I have been reading a lot on silver soldering attempts on boiler construction and I would like to add my 2 cents worth. I have experience in soldering, brazing, and welding so I feel my experience will help the beginners. It seems to me that there is a confusion regarding the use of the word "temperature" and "volume" of available heat. If you are going to silver solder copper, brass, or other metal components together cleanliness is of utmost importance. The parts to be joined, where the actual joint will be, should be sparkling clean and this can be done using a file or abrasive paper or cloth. An adequate flux should be applied to the surfaces to be soldered. You should make a small oven that consists of an ordinary red brick on the bottom and on 2 or 3 sides so as to reflect the heat from the torch. If you are soldering or brazing small pieces together a smaller torch can be used. But remember, you need enough of a flame, volume of heat, to heat the pieces to be joined so that their surfaces to joined can be wetted by the melting silver solder before the heat is radiated away. A simple match flame is hot enought to melt silver solder but its flame is too small to provide a sufficient quantity or heat to do so successfully. It's better to use a bigger torch or flame held farther away from what you are soldering rather than using a smaller flame or torch with its flame very close to the sufaces to be joined. This last situation will cause the surfaces to be soldered together to become too hot and the flux will be burnt off or blown off before you can apply the solder.
If this is a first attempt at silver soldering don't try to solder your boliler together the first time. Better you should practice on pieces of copper water pipe until you get the hang of it. The oven I mentioned before, if needed to conserve heat, should be made out of 3 or 4 ordinary hard or soft red clay bricks. Do no use bricks made of sand and cement. The heat will cause them to crumble away. Arthur S. Cohen Mexico City, Mexico -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://postfix.45mm.com/pipermail/sslivesteam/attachments/20061011/76bad778/attachment.html _______________________________________________ SSLiveSteam mailing list Send messages: SSLiveSteam@postfix.45mm.com Cancel subscription: http://postfix.45mm.com/mailman/listinfo/sslivesteam Rules: http://www.45mm.com/sslivesteam_guide.html
