Help! > Mistakes, muckups, and dangerous behaviour

help with silver solder

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Jasonb:
Heating slowly won't help as it will exhaust the flux faster.

As said a flux that is intended for higher temps and longer heating is best, I'll leave our US members to suggest the makes available.

Also use a hearth of proper insulating bricks as they throw the heat back into the work rather than absorbing it so work will get upto melting temp of solder a lot faster.

derekwarner:
It would appeaar you have a high mass weight of parent material compared to the horizontal bands that themselves appear substantial in mass

Followingly along applying the heat source over the flux simply heats the flux to a burn off without any real heat attained within the mass

Builders of copper steam boilers often use a seperate preheat burner to elevate the mass of the boiler, then use a localised secondary heat source to achieve the individual solver soldered joints

A part of this selective silver soldering is performed in a darkened work area, where relative preheat temperatures can be seen as darkend purple or brown.......just prior to red/orange material temperatures

Just a left of centre question........do you need the horizontal blocks to have a high strength joint?.......or could soft solder suffice?

If all else fails, Cup Alloys UK provide a number of on-line silver soldering tutorials   :happyreader:

Derek

Mcgyver:
what flux are you using, what heat source are you using? 

curious what it is - could you use soft solder?  imo when the strength of SS or its ability to handle heat is not needed, tin/lead solder can be a better choice.  Its lower temps mean work doesn't distort (a problem with thin sections) nor does it anneal the brass

gbritnell:
Silver soldering is fairly easily mastered once you know what's going on. If you're new to the art of silver soldering I would suggest taking 2 smaller pieces of the same metal, clean them good, apply flux and cut a small piece of solder but don't lay it on the joint, at least not initially. Now start heating the material, preferably from the back side or at least away from the joint. The solder will start to dry up and go from it's initial white color to little clear beads, like water droplets. Now lay your piece of solder into the joint. Slowly keep heating the material still staying away from the joint itself. With the flux in a liquid state it will only be a second or two before the solder goes liquid. The reason for not putting the piece of solder at the joint to begin with is because as the water boils out of the flux the piece of solder will move around. If you do lay the solder at the joint keep a small pice of steel rod handy to push it back in place. After a couple of practice sessions you will learn the steps of the process. The one thing you don't want to do is overheat the metal and burn it otherwise the solder will never wet and flow.
gbritnell
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tghs:
I use ceramic blocks to isolate my work from the surface for less heat loss,, also use fine wire solder as you can feed it into the joint and don't have to mess with trying to position solder chips,, you can get it "tinted" versions that can match you work,, leaves nearly invisible joints..https://www.riogrande.com/product/bronze-wire-solder-20-ga/132203  will be getting some black harris as my current jar of white is showing its age, at least 13 yrs old and has been re-wetted several times..

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