I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

Craig

"Two and a Half" wrote in message
...
I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

Craig

[Real silver solder (also called hard, or jeweler's solder) is difficult to
use for copper joints. Everything must be really clean, and things have to
fit exactly. This type of solder has very little ability to fill gaps. There
are some solders that contain small amounts of silver ("silver bearing"
solder -it might be called something else in the UK) which melt at lower
temperatures and do a better job with gaps, but they aren't as strong. For
most copper-to-copper joints, I prefer phos-copper rods. They are typically
flattened rather than round in cross-section, and fill gaps well. Use them
with an air-acetylene torch. This only requires one small acetylene cylinder
(we call them "B-tanks" over here) and no oxygen - the torch entrains air by
the Venturi principle. I'm not up on UK suppliers, but you should be able to
find the torches and rod wherever plumbers go for supplies - this system is
generally used for assembling copper pipes and fittings.]

Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com

Craig,

The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch. Stay away
from Oxy/Acet, you can do it with Oxy/Acet but it's MUCH easier with
propane. The propane torchs burn cooler but generates plenty of BTU's to get
the job done. There are 2 major players in the 'weed burner' market (slang
for these types of torchs) Sievert and Goss. Sievert is a Swedish company
with offices world wide, and is the big name in the game. Goss is a
good-ole-'merican company.

http://www.sievert.se/en/
http://www.sievert.se/en/pro86_88.ht...n d%20Brazing

http://www.gossonline.com/
http://www.gossonline.com/soldering-heating_kits.htm

--.- Dave


"Two and a Half" wrote in message
...
I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

Craig

On Mon, 9 May 2005 19:49:04 +0100, "Two and a Half"
wrote:

I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

Craig

there's a bunch he

http://tinyurl.com/8tdcz

Yep, they're in the UK
Mike in BC

Obtain some so called "silver-bearing solder". It is usu. marked as 4 or 6
% silver and 96 or 94% tin. This solder is readily melted with ordinary
propane tarches. Use acid flux (liquid) ordinarily sold as dilute
hydrochloric acid. Joints made with this solder and flux are fairly strong,
with tensile strengths usu. as good as the base metal (that is, copper,
brass, etc). An advantage of silver bearing solder is the comparitivley low
melting temperature. The temp. is low enough, around 1000 to 1300 deg.,
such that it is not apt to cause warping.

Another class of silver solder has much higher silver content, melts at a
higher temperature and rquires a different flux, generally called "white
flux". Various silver solders of this type are available - Harris EasyFlow
45 is one of the most popular. It flows freely (contains some Cadmium) and
has 45% silver, thus it is expensive. Experienced model makers generally
tend to recommend EasyFlow 45.

Do a Google and you will be inundated with information.

Bob Swinney
"Two and a Half" wrote in message
...
I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

Craig

In article , Dave August says...

The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch.

I've never had much luck with air/propane on anything other than
tiny pieces. I would actually recomend O/A for anthing larger than
about one cubic inch of material.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

I use a propane torch for silver brazing. There are a few times when I
use more than one of those hand held torches with the small attached
tank, but usually using some insulating firebrick will confine the heat
enough.

For copper try using what is referred to as Sil-phos. It is a copper
alloy with some silver and phosphorus. I have the best results with
the 15% silver. No flux is needed.
It makes a strong joint and comes close to matching the copper in
color.

You might google for info on a hi-heat torch. It is a propane
compressed air and is suppose to be really good. I have not personally
seen one. Runs about 40 to 50 USD.

I am currently contemplating building the smallest propane torch
described in
"Gas Burners for forges, furnaces and Kilns ' by M. Porter. Check
Amazon for a longer description of the book. The torch might be
exactly what you are looking for.
Probably big enough for Jim to recommend for two or three cubic inches
of material.


Dan

Robert Swinney wrote:
Agreed, Jim! O/A is the way to go for silver soldering. You may have to
"tailor" the flame a bit and keep it moving on small parts, but the
technique is easily learned.

Bob Swinney
"jim rozen" wrote in message
...

In article , Dave August
says...


The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch.

I've never had much luck with air/propane on anything other than
tiny pieces. I would actually recomend O/A for anthing larger than
about one cubic inch of material.

Jim


--
================================================ ==
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
================================================ ==




Oxy/propane works well. I've not used much acetylene since trying out
propane. The lower heat is an inconvenience sometimes, but usually not
too big a deal.

buckshot

Agreed, Jim! O/A is the way to go for silver soldering. You may have to
"tailor" the flame a bit and keep it moving on small parts, but the
technique is easily learned.

Bob Swinney
"jim rozen" wrote in message
...
In article , Dave August
says...

The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch.

I've never had much luck with air/propane on anything other than
tiny pieces. I would actually recomend O/A for anthing larger than
about one cubic inch of material.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

"Two and a Half" wrote in message
...
I currently have a propane torch that I use for jointing using lead free
solder but I now need to use a torch that is hot enough to enable silver
solder to flow and seal copper joints with a good degree of flame control.
At the same time it has to be reasonably small enough to store away as I
have no room to store large oxy-acetelene cylinders. I need a UK supplier.

Any info greatly appreciated

In compliment to Andrew Werby's good suggestions for heat, have a look at
Harris Blockade.
http://www.jwharris.com/blockade/details/

lower temp than silversolder, good "build" on copper, excellent strength.

I think Harris products are available in the UK. Dang, I could have
brought you a couple of sticks this trip. Next trip in August, let me
know....

You can get a Sievert/Goss porpane/air torch that will make the biggest O/A
rosebud you have look like a joke as far as BTU/s go.
I've done silver braising work with both O/A and propane and I'd take the
propane any day. Theses ain't some wimpy 'Bernz-o-matic' thingies on the end
of a can you hold in your hand,. Were talking serious torch here, I've seen
some of these 'weed burners' with 6 inch bell that will put out some serious
heat. The trouble with O/A is it's way too hot but dosen't have the BTU's.

I certianly agree with Dan on the sil-phos approch to copper. I build copper
boilers for 1/8 scale live steam. Were talking serious copper here, 6 or 8
inch Schedule 40, 4 or 5 feet long, with 20+ 3/4 inch flues and 10 pounds
of copper bar in the mud ring, theres a LOT of mass to keep hot.. My local
welding supply house has a Uniweld product UNI-1000 that I use. Same deal as
Sil-phos, 0% silver, %7Phosphorus, %93 Copper.. The stuff is magic on
Copper, no flux, runs like water at 1470 deg.. Works on close joints too
(.001 inch). The nice thing is after the first hydro, when you find the
leaks, you don't have to pickle and flux it, ya just heat it up again and go
in with the rod. I've also done traditional Silver braising work building
up 'weldmenst' out of brass or steal for things like cylinders etc using
high content silver %65-%75.. stick with the Propane, you'll be happier in
the long run.

Dave


"michael" wrote in message
...
Robert Swinney wrote:
Agreed, Jim! O/A is the way to go for silver soldering. You may have to
"tailor" the flame a bit and keep it moving on small parts, but the
technique is easily learned.

Bob Swinney
"jim rozen" wrote in message
...

In article , Dave August
says...


The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch.

I've never had much luck with air/propane on anything other than
tiny pieces. I would actually recomend O/A for anthing larger than
about one cubic inch of material.

Jim


--
=============================================== ===
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
=============================================== ===




Oxy/propane works well. I've not used much acetylene since trying out
propane. The lower heat is an inconvenience sometimes, but usually not too
big a deal.

buckshot

The 45% stuff melts at 1200-1300 range, while the 4-6 percent stuff
melts around 430F.

There's a solder paste called "solder-it" that comes in a syringe and
is FAR stronger than any of the Radio Shack junk I've tried to use in
the past. Can't comment on Lead content. Flux seems to work nicely
on ferrous, copper, brass... /mark


Robert Swinney wrote:
Obtain some so called "silver-bearing solder". It is usu. marked as 4 or 6
% silver and 96 or 94% tin. This solder is readily melted with ordinary
propane tarches. Use acid flux (liquid) ordinarily sold as dilute
hydrochloric acid. Joints made with this solder and flux are fairly strong,
with tensile strengths usu. as good as the base metal (that is, copper,
brass, etc). An advantage of silver bearing solder is the comparitivley low
melting temperature. The temp. is low enough, around 1000 to 1300 deg.,
such that it is not apt to cause warping.

Dave August wrote:
Craig,

The best choice for Silver Soldering/Braising is a propane torch.
Stay away
from Oxy/Acet, you can do it with Oxy/Acet but it's MUCH easier with
propane. The propane torchs burn cooler but generates plenty of BTU's
to get
the job done. There are 2 major players in the 'weed burner' market
(slang
for these types of torchs) Sievert and Goss. Sievert is a Swedish
company
with offices world wide, and is the big name in the game. Goss is a
good-ole-'merican company.

http://www.sievert.se/en/

http://www.sievert.se/en/pro86_88.ht...n d%20Brazing

http://www.gossonline.com/
http://www.gossonline.com/soldering-heating_kits.htm

--.- Dave

I have to disagree with you here. I've used air/propane, air/MAPP,
air/acetylene and oxy/acetylene for silver brazing. Anything but
oxy/acetylene takes far too long to heat up the work and creates heavy
scale. Not want's wanted on finished surfaces like with guns(most of
what I do). With O/A, it frequently takes more gas to purge the hoses
than it does to get the job done. Last ramp I did took like about 5
seconds to fuse and join. I talked with a process engineer for one of
the major A/C manufacturers, they use O/A for a lot of their silver
brazing needs, if something cheaper would work, they'd be using it.
They use a lot of furnace and induction brazing, too, but O/A is used
for tubing joints, manifolds and the like. With O/A, you can use any
of the brazing filler alloys, with propane, you're very limited. The
good stuff all melts at a higher temperature than what can be achieved
with air/propane or even air/MAPP. Look at a properties sheet from one
of the major brazing alloy suppliers.

Stan

In article , Dave August says...

You can get a Sievert/Goss porpane/air torch that will make the biggest O/A
rosebud you have look like a joke as far as BTU/s go.
I've done silver braising work with both O/A and propane and I'd take the
propane any day. Theses ain't some wimpy 'Bernz-o-matic' thingies on the end
of a can you hold in your hand,. Were talking serious torch here, I've seen
some of these 'weed burners' with 6 inch bell that will put out some serious
heat. The trouble with O/A is it's way too hot but dosen't have the BTU's.

My experience with any torch that runs on air is that there's a
lot of nitrogen along for the ride, and it winds up flowing a *lot*
of gas to get the fuel/air mix right. And this tends to blow away
the flux.

I certianly agree with Dan on the sil-phos approch to copper. I build copper
boilers for 1/8 scale live steam. Were talking serious copper here, 6 or 8
inch Schedule 40, 4 or 5 feet long, with 20+ 3/4 inch flues and 10 pounds
of copper bar in the mud ring, theres a LOT of mass to keep hot.. My local
welding supply house has a Uniweld product UNI-1000 that I use. Same deal as
Sil-phos, 0% silver, %7Phosphorus, %93 Copper.. The stuff is magic on
Copper, no flux, runs like water at 1470 deg.. Works on close joints too
(.001 inch). The nice thing is after the first hydro, when you find the
leaks,

Leaks? What are those?



you don't have to pickle and flux it, ya just heat it up again and go
in with the rod. I've also done traditional Silver braising work building
up 'weldmenst' out of brass or steal for things like cylinders etc using
high content silver %65-%75.. stick with the Propane, you'll be happier in
the long run.

Obviously you are doing *big* stuff - and have found the tool that works
best for the job, namely getting a big part up to temperature. For
small work that I hand-flux, I like the OA torch. No pickling required
because once the borax flux comes off, it's pretty clean.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Mark sez:

" The 45% stuff melts at 1200-1300 range, while the 4-6 percent stuff melts
around 430F."

Yep, 430F is the temperature usu. given in the charts for silver-bearing
solder. O/A can be used on the 4-6% stuff, if you are careful. Example:
My 20+ years old ring had shrunk on my finger. I opened it up the requisite
amount and then silver-soldered in an appropriate piece of same gold content
cut from junk jewelry. I used a #1 Victor tip for this because that was the
smallest I had. The only trouble was lighting the small, low pressure,
flame - open flame worked much better than sparky. It worked very well to
illustrate using a tool well outside of design specs. Mainly, I wanted to
see if I could do it.

Certainly, it would have been a lot easier to use one of the jeweler's sized
tips - Harris Lil' Torch kit probably as recommended by Uncle Don Foreman.

Bob Swinney





"Mark" wrote in message
...

There's a solder paste called "solder-it" that comes in a syringe and
is FAR stronger than any of the Radio Shack junk I've tried to use in
the past. Can't comment on Lead content. Flux seems to work nicely
on ferrous, copper, brass... /mark


Robert Swinney wrote:
Obtain some so called "silver-bearing solder". It is usu. marked as 4 or
6 % silver and 96 or 94% tin. This solder is readily melted with
ordinary propane tarches. Use acid flux (liquid) ordinarily sold as
dilute hydrochloric acid. Joints made with this solder and flux are
fairly strong, with tensile strengths usu. as good as the base metal
(that is, copper, brass, etc). An advantage of silver bearing solder is
the comparitivley low melting temperature. The temp. is low enough,
around 1000 to 1300 deg., such that it is not apt to cause warping.

I have managed to silver solder (45% silver) using a mapp turbo torch.
I have also tried a Sievert and it was ok for very small items but
my torch heads were on the small side.

A good reference is that you have to get the part to red color. If your
torch can't do that in a reasonable time, you need more heat.

contrary to what someone else said, silver solder will fill small gaps
but optimum gap is just a couple thousands of an inch. It depends
greatly on how much heat you have. Very hot and its very thin. cool it
down to just above melting and you can create fillets too.

chuck

Use a MAPP gas torch. It's just like a propane torch, but much hotter.
They're available in just about every hardware store.

It's sold specifically for applications like you describe. I use mine
to both silver solder and do light brazing. (I also own an
oxy/acetylene outfit, but it's kind of an overkill for small jobs.)

http://www.corpbrothers.com/productcgc/mapp.htm

Harry C.

I think people have different choices of fuel gasses because they are
doing different sorts of work. Putting a ramp on a gun is different
from making a boiler. For one you want to get a lot of heat in a small
area quickly so the whole gun does not heat up. For a boiler you want
to get a pretty big thing hot maybe with a particular area a bit hotter
than the rest.

For the A/C manufacturer the speed of O/A saves time and therefore
money. If it costs say $60 an hour to pay salary, benefits, shop
overhead etc, you save money by spending a bit more on fuel and oxygen.

But I disagree that air/propane isn't hot enough for any silver
brazing. According to the " Brazing Handbook " put out by the AWS,
BAg23 has the highest brazing temp and it is 970 to 1038 C. That is
possible with air/propane. Just not if the heat is escaping.


Dan

wrote in message
oups.com...
I think people have different choices of fuel gasses because they are
doing different sorts of work. Putting a ramp on a gun is different
from making a boiler. For one you want to get a lot of heat in a small
area quickly so the whole gun does not heat up. For a boiler you want
to get a pretty big thing hot maybe with a particular area a bit hotter
than the rest.

For the A/C manufacturer the speed of O/A saves time and therefore
money. If it costs say $60 an hour to pay salary, benefits, shop
overhead etc, you save money by spending a bit more on fuel and oxygen.

But I disagree that air/propane isn't hot enough for any silver
brazing. According to the " Brazing Handbook " put out by the AWS,
BAg23 has the highest brazing temp and it is 970 to 1038 C. That is
possible with air/propane. Just not if the heat is escaping.

Good summary, Dan. Different tools and techniques for different jobs.