In article ,
"Terry D" writes:
I've been attempting to solder a small fitting from my toilet seat which is
broken in half. The item has the appearance of brass all the way through
but the solder will not take. I have thoroughly cleaned the item by wire
brushing and acetone. I am using insulated jaws on my vice and heating the
parts with a blowtorch before using resin cored solder. However, no matter
what the temperature, I cannot tin the surface of the metal. Any ideas?

A lot of brass is actually brass plated steel. Is it magnetic?

It sounds like you are using electrical solder. I think you'll
need plumbers flux as the brass will have likely oxidised by
the time you get the solder to melt on it. Soldering doesn't
have much strength (except sheer stress on a large contact area,
where is behaves as a composite). Chances are the brass broke
where the area is smallest, so even if you did get it soldered
back together, it would be nowhere near as strong as it was
before it broke.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]