueing" a lathe bed is a practical solution to rusting of your tools. Some hardened tools that have been heat treated take on iridescent colors ranging from blue to almost red under the light. But, I am sure cast iron would never do this. I think some commercial "rust proofing" compounds actually encourage a coating of an adherent oxide on iron or steel. Red rust is so damaging because it does not adhere to the base iron or steel and flakes off and it takes up more volume than the base metal so leaves areas of bare iron ready to rust some more. Stainless does not rust because the surface is already oxidized with an oxide coating that adheres in a tight film. Same with some aluminum alloys. You can take advantage of this property to solder to aluminum and stainless. Take a Dremel grinding wheel and load it with solder by grinding against some wire solder. Then grind against the aluminum or stainless and you will find the base metal "tinned" ready to receive solder. The grinding wheel removes the oxide coating and the heat melts the solder onto the surface before the oxide forms again. A handy trick to know sometimes. ------- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:08:00 -0600 From: WesG Subject: [OldTools] Sweating steel and non-ferrous On Nov 20, 2009, at 9:54 AM, James Thompson wrote: > Hey, guys, I Googled for a source so I could buy some Bakers > Soldering Fluid. I found #3 mentioned, but no one was offering it > for sale, except in the UK. Is there a US source? GGs, I've not had the opportunity to solder plane sides, but I solder every day, steel to steel, silver to steel, silver to silver, copper to steel... Whatever. I'm not trained in *anything*, so I learned by trial and error, and had a eureka while watching my knifemaker buddy Bill. This is probably not the industry standard method, but it works. I've tested it with a big hammer an a punch! I don't know from tons of force, but it takes 12-17 heavy blows with a 4 pound hammer and punch to break a joint done in this way. I just use the standard tinning flux from the hardware store. The one I have now is "Oatey No. 95". The solder is Bernz-O-Matic brand silver bearing lead-free acid core. I bought it because it says "Metal Work". Source: Ace or Home Despot. Am I missing something? Is there a big benfit to rosin flux? (besides the obvious historically accurate needs of H&H of course.) Enquiring, un-trained minds (okay, me) want to know. Cheers, Wes ------- Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:32:31 -0800 From: Ron Hock Subject: [OldTools] Re: Sweating steel and non-ferrous Back when I was a knifemaker I soldered brass bolsters onto steel blades. I did a lot of it but it was always a little hit-and-miss. I found that the surfaces had to be CLEAN -- not just wiped down with solvent but freshly sanded, de-greased and soap-and-water clean. Also, success had a lot to do with the surface texture of the pieces. Fine grinding scratches were preferred by the solder as opposed to sand-blasted surfaces that wouldn't flow solder no matter what. When it worked right it was very satisfying to watch the joint drink the solder. One more thing I learned early on and have never forgotten: no silicone in the shop. I had used it (doh!) as a rust inhibitor on the blades and solder wouldn't flow anywhere near it no matter what. A real bitch to clean off, too. Flood with MEK, repeat, repeat. So now I never let silicone in the shop. Period. Ron Hock I've written a book on sharpening for woodworkers! The Perfect Edge -- available this fall! (ISBN 978-1558708587) HOCK TOOLS http://www.hocktools.com 16650 Mitchell Creek Dr Fort Bragg, CA 95437 (707) 964-2782 fax (707) 964-7816 ------- Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:31:13 -0800 From: scott grandstaff Subject: Re: [OldTools] Re: Sweating steel and non-ferrous > how is that Tix Solder Tin solder. Tix is similar to Staybright which is also similar to leadless plumbing solder. Meaning no lead, and mostly all tin. Like in, 94% tin at minimum, which by the way, also makes it pewter. Most of the "electronics solders, hi-fi, hobby shop radio control", and any exacerbated price product, claiming silver and all that??...Tiny little coils in a plastic tube with bright printing and big claims and mounted on a flashy display card so it doesn't look like nothing???? You know the ones. Still mostly plain old tin. Trace percentages make only a little difference in my experience, whatever they claim. Lead solders better. I always use lead solder (40/60, 60/40, etc etc) if there is no other deciding factor (like food or handling or whatever). Lead solder is easier to run a bead and wicks through the work best and stronger, but then that much strength isn't necessary for a lot of jobs. So I use tin solder a lot too. When I haven't been to a yard sale recently and got a 75% full coil some poor schlub paid 8.95 for,...... for 10 cents, .... I buy leadless plumbing solder. It's the cheapest. Comes in a pound spool for 2 bucks instead of 1/23rd of an ounce. yours Scott Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ------- Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:12:10 +1000 From: "John Manners" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Re: Sweating steel and non-ferrous Ron Hock writes: > I found that the surfaces had to be CLEAN -- not just wiped down with solvent but freshly sanded, de-greased and soap-and-water clean. Also, success had a lot to do with the surface texture of the pieces. Fine grinding scratches were preferred by the solder as opposed to sand- blasted surfaces that wouldn't flow solder no matter what. When it worked right it was very satisfying to watch the joint drink the solder. < I find that lightly dressing mating faces with a smooth-cut file, where this is practicable, makes tinning extremely easy and allows clamped joints to inhale the solder. Soap-and-water clean hands and workpiece is a guarantee against disappointing surprises. Regards from Brisbane, John Manners ------- Brazing Stainless Steel [LittleEngines] Posted by: "briankenyn2" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:12 pm ((PST)) Gentlemen, I'm struggling in my efforts to braze SS. The application is not engine related at the moment, but the skills will soon be applied to a 2 cylinder marine engine I am building. The current application consists of brazing a .500" through-shaft to a 1.400"OD thrust bearing housing; both pieces are SS. The purpose of the weld is to avoid turning down a length of 1.5" round stock, at current prices. I am using MAPP gas and Oxygen, so I don't feel that it is a temperature problem-glows orange, at least. The two trial pieces are 303, a .375 shaft inserted in a hole drilled in a .625 rod with about .010 clearance. I counterbored the edge to create a small cup which I had hoped would level off with filler. Nothing doing. I have used acetone to degrease and muriatic acid to strip the oxides. The brazing material consists of a flux coated brass rod. Any kind thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "JACK SIMS" JACK-BR549x~xxWORLDNET.ATT.NET Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:24 pm ((PST)) I for one am no expert on this subject by any means but have you tried silver solder. Jack sims ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "KENNETH TAIT SR." papatait45x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:37 pm ((PST)) They do have stainless rod for arc welders. They always worked great and left a nice colorful bead. Do not know if you can gas weld the arc rods, I never tried it. When I was in school many, many years ago one of our teachers "old man St Piere " a French Canadian that worked on the St Lawrence seaway when he was a young lad, always liked Eutectic rods. They made us kids look like welders, they flowed so smooth and easy. Hope this helps you, Papa Tait Seekonk,Ma. ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian carter" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:46 pm ((PST)) Jack: That's step two if I can't braze it. My thinking is that I will achieve a stronger weld by brazing. On the otherhand, I might get better flow penetration with silversolder. The through-shaft is a 2.50" long spindle that passes through the thrust bearing, and then on through a 1.0" radial bearing at the top. The spindle is tapped .375 on the bottom and mounted on a tripod. All of the bearings and the spindle are contained in a round aluminum housing; side loading is appreciably high. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian458666x~xx550access.com" Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:58 pm ((PST)) Quoting briankenyn2 : Stainless is typically difficult to braze or solder, but what has worked the best for me is to sand the area, flux it, and use a silver bearing solder or braze. Check with industrial supply houses, welding supply houses, or knifemaker's supply stores. Probably the knifemaker's supply would be best because it is a real concern there. Your local hardware store may have something but I would prefer to check with people who have more time and energy invested in the practice. Email me for contacts if you wish. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian carter" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:08 pm ((PST)) Thanks Ken and Brian, I have seen a few articles on the subject which suggested that flux by itself would not be sufficient, but would need an acid bath. I am going to try fluxing early in the process to see if I can achieve a flow. All that is happening now is a balling of the brazing material. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian carter" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:34 pm ((PST)) That did it! Cold application of brush-on flux immediately after grinding a clean flat prevented the scaling I was experiencing with the coated brazing rods. I surmise that, by the time the work had reached proper melting temperature of the rod, the surface had oxidized sufficiently to prevent flow. This time it flowed beautifully, well enough to gamble with the real thing. Many thanks for all the support. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "Roy Cheetham" ercheethamx~xxgooglemail.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:41 pm ((PST)) Hi Brian, I would reduce the gap to 0.002" max and silver solder using Tenacity 5 flux. This should be plenty strong enough for most applications. The silver solder will run through your joint much easier than any brazing alloy. Hope this is helpful. regards Roy ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian carter" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:52 pm ((PST)) Thanks Roy, I may go that way yet; as you will see in prior posts, with a lot of help I got the brazing material to flow but as you correctly point out, it won't flow very far into the joint. The bearing housing has to be reasonably perpendicular to the spindle prior to turning it down to size. I was thinking of an interference fit of about .0005, and now I'm wondering if I can expect any penetration from either approach. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "James Early" j.w.earlyx~xxworldnet.att.net Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 6:36 pm ((PST)) Over 20 years of playing with this stuff the only thing I have ever been able to get to work with stainless is silver solder and it works very good. Brazing will not adhere to any stainless I have ever tried it with. JWE Long Beach, CA ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian458666x~xx550access.com" Date: Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:02 pm ((PST)) Yup, the silver is there to provide wettability. It flows well over most metals but the strength is not quite as good. I don't think it should be a concern to anyone unless your project will be sent into space or you are an engineer. Beyond that, a freshly roughened surface (sanded or ground) will help a lot as will flux selection. I have a collection of fluxes here and the big problem was that I didn't match them to the temperatures I was using. A low temperature flux will burn if overheated and be worse than no flux at all. Finally, the difference between soldering and brazing is the temperature needed....if memory serves, the break is at 900 F with the lower temps being soldering and the higher ones brazing. The manufacturers will usually have a web site with good info. If memory still serves, Harris has a good one. Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "brian carter" briankenyn2x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:02 am ((PST)) What I found that worked was a brush-on flux from Lenox, specifically formulated for silver-soldering. It had no trouble with the higher heat required for brazing, provided that it was applied very early in the heating process. Also, I was very careful to apply heat away from the area to be joined, which is counter-intuitive to the ordinary soldering process in electrical wiring. Anyway, it worked! Brian ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "klroost" etterzx~xxusa.com Date: Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:16 am ((PST)) SS can be silvered with little issue. Optimum joint is .003". Done correctly silver solder can and will make a joint that has more strength than a weld(over 100,000 psi tensile, dependent upon base metal). Not only is flux selection critical but you also have a choice in filler. Silver solder is available in different percentages of silver (5, 15, 30, 45%), affecting flow temp and joint strength. fwiw K ------- Re: Brazing Stainless Steel Posted by: "ED MAISEY" holmes_ca_2000x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:23 pm ((PST)) I believe Johnson Matthey are also a very good supplier of Silver Solder products as well. Personally I much prefer to do all my brazing by silver soldering, for me it seems to produce a much neater joint, especially on very small fabrications, the type of flux used is also important I believe. Edmund ------- Re: Resto help!/broke parts suck!!!!!! [atlas_craftsman] Posted by: "catboat15x~xxaol.com" olewilly2000 Date: Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:39 pm ((PDT)) You can soft solder to aluminum OK. The trick I learned was to use a Dremel grinding wheel, run it against your solder until it is loaded (looks silvery) then grind on the aluminum and the aluminum will be tinned so it can be soldered. What keeps solder from sticking to aluminum is the coating of aluminum oxide. When you grind off the oxide and at the same time lay down a coating of solder, you can solder it like brass or copper. ------- Solder [Min_Int_Comb_Eng] Posted by: "bcjohn48" bobcjohnx~xxsbcglobal.net Date: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:37 am ((PDT)) I'm building a small radiator: 50 each 1/8" tubes, and 50 each .016" fins. If my grade school arithmetic is correct, that's 2500 joints. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with soldering "baths". I think the electronic industry solders circuit boards by floating them over a bath of liquid solder. Bob ------- Solder Posted by: "Larry Galvin" lnjgalvinx~xxmeritel.net Date: Fri Sep 10, 2010 7:54 am ((PDT)) Yes the industry has used wave solder, dip solder and others. I assume that you could come up with a molten pool of solder to dip it in but that would lead to a lot of lost solder, and a completely covered assembly. One of the others that the industry uses is Solder Paste. Micro fine particles of paste in flux. You might be able to paint it on each joint and then heat the whole assembly to achieve your goal. You may also apply with a hypodermic needle. Lg ------- Re: Solder Posted by: "George" gbritnellx~xxyahoo.com Date: Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:11 am ((PDT)) I built a fabricated radiator for my OHV 4 cylinder engine. It's made entirely from brass. Here's how I made mine. I made the frame with the top and bottom flanges and silver soldered it together with the lowest temp silver solder I could get. The top and bottom flanges were pre-drilled for the tubes. I then cut all of my tubes to length and tinned them with 50/50 solder. For my fins I made up a board with small nails in it staggered to give me a zig-zag pattern. I then took some .006 brass shim stock and cut it into strips the width I needed. I then tinned the strips and then formed them over the nails. Once I had a length of finning material made up I pulled it out, like an accordion, until it fit between my tubes. I then cut it to length and made up the remaining fin pieces. After the pieces were all made I fluxed up the fins and tubes and assembled them. Now I took a propane torch and lightly played the heat across the tubes and fins until I could see the solder starting to flow. I moved all over the radiator until everything looked sweated. After it cooled I washed it down good with mineral spirits and a good water soluble degreaser. I then made the top and bottom tanks and fit them into the upper and lower tube plates and soldered them in place. Another clean up and and pressure test and it was good to go. If you like you can email me at: gbritnellx~xxyahoo.com and I will send you some pictures of it. gbritnell ------- Re: Solder Posted by: "lakec_ah" Lakecx~xxearthlink.net Date: Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:12 am ((PDT)) Fins these days are not soldered. They use a long strip of fine metal, folded accordian style, and wedged between the tubes. That could save you a lot of soldering. Jeff ------- Re: Solder Posted by: "mrehmus" editorx~xxmodelenginebuilder.com Date: Sat Sep 11, 2010 11:09 am ((PDT)) I think the radiator industry used to pre-tin pretty much everything everything then assemble the radiator and put it in an oven to melt the solder. I will be publishing a way to make radiators from aluminum using old (or new) aluminum car radiators. The radiators are built up with high temperature epoxy and look quite scale. If your engine gets hot enough to damage the epoxy, the engine is toast anyway. This will be published in issue # 23 in January if you can wait. Issue # 22 is at the printer. ------- Re: Solder Posted by: "DIYer" jtservices465x~xxyahoo.com Date: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:49 am ((PDT)) If you look at a life-size radiator closely the tubes are oval, or a flattened round therefore maximizing contact surface between the tube and WWWWWW shaped fin. K&S Brass sells such tubing in several sizes. Your local hobby shop should have it or be able to get it for you. My 2 cents. ------- Re: Solder Posted by: "john.b.schaubx~xxatt.net" john.b.schaubx~xxatt.net Date: Sun Sep 12, 2010 9:49 am ((PDT)) If u could find some one with a wave solder machine that would work ok, otherwise it is too expensive to buy the equipment. Or if you could find a larger solder pot, you could hand dip. Maybe look online for a rectangular shaped solder pot that is big enough. It will still cost a lot to fill it with solder. I used to work with both styles in the electronics industry...cheapest would be to locate a shop with a wave solder machine and maybe they will help you out. I hope that this helps you in your quest. john ------- Silver solder [LittleEngines] Posted by: "Gordon" glachnietx~xxgmail.com Date: Wed Jan 5, 2011 6:44 am ((PST)) I remember seeing a guide to silver solder alloys and which to use for various materials but I am not able to find it. Maybe it was not even on this group. Presently I am starting a Rudy Kouhoup J I Case steam tractor and the boiler "must" be silver soldered/Rudy. It is made from copper tube but other parts also can or should be silver soldered. I have bought silver solder in the past from the local welding supply shop and it is not much different than soft solder. I know that there are several different alloys and melting temperature ranging from soft solder temp/strength to brazing temp/strength. Anyone know of a guide on various types etc? Gordon ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "ED MAISEY" holmes_ca_2000x~xxyahoo.com Date: Wed Jan 5, 2011 8:19 am ((PST)) Take a look at this site Johnson Matthey http://www.jm-metaljoining.com/applications-pages2.asp?pageid=7&id=101 Edmund ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "gerry waclawiak" gerrywacx~xxhotmail.co.uk Date: Wed Jan 5, 2011 8:34 am ((PST)) Hi Gordon, silver solders/brazes generally have a melting point 3-4 x higher than most soft solders and are practically essential for model gas fired steam locos and copper boilers that I construct in my hobby. Here is a link that you might find of interest. This supplier deals in solders only and is a major player in the UK model engineering market attending most of the major shows here. The site gives excellent advice on hard solvering and the various grades even if you buy a local equivalent. http://www.cupalloys.co.uk/ Gerry Leeds UK ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "Gordon" glachnietx~xxgmail.com Date: Wed Jan 5, 2011 9:30 am ((PST)) Thanks. It appears that I am looking at a problem which does not exist. According to that site any silver solder is going to exceed the strength of the parent metal. The silver solder which I have from the local welding supply is not much stiffer than soft solder so I assumed that it was also not much stronger than soft solder. It looks like I can use most any silver solder and it will be strong enough. Gordon ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "DA Dossin" danatlx~xxyahoo.com Date: Wed Jan 5, 2011 10:47 am ((PST)) Try these: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/analysis/fires/metcolor.htm http://www.silversmithing.com/1flux.htm http://sra-solder.com/ No endorsement, just information. DanD ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "Tim" tbgx~xxfrontiernet.net Date: Thu Jan 6, 2011 3:18 pm ((PST)) The American welding Society defines brazing alloys as material that melts above 840 degrees F. and solder as material that melts below 840 degrees F. "Silver soldering" and "hard soldering" are terms used in the UK and by jewelers in the US; and what they really mean is BRAZING as defined by the AWS in the US! Recently, silver in small quantities has been added to soft solders. They are often called "silver solder" or "silver bearing solder" and if you use one of these in a boiler, you will be extremely disappointed the first time you fire the boiler, because the solder will melt and you will have a mess! I know someone who used the wrong material and he does have a mess, because now he has to replace parts. If you try to Braze over solder, the solder will eat holes in your base metal as you approach the higher temperature needed to melt the brazing alloy. It is nearly impossible to remove all of the solder from your parts. Go to welding shop and buy "Silver Brazing Alloy." It does come in different melting temperatures above the 840F. That is handy if you have a complex assembly. Start with the higher melting alloys and work your way down. If you are careful a previous joint will not melt. You can braze copper, brass, bronze, silver, gold, stainless, and steel if you get the metals clean enough and use the right flux. More information can be found at this website: http://www.lucasmilhaupt.com/en-US/knowledgebase/ Tim Guenther ------- Re: Silver solder Posted by: "HB" scfpigsx~xxyahoo.com Date: Mon Jan 10, 2011 5:01 am ((PST)) Here's some excellent information about brazing. www.fpga-faq.org/sb-metal_hold/CD_08/TheBrazingBook.pdf ------- Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:15:51 -0700 From: James Thompson Subject: [OldTools] A new departure for me The other day I posted about my first try at stained glass. I was very unhappy with my soldering work, but didn't want to strip it all off and start again. Besides, I like to salvage lost causes. Today at my weekly carving club, it was suggested to me that I try texturing the solder. Bah! Humbug! That won't work.... Will it? But I tried it with a high speed rotary burr, 1/16" diameter, and it works!! Never saw this approach before, but that doesn't mean it's original thought. Somebody must have done this before. It certainly saved my butterfly wings. I hope to learn proper soldering technique soon, but I really do like this texturing on this particular project. I expect that I'll do it again someday. See the last 2 pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/oldmillrat/StainedGlassLear ningCurve?authuser=0&feat=directlink James Thompson, the Old Millrat in Riverside CA ------- Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:36:01 -0700 From: scott grandstaff Subject: Re: [OldTools] A new departure for me Your iron sucks alright. Get something with some wattage. But that is one hell of a way to get yourself out of trouble!! Once a mechanic, always a mechanic. No getting past that. Way to Go, Partner!! yours Scott Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ------- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 16:26:34 -0500 From: "Chaz Harris" Subject: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions Been trying to solder crosscut saw set spiders and the solder isn't wanting to flow or stick. They are made of 12 gauge mild steel. What are the tricks y'all use to solder steel? Thanks, Chaz ------- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:32:42 -0500 From: Gary Katsanis Subject: Fwd: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions Clean and flux! Gary K Albion NY, USA ------- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 15:39:00 -0600 From: John Holladay Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions I don't know if I have ever tried to solder steel (usually you weld steel), but generally, I think you have to have the material hot so that the solder melts onto the material and that you also have to have a pretty good fit of the mating pieces prior to soldering. I also think you would have to use a silver solder and not a typical lead based solder. I don't think that lead solder would ever stick to steel. Silver solder does require more heat based on the very little experience that I have had working with it. Finally, what the heck is "crosscut saw set spiders?" Picture please? Doc ------- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 17:37:31 -0500 From: "Chaz Harris" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions I'm familiar with welding and brazing, which is kind of why I wanted to solder these, to learn more about soldering, which I know little about. They are rather small and don't take lots of stress so I thought this would be a good application for soldering. I think you're thinking of silver brazing, used to be silver/cadmium I think, like you use making insert cutting tools and joining shotgun barrels together. Melts at 1,100F or so if I remember right. Silver solder only has a few percent silver and was historically lead/silver I think, melted pretty close to lead/tin. I did get one good, un-repeatable joint with rosin core lead free. Joints are tight and at least seem clean. (If I was TIG welding it I wouldn't have had any trouble at all.) Tin toys and the like used to be lead/tin soldered together. Here is a picture: http://galootcentral.com/index.php?option=com_cop perminevis&Itemid=2&place=displayimage&album=542&pos=0 You can see how they work; it's nothing but a fixed indicator. The foot on the long leg is something like 0.010"-0.015" shorter than the others, and as you hammer in the set with the hammer in the background, you check it with the spider. Chaz ------- Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2012 18:35:52 -0600 From: WesG Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions Chaz, Not all solders will flow and stick to steel. I use BernzOmatic solder that says "Metalwork" acid core solder. (silver bearing, lead free) it joins steel to steel, copper to steel, silver to steel, silver and copper to iron... All kinds of good stuff. Don't know why it works, I don't need to know, really. It just works. You do have to have fresh clean metal and very little, to zero gap. The tighter it is, the better the joint. As for flux, I use Oatey "No.95" lead free tinning flux. Plain old hardware store flux. Again, don't know why it works. Don't really care why it works. How to: Once your metal is clean and the fit is good, butter up one half of the joint with flux and hold them together with a clamp. The smaller the clamp the better because you need for all the metal in the joint to come up to temp. Whenever I can, I use needle nose vise grips. So you've got the joint buttered and clamped. Using whatever heat you have handy, (propane or mapp torch is easy) start heating the joint until the flux bubbles and starts to evaporate. (A good rule of thumb is to heat the heavier side of the joint if there is one.) When the flux starts to evaporate, start touching the end of the solder to the joint pretty & soon it will flow into the joint. You don't need to flood it, just a little fillet of solder around the edge is all you need. Remove the solder, but keep heating the joint for 10-20 seconds. (I switch to the opposite side from where I was heating) this is to get the rest of the joint hot and to assure there isn't a starved spot in the center of the joint under your clamp. That's it. Remove heat and either let it cool or spray it with water. +Don't+ unclamp until it's cool. Do a test joint and destroy it on purpose to see how strong it is. If your metal is clean and your joint is tight and your heat is thorough, it should be a good strong joint. DISCLAIMER: I have no idea what I'm talking about. This works for me, but it's not the only way to do it. I wouldn't hang an anvil from this joint over my head, but it's a good method for some purposes. The high temp stuff like SIL Fos 5 (1325 degree) works too, but if I'm going to get that hot I usually just braze the joint with oxy-acetylene. Anyway. In summary: This Works. Not the only way. Don't know what I'm talking about. No anvils. Cheers, Wes ------- Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:58:45 -0800 From: scott grandstaff Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions Wes is right. And I have soldered a lot of steel. I like lead/tin, about 60/40 and I like plain wire solder with my flux separate. Flux core is ok, I'll use it when I get it free (or yard sale), but you pay extra for it in a store so I'd never pay retail for it. Leadless solder or "silver solder" (staybright) is actually 98% pure tin. It's so close to pewter it's ridiculous. It's very good but it costs about 5 times what lead solder does, and there is very little advantage that I can see. A Yuppie puppy delight. More money, same utility. Clean, very clean parts. No rust or other contaminants. Clean fresh steel. I can see in the picture your work is dirty. I use acid flux for steel. Liquid in a bottle at any hardware store. But get some paste flux both acid and rosin too. It's like a one-time investment. I have used almost one tin of flux, in the last 20 years. If they carry Nocorode brand, it's worth a premium to me. Use the liquid for this job. Flux, heat, douse with flux, heat, flux, it takes a couple /three goes at this. The flux sizzles and dries. Go again. It comes in a bottle with a little squirt spout for this reason. Put something underneath it like a piece of scrap wood or something. It's messy. In fact, take it outside and get a stone paver or brick to work on instead. Stone will not wick the heat away from your metal. Metal contact of any kind is a heat sink and your joints will never be as strong. When you think the joint is clean enough, flux again (you really can't use too much flux) heat for the last (hopefully) time. Heat on one side, applying the solder to the other. When the joint comes up to heat it will wet the surface perfectly and flow like water. I have seen solder travel 3" inside a joint, only to pop out on the other side. If the parts are small you can do the whole thing at once. Larger parts it's better to "tin" the joint. Namely a thin layer applied on each surface to be joined, then a final heat to fuse them. This way you can see for yourself that the solder has wet and flowed well across the whole joint. My only disagreement with what has been said? Do not douse the work. Leave it to set on its own. The solder should set shiny and bright. If you douse or otherwise rapidly cool the joint it will set dull and even a bit grainy looking. This weakens the joint 50%. Solder should be shiny (sorta) and very smooth. A good soft lead solder joint is very strong. It's by far the cheapest and still very strong. Steel, copper, brass and silver can all be joined well and to each other if you want. Iron, cast or wrought, or stainless steel, can never be lead soldered at all. yours Scott Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ------- Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:36:51 +1000 From: "John Manners" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions There are not many tricks to soft-soldering steel. First thing to decide is whether the joint is to be sweated or made using the capillary joint method. The capillary method is appropriate where the gap between the mating faces is 3 thou." or more. If the gap is less than 3 thou." capillary action does not seem to work with soft solder. As a spider is used to check the set of a saw at between 10 thou." and 15 thou." it is assumed that the gap between mating faces of its joint is as small as it can reasonably be made, tending towards > 3 thou.". My own choice for the sweating job would be solder in the 60:40 tin:lead ratio and Baker's No 1 soldering fluid as the flux. This is simply because 60:40 solder liquefies at the relatively low temperature of about 190 degrees C and the solids in Baker's No 1 melt at below that temperature, making an easy, low temperature job of things. Shear strength of 60:40 is at about 2 3/4 (long) tons (3 U.S. tons) per square inch. However, I do not know whether Baker's No 1 or its U.S. domestic equivalent is available to you and, if one or the other is not, whilst the question remains the same the complexion of the answer changes somewhat. In the absence of Baker's No 1 my choice of flux would be killed spirit (zinc chloride). illed spirit is made by pouring a couple of ounces of spirit of salts (hydrochloric acid) into a glass jar and then progressively tossing in small pieces of zinc to fizz there until the last piece stops fizzing. Best performed in open air whilst avoiding breathing in the fumes. However, the choice of killed spirit as a flux requires or, rather, suggests, a change of the composition of the solder. The solids in killed spirit melt at (looking it up) 262 degrees C. Solder at 60:40 liquefies at about 190 degrees C. If solder liquefies on un-melted flux the flux is incorporated in the joint and the joint is significantly weakened. Solder at 30:70 tin:lead ratio liquefies at about 275 degrees C and is therefore preferred for jobs where killed spirit is employed as a flux. Use of this composition of soft solder results in a reduction of shear strength to 2 1/8 (long) tons per square inch which should be pretty adequate for a spider. As all sorts of soldering equipment of varying degrees of sophistication can be employed and all sorts of prepared solders and fluxes are available, I propose to deal with things at the rather primitive stage whereat I was introduced to soft-soldering, my equipment being a kerosene-fuelled blowlamp, a 4 oz soldering iron (bigger is nearly always better), killed spirit in a glass jar as a flux, a stick of solder and a few ample pieces of dry, cotton cloth. The copper bit of the iron must be cleaned and tinned before any work can be done with it but ample directions for tinning a bit, which is pretty much the same as tinning the parts for a sweated joint, can be found on the sites of flux manufacturers. The sweating process itself is quite simple. The mating surfaces are thoroughly cleaned and painted with flux. A flat of the point of the iron, heated in the blowlamp until a green flame just begins to show, is brought into contact with one of the mating surfaces and held there until the dried flux is seen to commence to melt, when the stick of 30:70 solder is held to the iron and the work surface and a liquefied drop of solder is deposited on the work surface. This is rubbed in with the hot iron over the fluxed area and is then wiped with a dry cloth. The piece is set aside and the joining piece is treated similarly. The result should be that the mating surface of each piece can clearly be seen to be tinned, that is, the new solder forms a shiny patch integral with the workpiece, not as a blob merely adhering to it. The shiny patches are promptly painted with more flux and the mating faces are brought together. It has been traditional to hold mating pieces in place with thin wire bindings whilst the final step in the sweating process is completed. The idea is that the wire should expand and contract more or less uniformly with the workpiece so that things are not forced out of alignment and that a heat-sink is not created by use of larger holding devices. The pieces, held together in their final configuration, are heated with the soldering iron at the site of the joint until the new flux and the tinning melt. The iron is then removed. If the pieces are not firmly held in place they will tend to travel on the liquid cushion of flux and liquefied solder which develops between them when the final heating is applied and become misaligned. This, if it happens, can be easily remedied by applying more heat to re-liquefy the solder and adjusting the work to its correct position. An easier option for the final heating may be the use of the flame of the blowlamp instead of the hot iron but blowlamps have the disquieting propensity, on occasions, to blow the liquefied solder away from its place on the workpiece. One CAN use 60:40 tin:lead solder with killed spirit as a flux but this means making a somewhat unnecessarily complex job of things. Regards from Brisbane, John Manners ------- Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:08:35 +1000 From: "John Manners" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions Chaz Harris writes: > Thanks, John, turns out I was just overheating the flux. Thought it > was too cold but the solder was too thick, all the heat was going > into the solder. > Made one with finer solder and was careful of overheating and it > turned out fine. > You know I'm making the spiders, right, and not soldering a shim to > one of the feet? I'm soldering the joint between that connects > the two pieces of the spider It is good that things turned out O.K. Under-heating the flux is the usual cause for failed or inadequate soldered joints. I suppose that overheating the flux means that it is completely burnt away before the solder will liquefy, something which I have never encountered. The simple approach is to try to arrange things so that the solids in the flux melt at a temperature lower than the temperature at which solder liquefies so that, when the solder is touched to the heated workpiece, if the solder liquefies, then the flux is already sufficiently heated and liquefied itself and will allow the solder to "wet" the workpiece and not act to prevent the formation of a thin alloy directly between the surface of the workpiece and the solder. It is not thought that the joining faces of the two members of a spider would require any less attention by way of grinding, filing, scraping and tinning than the joining faces of the parts of, say, an engineer's square or a centre-finder. Good joining of the spider's members will minimise the stoning required to bring three of its feet co-planar and the sole of the fourth of its feet flat and parallel to the plane defined by the other three feet and the desired distance, 10 to 15 thou.", shorter than them. Not much solder is required for these joins but good soldering is essential. Fortunately, I have not had to make a spider of my own as they appear in fleamarkets from time to time, cheaply on offer in circumstances where their purpose is generally unknown. They always need to be checked, however and, in most cases, stoned to bring them into accuracy. Regards from Brisbane, John Manners ------- Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:11:34 -0700 From: Scott Murman Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soft soldering steel questions I've seen jewelers cut a pinch of solder off and place it right on the flux, then clamp the two pieces with the solder+flux as a sandwich in the middle. Then just add heat to the metal, and watch the magic happen. Maybe they do this to control how much solder can be seen, or for joints that don't sweat well? Dunno, always seemed like cheating to me, but i've tried it, and it does work. SM ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? [myfordlathes] Posted by: "garthn444" garthnx~xxpbt.co.za Date: Sat Jan 5, 2013 9:39 pm ((PST)) "garthn444" wrote: > Hi all. All the best for a prosperous and happy new year. > I posted two photos in "Garths backgears" - I wonder if I am capable > of repairing the missing teeth (6 in total). > What puzzles me more, is that there is no oil nipple on the pulleys. > The pulleys were fast, but I have managed to get them half-rotating > smoothly. Perhaps I should pull them off and clean the shaft. > I'd like to get the backgears working as the lowest speed is over > 600RPM without them (the motor is running at over 2800RPM). > Any advice much appreciated. Kind regards Garth Well, I've managed to braze and file 3 teeth so far - proved a lot easier than expected. Although MAPP gas is not really hot enough to braze with, at least not with a bronze rod. But it did melt and then enough subsequent heat seemed to settle the metal, it started to bubble and flow. The gas unit (Bernzomatic 8250) cost half the price of new gears - and I can now use it for further work. Oxy-acetyle too expensive right now. http://home.iprimus.com.au/stevor/gearrepairs.htm uses a mold to check tooth accuracy. I found the same can be done just using the matching gear. It is obvious where the high points are -- I just kept filing until the gears meshed properly. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Cliff Coggin" clifford.cogginx~xxvirgin.net Date: Sun Jan 6, 2013 1:14 am ((PST)) MAPP gas is more than hot enough to braze with. Your problem was too small a burner. Cliff Coggin Kent UK ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "garthn444" garthnx~xxpbt.co.za Date: Sun Jan 6, 2013 11:21 am ((PST)) Not quite understanding that - the bronze rod I have needs 900c, the nozzle of the burner pumps out a fair amount of heat. It's a swirl type nozzle, supposed to produce more heat. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Cliff Coggin" clifford.cogginx~xxvirgin.net Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 4:53 am ((PST)) You are confusing heat and temperature. Consider a bath full of warm water and a red hot needle. The needle is clearly at a much higher temperature but the bath contains far more heat. MAPP gas burns at about 2000º which is far higher than you need, but if the work dissipates the heat it will never achieve the same temperature as the flame. You cannot prevent the escape of heat by conduction so you must put more heat into the work, ergo you need a bigger burner. Cliff Coggin Kent UK ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "garthn444" garthnx~xxpbt.co.za Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 5:43 am ((PST)) I didn't mean "a fairly high temperature". I'm using Map-Pro from Bernzomatic - which burns at 3730ºF (its not MAPP gas). But that is 2054ºC - was your 2000º in C? But the total output from the nozzle is quite high - far more than from my butane torch. So I was saying more total heat (BTU). I have since learnt that I should touch the rod to the heated item - I was holding it close but not touching. The reason why? I'm used to welding. That should heat and melt the rod a lot faster. I am going to have a bit more difficulty filing down the brazing on the backgear cluster, on the small gear. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Alan Moore" a.j.moorex~xxbtinternet.com Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 9:29 am ((PST)) I'm probably teaching my grandmother, but I find it better when silver soldering to cut off a piece of rod of the right size to fill the joint, heat the work, then place the rod piece on the joint with a pair of old tongs. I have found that applying the whole rod to the work results in too much rod melting and you then have a big clean up/file down job to do afterwards. It's a long time since I did any proper brazing, so my remarks may not apply to that. Regards, Alan ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "crawleystones" dickmx~xxwaitrose.com Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 10:41 am ((PST)) One other trick that might help is to surround the item being heated with firebricks/refractory bricks of some sort. The things you (used to?) find inside electric storage heaters work fine. Without that sort of enclosure, an awful lot of that expensive heat just dissipates into thin air and as others have said, the target won't get anywhere near to the flame temperature. Dick Morris ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "garthn444" garthnx~xxpbt.co.za Date: Mon Jan 7, 2013 10:26 pm ((PST)) Yes, I use the "bricks" from a gas fireplace - helps quite a bit. I have also used briquettes before, not only do they trap the heat, but they create their own. But they are a bit messy of course. The tip of cutting a short piece of rod to match the joint would have worked very well for fixing the gear teeth. I can see that standard brazing rods will be very easy to use with the Map-Pro gas, if bronze melts then those will melt a lot faster. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Cliff Coggin" clifford.cogginx~xxvirgin.net Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 1:05 am ((PST)) I go a step further and place the snippet of silver solder on the joint before heating. Cliff. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Alan Moore" a.j.moorex~xxbtinternet.com Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 1:59 am ((PST)) When I do that I find that the silver solder is more likely to form a bead and not flow into the joint properly. For me, at any rate, putting the cold piece of rod onto the hot work seems to work better. Regards, Alan ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Cliff Coggin" clifford.cogginx~xxvirgin.net Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 3:31 am ((PST)) That only happens to me if I play the flame on the solder rather than heating the joint from the opposite side so that the solder is only heated by conduction. Of course it is not always possible to arrange things ideally, so then I have to add solder after initial heating and the flux is still sticky. Cliff. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "gnuoyb" gnuoybx~xxgmail.com gnuoyb Date: Tue Jan 8, 2013 3:32 am ((PST)) My experience is the same as Alan's. I was taught never to melt the solder with the flame. Always heat the work so that the work melts the solder/brazing rod. Preplacing a small piece of silver solder does not necessarily break this rule. For example, one could braze a tungsten carbide tip on a lathe tool by sandwiching the fluxed solder between tip and tool shank, then evenly heating the tip/shank until the solder melts. Regards Bill ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "garthn444" garthnx~xxpbt.co.za Date: Wed Jan 9, 2013 3:17 pm ((PST)) Looks like my backgear repairs might be successful - the gears seem to mesh ok in the headstock. Real test of course will be with some load. I seem to somehow have damaged the thread on the spindle on the locking collar side however - beyond me how this happened. I couldn't even thread it on, some very slight signs of visible damage. After some careful filing of the end of the spindle thread it is now going on smoothly over halfway but it looks like (under a magnifying glass) that there is some more minor damage. So slight its hardly visible. I guess the spindle is hardened? It is soft to file though - weird that the collar cannot fix the thread. Dead keen to get this done so I can test. ------- Re: Backgears - repairable? no oil nipple? Posted by: "Robert Mitchell" rmm200x~xxyahoo.com Date: Wed Jan 9, 2013 3:21 pm ((PST)) Normal spindle thread problem is embedded swarf in maybe both pieces. Grind a bronze or copper rod to a "V" and scrape both mating threads. ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 09:52:52 -0500 (EST) From: Rstrainsrx~xxaol.com Subject: [OldTools] Soldering question Galoot appeal! Have been given a project to do because SWMBO has affixed a "Oh, Bob can fix anything" label that seems to carry another label..."pressure"... The project involves a weather vane, one of those two piece soldered together bodied ones. The post in the body that serves as the pivot has broke loose from the body. The items to be soldered are copper sheet and brass rod. How does one solder without melting the adjacent seams? Is a heat sink in order, if so, is there one that doesn't require clamping? Is using conventional supplies such as lead free solder and flux, handiman propane torch typically used to sweat copper acceptable? If anyone can help maintain my status, I know its you folks. Bowing and scraping in advance. Bob in Ohio ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 09:17:37 -0600 From: John Holladay Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question Bob, I have to admit that I do not know the answer to your question, but I think we all can probably relate to the "pressure" to which you refer coming from SWMBO. This does remind me of a story that many of you will appreciate. My dad was one of those "fix anything" kind of guys. Nothing seemed to be out of his realm of expertise- especially when it came to his grandsons. My youngest was about 2 1/2 years old and he broke a toy. It was hopelessly destroyed. He came to me and in broken 2 year old English told me to fix it. I was trying to delicately explain to him that I could not fix it and he began to cry. My oldest who is about 2 years older says to his brother, "Don't cry. We'll take it to J-Daddy and he will fix it. He can fix anything." So, a few days later, we are going to my parents' for dinner. David remembers and brings his hopelessly broken toy. And asks my dad to fix his toy. My dad takes a careful look at the toy and ponders on it. I'm thinking he is probably trying to decide which garbage can to throw it in. After a few moments he says to my son, "I don't have time right now, but leave the toy here and I'll have it fixed before you come back again. Well, about a week later, we come over for a visit and, sitting there on the coffee table is the toy, looking good as new. Dad would only say that it took some special tools to fix it. I knew something was up, but didn't have any evidence. A few years later after my father had passed away, we were sitting around talking about dad and that story cam to mind. I asked mother about it and she told me that dad had simply thrown the toy away and went to the store and bought another one. Problem solved and reputation intact. My dad was one of the good guys. I wish he had known about the Porch. He would have been a regular and probably one of the more entertaining members. Doc ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 10:29:08 -0500 From: Troy Livingston Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question Bob, Photos would help. You might try Tix solder, almost the same strength as soft solder but with a much lower melting temperature. If you use the flux be sure to neutralize it carefully; it is quite persistent and corrosive. Otherwise heat sinks and clamping or riveting of joints that you can't help but to remelt. Troy ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:06:59 -0800 From: James Thompson Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question No problem. But first, lets consider the heat source. A propane torch is not very controllable. You want enough heat to melt the solder and bond it to the base metal, but not so much that the existing solder runs off. So you need a soldering iron. This would be a good time to obtain one of those oldtime irons which is heated by a torch. It goes without saying that the joints must be clean and bright. The iron must also be clean and bright, and freshly tinned. If you have access to a good electric soldering iron, great. A new one with good heating properties is an expensive item. Like $80 to $100. Get a Weller, at least 80 watts. (I know this because I play with stained glass, and I buy such things now and then.) If you already have an electric soldering iron, try it. Depending on how heavy the base material is, you may be able to get it to work. You also need some liquid soldering flux (cheap) and some solder. 60/40 is my choice because it goes on smoothly. But it is also about $25 a pound now, so your mileage may vary. Play with whatever solder you already have and see if it will work for you. I don't much like the solders like rosin core because they leave flux which must be cleaned up after the work is done. Acid core will work, but I would still use liquid flux for safety. A bare soldering iron doesn't transfer heat well. It needs liquid solder on it, and the liquid solder is what transfers the heat. The solder will flow easily onto a closed joint if the joint is clean and fluxed. Open joints require you to add a little solder, wait for the heat to dissipate, then apply more solder, repeat, etc. Dress off any lumps later with a file or other abrasive. And if you are making a continuous joint, do not lift the iron up off the joint when you are done with that joint. Move the iron back a short distance and drag it sideways out of the puddle. Sounds strange, but believe me, it is the right way to terminate a solder joint. ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:52:04 -0800 From: Kirk Eppler Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question JB Weld ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:58:09 -0800 From: Hugh Brown Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question I don't know if it would work on a project so large, but I know modelers use resistance soldering rigs to avoid softening adjacent joints. I've never used one, so you can't take my word for it (like in most things). Hugh ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:44:46 -0500 From: Wesley Groot Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question It's easy to overthink this. Wet Paper Towels. If it's a broken soldered joint, the solder is already there. If you have the solder on hand you can add a little to reinforce the joint, but if you don't, don't worry about it. If you need to buy solder just get the kind used to sweat copper pipe. Same with the flux. A propane torch is fine for this job. The paper towel should be rolled up into a tube, then dunked in water. Lay it around the area to be soldered but leave about 1-2 inches if there's room. You'll aim your flame at the metal on both sides of the joint, but not directly on the solder if you can help it. The wet paper will keep the other joints from reaching a melting temp as long as you remove the heat once you see the solder flow together in the area of your repair. If you want to send a picture, I can get more specific. Cheers, Wes ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:05:28 +0000 From: David Nighswander Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question Taking a bit from both James Thompsons and Troy Livingston posts I have been in a similar situation in manufacturing and hobby work. I used to work for Borg Warner at their Coldwater, Michigan plant. We made radiators and heat exchangers. Most of the work was short run and or prototype so the plant was equipped to build every part of a radiator, tubes, fins, header, frame, everything. The tubes were soldered with higher temperature 40/60 solder. In other words, more lead in the mix. To keep from causing leaks in the tubes the headers were soldered to the tubes with 50/50 solder with a slightly higher tin content, and a lower melting point. If there were repairs needed, they were done with 60/40 a mix with even higher tin content. Finding lead solder is difficult anymore. To prevent lead contamination, plumbing solder is now made from tin and silver 95/5. It has most of the desirable properties of the old 60/40 without lead. The website below lists different non-lead alloys and their melting points. http://www.logwell.com/tech/servtips/solder.html Home experience has involved repairing a little galvanized bird house that SWMBO had purchased at a garden supply store. As always she had a plan for how the arrangement was to work and when the bottom broke free from one of them, the plan was disrupted. With parts in hand she came out to the shop and asked if there was anything I could do. The bird house was 3" square and strictly ornamental. Using a large dual range electric soldering gun on low, I was able to heat the joints just enough to fuse the existing solder back together without heating adjacent joints to failure. A quick overlay of 60/40 solder from my stash and SWMBO was ready to complete her plan. 37 years of marriage and now you know why. Happy wife, happy life. PS. When I go through smaller towns I always shop at the local hardware store. I occasionally find caches of lead solder because everyone is using the plastic and hose clamp crap now. My shop is a haven for out of date supplies and materials. ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:03:50 -0500 (EST) From: Rstrainsrx~xxaol.com Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update First let me thank all that have replied to my quandary... Here is where my solution has progressed so far and this progression is in large part of what I have on hand and maybe trying to wind up with a repair that blends in with the surrounding patina. Digging into my "soldering tool box" (don't ask) I found a roll of Oatey Lead free, acid core solder 95/5. Small supply coiled solder 1/8"Dia. (don't think its cored) no idea to the content ratio but it's old. A supply of new lead free stuff for sweating. Also discovered an olde tin of Allen Sodering (NO, I didn't misspell that) Paste, not sure if this was to be used for soldering irons? I do have regular flux used for sweating copper pipes. In addition I have a number of soldering irons without handles...(again, don't ask). Moving along, one of my thoughts is to clean the parts to be soldered, flux em... at this point should all connecting parts be tinned? And I have a tailed device that is not an iron but a gun that says its 200/260 watt dual whatever. My experience with these things is "patience" and I am not sure the brawn is there. My option is to make a handle ;>) for one of those irons I have. Question at this point...could I use my Bernzomatic torch to heat the iron? I do have an old brass "blowtorch" (you are being warned again.. don't ask) but don't want to test its reliability at this point, so why not go modern? Love that paper towel heat sink advice...well taken! Any suggestions on "patinizing"? The existing one is of age...50 or more years? I do see more copper soldering in my future so I can assure you all that your advice is taken seriously and will be put to practice. Bob in Ohio ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:24:28 -0800 From: James Thompson Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update Again, I tend to think along the lines of "best method." When I was being trained, the only acceptable work was perfection. But there are many ways to skin cats. There are patinizing solutions for sale for solder which work very well... provided you are trying to patinize a new, bright surface. They come in black, copper, and verdigris colors. But any oxidation will prevent the solution from working on the oxidized area. I find that a piece that is going to sit in the weather will require scrubbing after all soldering work is done because the flux will continue to work as an acid long after you think it is gone. Cleanliness is always next to Godliness. ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:56:19 -0500 From: Wesley Groot Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update Patinizing the piece after the repair? Learning how to patina stuff takes a long time and lots of practice. If this has 50 years of patina on it, good luck making an invisible repair your first time. Is this a museum piece, an actual weather vane or something decorative from India that sits on a shelf in the den? The heat sink will keep the oxidation colors (from heating the copper) from going too far. If the original solder joint broke, then you already have the solder at the joint. Just hold the parts in place and heat until the solder re-flows. If the joint you're soldering wasn't soldered in the first place, then soldering it probably isn't a good repair anyway. Sorry about all the "Ifs" with a picture or two this sleuthing is much easier. Anything you would use to sweat pipes is fine for this job. A soldering iron will work great if you have all day long to waste on soldering a small joint. ;-) The torch will have you finished and back to your regular life in about 15 minutes including clean up. Warm soapy water and a plastic scrub brush will remove the flux without damaging the copper. Best of luck. Wes ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:04:05 -0800 From: "Adam R. Maxwell" Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update On Nov 10, 2013, Wesley Groot wrote: > Anything you would use to sweat pipes is fine for this job. Have you ever used a butane pencil torch? I ended up with one in a Kennedy chest, and once you get it lit (valve is too coarse), it's pretty nice for small work. I used it for soldering moulding plane tangs that were dovetailed into an O1 bit. Kind of a compromise between the plumber's torch and a soldering iron. Learned some good stuff in this thread on heat sinks, pulling the iron out, cleaning flux off, different solders, etc. Thanks! Adam ------- Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:43:08 -0500 From: Wesley Groot Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update Adam I haven't used one. I started with a kitchen torch though, and that's only a little bigger. They work ok, but the output wasn't enough for soldering copper to steel or steel to steel. I was going through a lot of butane! The thing that's important is matching your heat output to the thickness (or mass?) of the material. I would think the pencil would be great for soldering wires and circuits and even thin gauge sheet metals. The kitchen torch gives you more heat and propane is more and mapp is the most heat you can apply without a oxy-fuel setup. I think that a mapp torch burns hotter than my air/acetylene torch. When heating a large piece of thick silver 1/8th inch) I use the mapp torch as a bonus to the air/acetylene to speed things up. Notice I haven't mentioned soldering irons. Life's too short! I'm sure that a powerful pro-grade, tailed soldering iron is wonderful, but for soldering non-ferrous sheet metal, I like to pull the trigger, heat, and finish the job. And that's just my version. If a person is working where open flames are verboten then they don't have much choice other than slow and electric. Cheers, Wes ------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:25:49 -0800 From: scott grandstaff Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question update I'd try the torch first too. Clean clean clean, flux flux flux. I would go for paste rosin flux myself. Forget what comes inside cored solder, you need more. Nocorrode paste rosin flux, is the single most used flux in my life. And I have soldered a lot of old junk. Acid flux will work too, but it often takes 3 times or more, on old work like this. The truth is you can't really get old work clean enough, so with acid flux you have to heat it and flux (sizzle), heat and flux, heat and flux, over and over until you finally get it all the way clean enough for the solder to fully "wet" the work. Rosin flux often takes less hassle on old work like this. Regardless you have to keep working until the solder flows soft and even, and stays bright after it sets. You get as many tries as it takes though. Stick with it. Don't turn the torch all the way up for this. Gently heat it, not blast ass. Overheated solder of any kind does not flow well at all. There's something to be said for the old n slow. The classic large soldering irons? The original electric irons? Silk cord, wooden handle, and about 1/4 pound of copper on the end? These take a full hour to heat. I am not kidding, a == full hour ==. They require a stand. Never leave an old school soldering iron balanced across the edge of your bench. Take a moment and build a simple stand of some kind for safety, trust me. But oh ho when you do......... When you do wait forever (you are supposed to plug them in first thing when you come in to work and after you have your coffee and assemble your work for the day....), and then you carefully tin the tip with a fresh coat of solder? It's just a dream to solder large work with one of these. An absolute dream. I once saw an old film of a guy sweating a brass box with a glass window together, over the Declaration of Independance. Yes the real one. It was beautiful to see. It was on display at the National Archive for a generation and more, this guy's work. I am not as good as that guy. But sweat soldering with the heavy old irons makes anybody seem good. Patina matching after you are done is tough, ask anyone. Most patina fluids turn the work black as coal. You can take a green scrubbie, or fine steel wool, and slowly work the new patina down to a more pleasing appearance though. Takes patience. yours Scott Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:12:42 -0500 From: John Ruth Subject: RE: [OldTools] Soldering question update Scott waxes poetic on the wonders of old school soldering irons...... ......which are still available brand new made in USA: https://www.americanbeautytools.com/site/Soldering-Irons/19 or http://hexaconelectric.com/CATALOG/tabid/87/ProdID/9/RtnTab/87/Page Index/1/CatID/-1/Default.aspx Frightened by the prices? Check your local flea - the big Hexacon set me back $10. Scott is just soooo right-on. For years, I got by with a couple of ancient electric irons which had tips held into the body of the heating unit with setscrews. These develop corrosion between the tip and the body. They served, but the Hexacon is a mile ahead. A lot of these irons are appearing as surplus because phone companies and power companies aren't supporting lead-covered cables anymore. John Ruth ------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:41:46 -0500 From: "Adrian Jones" Subject: RE: [OldTools] Soldering question update Bob asks about applying a patina to copper/brass. Six pints of Guinness and let loose on it. Just don't tell anybody. ------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:33:42 -0500 (EST) From: Rstrainsrx~xxaol.com Subject: [OldTools] Soldering...still! I'm amazed...all that galootacollege background floating around out there and the only answer that makes any sense to me is.... "Six pints of Guinness"! (hee hee) Unfortunately or maybe in my case, fortunately, I gave up that wonderful elixir many years ago... I do on a hot summers day hear the plaintiff wail of the ice cold 6 pack sirens calling out to me.;>) Well, here is me so far... Gonna go with the torch... Scrub, scrub, clean, clean... I have both rosin and acid core solder...I believe the consensus was to use the rosin core, so be it. The patina thing I will address later. Sorry about the no pics but the project is at my shop at work and being unheated is not my choice of places to be right now...but I will update later. In answer to the question regarding my way of sharpening... I will gladly pass on the information and will formulate it in Word as it is lengthy and get it posted...maybe with pics. Time...wish oh wish I had more. Thank you all again for all of the great information! Regards Bob in Ohio ------- Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 19:59:11 -0600 From: Wesley Groot Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering...still! If I may offer one last word of warning? If you don't want solder to flow everywhere *including* the joint, only clean (scrub scrub scrub?) the joint. In other words; if you want to edge joint two sheets of copper, you create a gapless joint with a file (exactly like jointing two boards with a #7 Stanley). And flux along the clean copper edges created by filing. When the solder flows, it will stay on the clean-filed-fluxed copper edges creating an almost invisible join. (Very very little solder used.) In your case (hard to tell without pictures) only clean the copper where you want the solder to flow. Otherwise you will probably get ugly blotches of solder that are a pain to remove... Added benefit: less patina lost. Cheers, Wes ------- Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:01:19 -0600 From: John Holladay Subject: [OldTools] Soldering question relating to weather vanes. In relation to the recent discussion about soldering, in particular relating to repairing a weather vane, I thought this might be of interest to some. I was watching the Science Channel this afternoon and in particular watching the show "How It's Made." They did a bit on making of copper weather vanes. This prompted to me to search and behold the bit is on YouTube. Here is the link for those of you that would like to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv_h-HaAftk Doc John Holladay ------- Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 18:28:15 -0600 From: John Holladay Subject: [OldTools] Soldering question I have a nice PS&W divider set (GC brought it) with one little problem. The screw for locking them in position was broken. I was able to extract the remainder of the old screw. I tried the screw from another, similar set and it fits. Anyway, the proper screw, I believe would be a screw with a knurled knob, but I haven't found this type of screw in the proper size. However, I have an idea. I can find a knurled nut and the correct sized screw (brass). My idea is to solder the nut to the screw and then cut off the unwanted/unneeded parts of the screw. I know I could simply epoxy them together, but then that would not have fun of using fire or some kind of heat source. However, my concern is that the fit of the nut and the threads may not be enough to allow the solder to flow in there and make a solid connection. My thought was that I could apply flux to the threads of the screw, then thread the screw into the nut. Heat it up, touch it with the solder, let the solder flow, wipe the excess and cool down and you are Bob's nephew. Will this work? For what it's worth, the size is small (#8 x 32). Doc John Holladay ------- Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 17:41:33 -0800 From: Kirk Eppler Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question http://kingpintattoosupply.com/brassthumbknob-832internalthreading.aspx My two cents Kirk in HMB ------- Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 17:46:42 -0800 From: Kirk Eppler Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question http://t.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-8-32-Brass-Knurled-Nut-3-Bag-99 058/203537730 Or maybe closer to home ------- Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 17:55:43 -0800 From: "bransonx~xxcwnet.com" Subject: [OldTools] Soldering question > However, my concern is that the fit of the nut and the threads may not be enough to allow the solder to flow in there and make a solid connection. < It might work if you put a bit of solder on the screw, thin as possible, then heated it and threaded on the nut. Maybe heating it again after the nut in places to make sure of the flow. I've done something like this in fitting brass and German silver guards onto knife blades using a pencil torch. Mike in Sacto ------- Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 21:21:42 -0500 From: "Cliff Rohrabacher Esq." Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question I've done that with lead solder, plumber's silver, as well as regular silver solder; it works great. When buying silver solder be aware of the differences on melt point between the 56% silver cadmium free and those with Cadmium. Cadmium is so very much nicer to work with. Melts lower, wets and flows like you can't believe. But for food contact ya gotta use the cad free stuff. You can work Cad' silver solder with MappPro 56% but cad free is a bit of a beast with the lower energy gasses. Epoxy will work but the stuff does fail over time. Metal; not so much. ------- Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 18:35:00 -0800 From: scott grandstaff Subject: Re: [OldTools] Soldering question It'll work and work fantastic. The clearance is exactly perfect for solder to fill. I have done it lots of times. For soft solder (lead or tin) the trick will be clean. Clean clean clean and it's still not clean enough! Scrub the crap out of the parts with the best cleaner you have and then acetone several times until the paper towel comes up totally clean after. I like liquid acid flux for this. Thread the nut on and heat slowly. When it gets hot drip on a fat drop of flux. It should sink in and sizzle. Heat gently again, sizzle. Now, last time round, heat and a touch of plain solder. It will flow right to the bottom fully wetting both parts and making a totally permanent repair. Alternate method Thread on and brush with borax flux. Heat high (dull red) and touch silver solder to it and that will flow like water too. Only danger here it's too much heat and melting your parts. With a home propane torch, you won't. Be careful with acetylene or mapp, especially if oxygen is involved. yours Scott Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ------- [Repair cracked metal housing] Re: Atlas 7b [Metal_Shapers] Posted by: "Mike T" mctaglierix~xxgmail.com miket_nyc Date: Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:25 am ((PDT)) By a crack in the gear housing, you mean one that will get worse as the shaper is used, right, rather than a cosmetic one? Zamak is a zinc-based alloy often called pot metal, and it's much harder than aluminum, so it was often used for parts like this (as well as the change gears on Atlas lathes). I've never heard of repairing pot metal with tin/lead solder, but you can repair it with the kind of aluminum solder where you rub the base metal through a pool of liquid solder to remove the base metal's oxide skin ("Lumiweld" is the best known brand of this). I've repaired both aluminum and pot metal with this stuff, but it's VERY tricky on pot metal, because the melting point of the pot metal is about 900 degrees, only slightly higher than the melting point of the solder. Therefore, if you heat the metal even slightly too much, the whole piece will suddenly liquify. For a rare object like this gear housing, I wouldn't risk that. Instead, I would reinforce the crack mechanically with a strip of metal around the outside to keep it from opening further. Here are some photos of an (uncracked) gear housing http://www.lathes.co.uk/atlasshaper/img27.jpg Assuming yours is cracked radially from the center bushing outward, I would file or grind a flat surface on both sides of the crack, then use a strip of steel, fitted with pins in the base metal to hold the crack together. (There's also a trick you can do with this. Make the pins slightly further apart than the holes on the ends of the steel strip, then heat the strip to expand it before popping it on the pins. When it cools, it will pull the crack together). JB Weld is a very hard epoxy that looks similar to metal when cured. I would use that also, both to hold the strip on and to disguise the repair when you're done. The Atlas shaper was a very popular one, and you should find plenty of literature on it. Mike Taglieri ------- Re: Atlas 7b Posted by: sonning4234x~xxatt.net Date: Thu Aug 21, 2014 8:14 pm ((PDT)) I have had good luck with a Muggy Weld special solder/braze product that works on pot metal and Zymak with three machine tool parts. Please look at this link: http://muggyweld.com http://muggyweld.com I agree with you that heating rare zinc based parts is risky. I have a friend who also uses Muggy Weld on pot metal trim parts found on his old classic cars. The two most important issues are 1) practice a LOT on some junk parts to get your skills up on something that doesn't matter 2) clean the metal to be repaired and remove all corrosion. If any oxides, sufites or salts get into the weld it will not bond. Most of these zinc alloys tend to become brittle with age as crystal inclusions form due to poor alloy purity. I have found that manufacturers like Atlas (and the automotive industry) often contracted different die casting companies to make their parts. Some of these contract shops used very good quality alloy that met stringent lab tests. Zymak was supposed to be one of the best. Others used junk pot metal that was probably old car carburetors melted down. It is a draw of the cards regarding what we have in our machines. ------- Re: Atlas 7b, cracked zamak Posted by: "Original Woodchuck" marmotax~xxembarqmail.com marmot2399 Date: Sun Aug 24, 2014 7:58 pm ((PDT)) To Mike's excellent advice, I would add that it might benefit to drill a small through-hole, say 1/8" diameter, at the end of the crack. This can make it more difficult for the crack to spread. This works on the same mechanical principles as filleting or rounding-over to remove "stress risers". Dave ------------------------------------------------------------------ This is just one of some 80 files about machining and metalworking and useful workshop subjects that can be read at: http://www.janellestudio.com/metal/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------