silver solder flux tip

B

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Bob,

Good post, but you should find that just keeping it in the film container will be plenty good enough.

I mixed mine up a couple of years ago, and if it starts to dry up a bit, I just put a couple more drops of water into it and give it a good stir, the same if I want to put a bit more flux in, half a teaspoon of flux and a dribble of water soon gets it to the consistency of pouring cream.

BTW, I use the Tenacity range of fluxes, #5 is the latest and best. Designed for silver soldering stainless steel with cadmium free solder, but over the years, I have found it is great for everything, the flux carries on working well past the temperature ranges where others have given up and stopped working.

I'm sorry, but I don't know if the lads in the US can get such stuff in their country, but for the UK, it can be obtained from almost any good model engineering supplier. Go down the page a bit on here, and you will find it. A 250g tub should almost last a lifetime, it will do for me, and I do a fair amount of silver soldering.

http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/Engineering_Menu_Silver_Solder___Fluxes_347.html


John
 
Thats a great tip Rick #@clap2@& I have never used borax myself, but have heard a saying about poking the borax! regards Bob
 
They're getting harder to come by, unless you or a friend still shoot 35mm.

Also, borax is used by blacksmiths when forge/hammer welding. I wonder what G Wilson can tell us about Williamsburg and the old welding done by the smiths there.
 
Some of the oldtimers used clean sand as a forge welding flux. There was enough heat to turn it to glass and keep the air out.

Any film processing outlet (Walmart, Costco, etc) will commonly hand out film cans if you ask for them.

Mike
 
Re: silver solder flux tip

They use sand for welding flux in Williamsburg. When I was making the treadle lathe,the blacksmith's shop made the rough forgings for iron parts,including the spindle. The spindle consisted of a wrought iron core with tool steel welded around the core where the spindle threads were to be cut. They tried out some manufactured flux,which made the tool steel layer hard as blazes,and it wouldn't soften. I had a terrible time cutting threads on it,and broke a few carbide threading tools in the process. They finally got the manufacturer to admit they screwed up making the flux. Should have stuck with the plain old sand.

Here's a picture. I AM NOT SURE HOW THIS NEW MANAGE ATTACHMENTS WORKS. I managed to upload ONE picture. Nothing seems to happen when I press the upload button.

The lathe is now in the cabinet maker's shop in Williamsburg. All white oak. The flywheel is 2' in dia.,5" wide. Heavy enough for good power. It is copied from an 18th.C. original in the Science Museum in London.

The steps in the pulley are ONLY to tighten the ever stretching belt,not to vary speeds. You do that by treading faster.

P1010001.JPG
 
Let's say you are going to silver solder something and your flux is all dried up.:faint:
I don't bother trying to rehydrate it but found an easy way to use it dry. Take a small
piece about the size of the head of a pin and set it on a metal surface. Then heat up
the end of a piece of silver solder wire and touch it to the fleck of flux. It will stick
right to it. Then transfer the flux to the item to be soldered and allow it to melt to
the surface with a little heat. Then proceed with heat and a small bit of silver solder.
I use this method for silver soldering on carbide inserts. The paste has a tendency
to spread out more than the dry method causing the silver solder to flow where you
don't want it. I'm using dried up Stay-Silv flux but any dried up silver soldering flux
would probably work the same.
 
Tony Wells said:
They're getting harder to come by, unless you or a friend still shoot 35mm.

Also, borax is used by blacksmiths when forge/hammer welding. I wonder what G Wilson can tell us about Williamsburg and the old welding done by the smiths there.
Click to expand...
As we get older there's no shortage of little pill bottles. I use them for everything.
 
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