A note regarding toxicity of Sta-Brite. The solder or flux are not particularly toxic when inert, but when you are soldering with the two you are creating fumes, and these aren't particularly nice. The Sta-Brite instruction sheet separates comments about the different chemicals, but here's one:
Tin fumes (note: Tin is in the solder) May cause Tin fume fever. Short term symptoms may include a metallic taste in the mouth, dryness or irritations of the throat followed by fever, body ache, and chills. (Long term exposure...nasty warnings, you know the drill.) What fumes the hydrochloric acid is going to release depends upon what you materials are soldering. I once had the metallic taste last for weeks, which was unpleasant at best. Hence my comments. If using Sta-Brite, read section 6 of the sheet in the little package, and understand why they rate the product itself as a relatively low health hazard but then warn about fumes of unknown composition. Aradhana Singh -----Original Message----- From: Mark Drela [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2006 10:52 PM To: soaring@airage.com Subject: Re: [RCSE] Push Rods I've done quite a bit of soldering with stainless steel, since most of my pushrods and my RDS hardware is SS. I simply use acid flux, aka "tinner's fluid", together with ordinary soft solder and a normal soldering iron. Nothing fancy. The acid flux is hydrochloric acid with zinc chloride salt -- not really toxic, just corrosive. I thoroughly clean the SS with clean 320 grid sandpaper, apply the flux, and touch with the molten solder. About half the time the solder doesn't grab completely, just in some spots. No problem... I just keep applying flux to the piece (while hot), until it tins completely. Two or three tries usually does it. If you're worried about corrosion, a good trick is to first tin the SS using the acid flux, and clean it completely. Then you can use regular rosin flux to make the actual joint. I never use "high strength" solders which require a torch, because a torch will turn hard piano wire or most hard SS into soft annealed coat-hanger material, which usually defeats the purpose of the strong solder. This is not a problem with soft solder. RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
