As an old Jeweller who's done LOTS of silver soldering, firstly make sure there's NO flux on areas you DON'T want the solder to run. There's also a "Yellow Ochre" powder that you mix into a paste & apply to areas as a "mask" to stop solder flowing, like your "chalk" idea. A variation on the Ochre was to just use the "Red Rouge" polishing compound, knock a bit off, crush it up & mix it with Metho or water to create your paste.
That might be something to try too - rather than using the chalk dry, making up a paste with it. I think the problem I had was the coverage was not thick enough.
Graphite will prevent silver solder from alloying with other metals. Run a ring of 6B pencil granite around your joint and it should contain the solder. Liquid paper correcting fluid works too.
From somewhere in my distant memory you can use liquid paper as a mask for silver soldering, put a good coat where you don’t want the solder. Nice project. Cheers
Very timely, will be out in the shed in a couple of weeks finishing a long paused job, liquid paper, or more old school yellow Ochre for stopping the Solder spread. What Solder did you use Cigweld 965 would have been perfect for that.
I would use a tighter fit between the copper pipe and the brass fitting when silver soldering. It will wick down a surprisingly small gap, but shouldn't then return down the inside of the tube. Also, use minimal flux just where you want the solder to stick.
Thanks. I've never been sure how much of a gap is required, so normally allow 0.1 to 0.2mm. I noticed that @roncovell made some drum hoops, soldered with the two surfaces in contact. It must have worked but I would not have though it would wick completely. For flux I put a drop into the gap, but when heating it bubbled and probably flowed over the surface. More things to practice/ learn...
As an old Jeweller who's done LOTS of silver soldering, firstly make sure there's NO flux on areas you DON'T want the solder to run. There's also a "Yellow Ochre" powder that you mix into a paste & apply to areas as a "mask" to stop solder flowing, like your "chalk" idea. A variation on the Ochre was to just use the "Red Rouge" polishing compound, knock a bit off, crush it up & mix it with Metho or water to create your paste.
That might be something to try too - rather than using the chalk dry, making up a paste with it. I think the problem I had was the coverage was not thick enough.
Graphite will prevent silver solder from alloying with other metals. Run a ring of 6B pencil granite around your joint and it should contain the solder. Liquid paper correcting fluid works too.
Thanks
From somewhere in my distant memory you can use liquid paper as a mask for silver soldering, put a good coat where you don’t want the solder.
Nice project.
Cheers
I can't recall the last time I've seen liquid paper - most places I work at these days use correction tape. I'll have to look around.
Very timely, will be out in the shed in a couple of weeks finishing a long paused job, liquid paper, or more old school yellow Ochre for stopping the Solder spread. What Solder did you use Cigweld 965 would have been perfect for that.
I think it may have been. The solder was something I bought from BOC years and years ago.
a nice job!
thanks
I would use a tighter fit between the copper pipe and the brass fitting when silver soldering. It will wick down a surprisingly small gap, but shouldn't then return down the inside of the tube. Also, use minimal flux just where you want the solder to stick.
Thanks. I've never been sure how much of a gap is required, so normally allow 0.1 to 0.2mm. I noticed that @roncovell made some drum hoops, soldered with the two surfaces in contact. It must have worked but I would not have though it would wick completely.
For flux I put a drop into the gap, but when heating it bubbled and probably flowed over the surface. More things to practice/ learn...
) this symbol at the start is to much in the link. Click right click > copy link> paste into browser> delete that ) > hit enter > read!
I've added some spaces to the link - hopefully that will fix the issue.
very nice it works! =)
Just remove the trailing parenthesis in the link.