Make friends with your local commercial refrigerator repairman. He uses
silver solder ("REAL" silver solder) to repair the compressor piping on
refrigeration units. He can tell you where to buy the stuff, and may even
be able to get you some supplies wholesale. That stuff is plenty strong for
making small scale live steam boilers and has a high enough (in excess of
1000 deg F) melting point to be safe for boilers for our model trains.
Problem is, it takes a hefty torch to get enough heat into the metal to
allow this solder to flow into the joints properly.
Recently I bought a Victor brand air-propane torch for about $70 that
hooks up to a propane cylinder like the one I use on my barbecue grill. It
generates about 180,000 BTUs per hour, enough volume of heat to silver
solder 1/8" copper. Propane burns at around 3200 degrees F, regardless of
whether its in a hand held Bernz-O-Matic type torch or in a bigger torch
like the one I just got. Its the volume of heat that makes the difference
when you want to silver solder materials used to make small scale steam
boilers. The hand held torch only puts out about 9000 BTUs per hour, not
near enough to silver solder the copper we would use to make our small
boilers.
Casey Sterbenz
>From: "Jim Curry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: Multiple recipients of sslivesteam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Silver bearing solder
>Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 16:43:59 -0500
>
>Guys and Gals FYI:
>I know many people here use the Stay Bright silver bearing solder. It's
>typically sold in .5 oz. containers for $7-$8/unit. I was in my local
>welding supply shop this afternoon and found a 1 lb. box of the Stay Bright
>for $35. The bottle of flux is separate(I didn't need it so didn't price
>it).
>
>Happy soldering!
>
>Jim
>
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