On 2012-01-23, jeff wrote:
On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:38:55 -0600, Ignoramus6092
wrote:

On 2012-01-23, Steve W. wrote:
Ignoramus6092 wrote:
On 2012-01-22, Jon Elson wrote:
Ignoramus6092 wrote:

I have a couple of medium voltage switchgear contacts, with seemingly
silver buttons brazed to them. I have a little heat treating oven. How
can I use it to unbraze the buttons, to what temperature should I set
it?
Man! Without knowing a bunch about the silver alloy and the brazing
alloy, it is pretty hard to know what would be the magic temperature.
If you had a barrel of them, you could do a couple tests to find
the temp.

I only have two, I would say I can make 1-1.5 ounce of silver from the
contacts.

i


So it costs you 10 bucks in electric current and an hour or so of time
(mine runs $35.00/hr for odd work) To make about 5 bucks?

How about a simpler solution? Take the contacts, clamp them so the
buttons are hanging down. Then hit the back side of the contacts with a
MAPP torch and let the contacts fall off. Might take 5 minutes to do.


I will do just that, perhaps with O/A instead.

i
The O/A method will work fine. Have someone poke the silver with a
screwdriver and it will fall off when you hit the proper temp. I
used to do it with all my contactor tips but with the price of gas it
just wasn't worth it anymore.

Where do you take that silver?

i