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[Langsford]

Can anyone help with this topic? The only soldering I have done was on the central heating with 15mm pipe!! When soldering fine brass for say a battleship array, does this require special solder and iron and or flux? Cheers, John

[ian kennedy]

Hi John,

For fine light weight details i use a 1.0mm dia lead free solder and flux.

Like any soldering/brazing job the work piece must be very clean and grease free, i use a fine scotch brite pad to abrade metal surface and body shop panel wipe to degrease.

The soldering iron or torch has to be man enough for the job for example if you are joining two strips of brass, say 3mm square across each other forming a 90 degree angle, then a decent 40 watt iron is good enough but if the metal is quite long more than 6-8" then a gas torch is a better option.

If you need strength in your fitting or component for example a home made propeller then silver solder is the only option from my experience.

This requires a very powerful gas torch using propane or better MAPP gases which give more heat, this is needed as silver solders are harder and require a higher melting heat point to make them flow.
from my experience this is the better option but depends on the delicacy of the work piece as some brasses and coppers will melt/deform with the heat.

As an alternative you could use soft solders with different melting points and i believe CARR'S still make a range of lead based solders for this purpose, good model railway shops should stock these as those Cassey Jones fans build up brass etched kits using these products.

Hope this helps
Regards
Ian.

[Colin H]

Hi John,

If you further down this page you will see a thread `soldering` this may be of help to you.

Yours Colin H.