| Archive for The Unofficial Mamod and Other Steam Forum The Original Unofficial Toy Steam Forum Established 2006 The biggest, most popular steam forum around! Accept NO imitations! We have a growing community of regular posting members who chat about all aspects of toy and model steam. |
| MooseMan |
Mooseman's guide to silver soldering!
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| IndianaRog |
Odilon, that was worth watching for the value of the soldering tips AND the feeling like we were in the same room exchanging thoughts...very helpful and thanks sincerely. I already see a few boo boo's I was making in my feeble attempts at silver soldering.
superb!! |
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| MamodFan |
Nice Vid
just a quick observation: Its probably best not to use a coffee cup to mix corrosive flux in. Nasty accidents could happen especially with young kids. Its a bit like keeping bleach in lemonade bottles. |
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| alan2525 |
A helpful little vid there!
One thing I've head about silver soldering is that it's best not to use steel wool to clean any copper parts. The steel actually leaves a residue on the surface which affects the coppers alloying properties with the silver solder. I use scotchbrite pads to clean the parts and wet and dry. Also when cleaning up the parts in vinegar it helps if you add salt to the vinegar solution, just enough so it's not all dissolved normally does the trick. |
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| mogogear |
Always good to actually hear your "friends from the forum"
Thanks Moose |
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| RocDoc |
Great video Odilon. Always good (for me) to see a technique in action.
Pete |
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| johnreid |
An excellent reference, I hope this can be made so we can refer to it later, maybe a sticky? | ||||
| MooseMan |
Glad you enjoyed it folks....my "Dutch as Edam Cheese" accent always makes me cringe when I hear it! 
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| Cedge |
Well done Odilon!! Silver soldering is a little tricky at first, but you've mastered it quite nicely. Excellent video.
Steve |
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| MooseMan |
Thank you Steve! Nice to see you here! | ||||
| Mister Occlusion |
Very informative.
The flux that I was sold is this nasty crunchy black semi-pasty stuff with all sorts of warnings on it about fluoride compounds (HF and such). I'm almost nervous to handle the stuff... I find thin tubing fairly easy to do, but when the work gets a bit heavier I have a royal bugger of a time getting enough heat on it before the flux turns to cement and the whole thing must be started anew. I shall have to find some of the white powdery stuff to try for next time. |
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| Steve_S |
That's great. Entertaining and informative just like the BBC! 
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| MooseMan |
I buy my silver solder and flux together, so I know I get the right combination...this particular solder is Easyflo No.2 by Johnson Matthey.
I probably should've mentioned in the vid that all this stuff is poisonous....some silver solder contains cadmium, and just to be safe steer clear of the fumes. Also be aware that you're working at pretty high temps, and that things stay hot in a brazing hearth for a very long time. |
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| Mister Occlusion |
I bought mine at a welder supply, and it's the only type they had (I never knew it was such exotic stuff, with the effort it took to track down a supplier). I think it's a somewhat higher melting point one. | ||||
| bessytractor |
actually Moose whenever I hear your voice I always think your English born and bred! Thanks so much for this, it really has helped me understand how to do this now! |
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| logoman |
I hadn't yet considered sniffing the flux, but cheers for the heads up. 
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| rangerssteamtoys |
If I would have looked at the fourm before going to the workshop.
I just did a little bit of silver soldering, just to be sure that is NOT the typical plumbers silver solder. You had to get that thing "bloody hot" for the silver solder to melt A great vid, some words I didnt understand, but oh well
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| steamyman |
Great stuff Odilon. that was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo well done!  
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| Les |
Very informative, I too use Eay-flo silver solder and flux and I get mine from http://www.pollymodelengineering..../bruce-engineering/price-list.asp
It is on page 51 & 57 of their downloadable catalogue. |
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| Atticman |
Not a strong enough accent for the BBC these days Steve 
Moose thats a great video, def worthy of a sticky. |
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| MooseMan |
Thanks for all the kind comments! I did use to work for the BBC, although only for radio....do you know the expression "a great face for radio"? That's me!
I'll buy some dodgy jumpers, horn-rimmed glasses and grow a longer beard, and I'll start doing my own OU programmes 1970s style! |
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| logoman |
Did you use butane or propane?
I'm wondering which is best. |
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| MamodFan |
propane is hotter but it really wont matter for small work. Plumbers use fancy mixed gases but there really is no need to. |
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| MooseMan |
Both
I used a 60/40 butane/propane mix....buy it from B&Q, Halfords etc....the same stuff I use in my gas burners. |
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| logoman |
incidentally, what temperature would the gas boiler heaters produce? | ||||
| James |
Moosey, that's great!
My tech teacher might want to use that in his lessons 
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| MooseMan |
Absolutely no idea I'm afraid - I suppose it depends on how they're set up, gas/air mixture etc. | ||||
| Roundy |
a rle lemmonish question but when ppl post vids like this all i see is a great long woffly piece of text in the post- how do i make the vid play?
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| rangerssteamtoys |
This happens to me as well, I just find the important part wich happens to be http://www.youtube.com/v/lxXrw1hENb8&hl=en If you look you will find that part in the long line of text, it takes time to know what part you need. Its suposed to be an embed where you can play the movie directly from the forum. It never work for me. |
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| Roundy |
o right thanks! | ||||
| seven.mpd |
Usefull Moose | ||||
| MooseMan |
Go into your profile and enable the "always allow HTML" option. |
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| rangerssteamtoys |
Well thats the easy way 
Thanks for helping me though. I did not know to do that, but everything works now.
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| MooseMan |
No problem mate
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| DLR |
this will be very usefull this weekend. Thanks moose | ||||
| mc_mc |
They say pictures speak a thousand words, but that had video and a commentary too so must be worth a million words!
I hope it's just the first in a series?
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| MooseMan |
Truth of it is, at my work we're in the middle of designing a new Masters course in Music Technology to be delivered entirely via distance learning (something you probably know more about than I, given your workplace ).
As part of that, I'm doing lots of short bits of video teaching people the use of highly specific bits of software....I did this one as a trial run, but there are bound to be more. I'm using software from Vara, see http://varasoftware.com/ ......very easy to use. |
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| paul_c |
Thank you Moose, the video is a great guide. | ||||
| mc_mc |
Oh great even more competition for the Open University to take on, just what we need.
I work at the OU, but it's on the calculation of results part of the operation, I haven't been involved much with the actual pedagogical stuff. |
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| Mamodman123 |
Thanks for uploading Moose
Nice to know its not that difficult, just got to find something to silver solder now 
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| Griffin |
Well done Odilon, a very useful and well put together video.
First rate stuff
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| Graham-Jilly |
Great video Odilon thnks for the informative demonstration.
that is exactly what they taught us when I did my apprenticeship many many moons ago great job well done mate
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| MooseMan |
Wow, am I chuffed or what! So many kind comments! | ||||
| CCairns |
Excellent video Odilon. Thanks for posting it.
Should help me get some silver soldering done some time soon. |
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| alan2525 |
One thing about silver soldering is that if you have sufficient heat the silver solder actually flows much better than soft solder. So once you have a hearth - a few firebricks and a decent torch it's often easier to silver solder than soft solder parts. |