The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to
pick your brains.



I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not
feasible.



The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.



For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.



My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.



The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.



The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.



If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well



I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.



If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.





Paul K. Dickman

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to
pick your brains.

I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not
feasible.

The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.

For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.

My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.

The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.

The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.

If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well

I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.

If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.

Paul K. Dickman

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

"Pete C." wrote:

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to
pick your brains.

I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not
feasible.

The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.

For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.

My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.

The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.

The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.

If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well

I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.

If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.

Paul K. Dickman

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

ETA: I'm pretty sure there are double sided adhesive tapes that would
work and be ultra fast to apply. These days they glue cars and aircraft
together, it ought to work for this application and save a lot of
trouble. Look to 3M and/or Locktite for top grade stuff.

"Pete C." wrote in message
. com...

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want
to
pick your brains.

I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft
solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are
not
feasible.

The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in
the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept
to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.

For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl
as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest
of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat
shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.

My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.

The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It
has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.

The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped
up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.

If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well

I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After
that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.

If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.

Paul K. Dickman

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

I have used some adhesives on metal to metal that impressed the hell out me,
but this would be a bad application. In the end the sheet gets slit up into
eight 1"wide x 6" long fingers that flip up and rest on the hinge just past
a 90 deg swing. That would put 5 1/2" of leverage on a 1/2" wide glue joint.
I think that is asking for a peel failure.

Paul K. Dickman

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote:

"Pete C." wrote in message
. com...

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want
to
pick your brains.

I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft
solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are
not
feasible.

The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in
the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept
to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.

For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl
as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest
of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat
shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.

My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.

The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It
has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.

The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped
up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.

If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well

I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After
that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.

If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.

Paul K. Dickman

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

I have used some adhesives on metal to metal that impressed the hell out me,
but this would be a bad application. In the end the sheet gets slit up into
eight 1"wide x 6" long fingers that flip up and rest on the hinge just past
a 90 deg swing. That would put 5 1/2" of leverage on a 1/2" wide glue joint.
I think that is asking for a peel failure.

Paul K. Dickman

3M and Locktite have app engineers that could likely confirm or deny
that issue with a phone call or two.

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:48:50 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"

[...]

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

I have used some adhesives on metal to metal that impressed the hell out me,
but this would be a bad application. In the end the sheet gets slit up into
eight 1"wide x 6" long fingers that flip up and rest on the hinge just past
a 90 deg swing. That would put 5 1/2" of leverage on a 1/2" wide glue joint.
I think that is asking for a peel failure.


That applies to soft solder also. As the previous poster mentioned the
modern adhesives have strengths comparable to soft solder. The limited
research I did into this some time ago bore this out and I stopped
using soft solder for most applications I did previously.

Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:06:53 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"
wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to
pick your brains.



I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not
feasible.



The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.



For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.



My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.



The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.



The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.



If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well



I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.



If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.





Paul K. Dickman

Greetings Paul,
I would try, like many have suggested, glue of some sort. But if that
doesn't work what about a resistance soldering unit? Instead of
heating the work whay not let the work do the heating? I have a little
100 watt resistance soldering unit that uses carbon electrodes on
either side of the work. The work usually brass, heats very fast, And
the heated area is quite localized. The unit I have is made by
Triton. I'm sure you could build one yourself.
Eric

On Sunday, November 11, 2012 12:34:58 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:06:53 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"

wrote:



The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic

discussions.



I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to

pick your brains.







I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder

an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be

moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For

reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not

feasible.







The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of

protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the

non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to

a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.







For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the

vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a

mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of

the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then

tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded

and sweated together with a torch.



This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.







My plan is this:



I use a strip heater like this,



http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef



attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.







The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of

architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has

enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough

flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint

solidify in a reasonable time.







The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of

toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.

The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up

with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.







If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well







I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,

it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I

don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.







If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate

hearing about it.











Paul K. Dickman



Greetings Paul,

I would try, like many have suggested, glue of some sort. But if that

doesn't work what about a resistance soldering unit? Instead of

heating the work whay not let the work do the heating? I have a little

100 watt resistance soldering unit that uses carbon electrodes on

either side of the work. The work usually brass, heats very fast, And

the heated area is quite localized. The unit I have is made by

Triton. I'm sure you could build one yourself.

Eric

We used to use a resistance soldering "machine" made of a large 6.3V filament transformer attached to a fixture with carbon blocks that clamped to the work. You could run the transformer primary through a variac to control the temperature.

Fair Radio has a pretty good selection of transformers. Alternatively, you could use a welder to power this. You ought to be able to jig something up to test the concept pretty easily.


I'd imagine you could skip the tinning of the sheet with a reasonably active flux.

On Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:34:58 -0800, wrote:

On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:06:53 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"
wrote:

The elections are over and it is time to get back to some on topic
discussions.

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine and I want to
pick your brains.



I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side. The hinge needs to be
moderately well located along one edge, but the tolerances are loose. For
reasons of finish and subsequent machining, spot welding or riveting are not
feasible.



The polished side of the brass has a thin coat of lacquer and a sheet of
protective vinyl on it. I need to protect the polish and the lacquer in the
non soldered areas, so heat needs to be very localized and handling kept to
a minimum. It is for a production run of 100 pieces.



For prototyping I tinned the hinge with an iron. Then I would remove the
vinyl from the sheet in the soldering area. Using the rest of the vinyl as a
mask I would sand off the lacquer and flux the area and removed the rest of
the vinyl. The sheet was clamped between a couple heat shields and then
tinned. The two pieces got clipped together with spring clips, heat shielded
and sweated together with a torch.

This worked fine for onesey twosey, but would suck for a hundred pieces.



My plan is this:

I use a strip heater like this,

http://www.mcmaster.com/#die-strip-heaters/=k3s9ef

attached to a hunk of copper buss bar as an 8" long soldering iron.



The pieces will be tinned and clipped into a jig. I have a scrap of
architectural bronze extrusion that I think will work well for this. It has
enough thermal mass to warm up and not chill the work, but it has enough
flanges and surface area to release some of the heat and let the joint
solidify in a reasonable time.



The hot 8" iron will be clamped down on the hinge side with a couple of
toggle clamps, allowed to heat the pieces up till it sweats and released.
The pieces remain clipped in the jig til the solder hardens. (can be sped up
with water mist) The next set gets clipped in and the process repeated.



If I am lucky, I would love to eliminate tinning the sheet as well



I have about $400 parts and labor budgeted in for this machine. After that,
it's all piecework. My profit depends on being frugal and productive so I
don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling around.



If anyone has any ideas or insight or a better way, I would appreciate
hearing about it.





Paul K. Dickman

Greetings Paul,
I would try, like many have suggested, glue of some sort. But if that
doesn't work what about a resistance soldering unit? Instead of
heating the work whay not let the work do the heating? I have a little
100 watt resistance soldering unit that uses carbon electrodes on
either side of the work. The work usually brass, heats very fast, And
the heated area is quite localized. The unit I have is made by
Triton. I'm sure you could build one yourself.
Eric

I have a heavy..heavy small transformer with a set of resistance
heating "clamps" if anyone wants to pay shipping only.

It looks like it was used for something like either musical
instruments or perhaps RF connectors based on the cutouts in the
clamp.

Probably 20lbs and plugs into 110vtAC. Photo if anyone is interested.
Ive had it for years..and have never used it.

Gunner

--
""The Democratic constituency is just like a herd of cows. All you have
to do is lay out enough silage and they come running. That’s why I
became an operative working with Democrats. With Democrats all you
have to do is make a lot of noise, lay out the hay, and be ready to
use the ole cattle prod in case a few want to bolt the herd.

Eighty percent of the people who call themselves Democrats don’t have
a clue as to political reality.
What amazes me is that you could take a group of people who are hard
workers and convince them that they should support social programs
that were the exact opposite of their own personal convictions. Put a
little fear here and there and you can get people to vote any way you
want.

The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic
operative instead of a Republican was because there were more
Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans."
James Carvell, DNC operative

On Saturday, November 10, 2012 1:07:00 PM UTC-8, Paul K. Dickman wrote:

I am looking to put together a purpose built soldering machine

I have a 6"x8" piece of 16g polished brass sheet and I need to soft solder
an 8" brass piano hinge to the polished side.

Brass (because of zinc content) solders best with some acid flux. Start
by cleaning the section (hot blade? wire brush?), then wipe with flux and
tin by running an iron over the area.

An iron applying local heat is better than trying for a large heated block
in total contact, and if both surfaces are tinned it doesn't need any long
application of heat to complete the join.

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:48:50 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"

[...]

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

I have used some adhesives on metal to metal that impressed the hell out
me,
but this would be a bad application. In the end the sheet gets slit up
into
eight 1"wide x 6" long fingers that flip up and rest on the hinge just
past
a 90 deg swing. That would put 5 1/2" of leverage on a 1/2" wide glue
joint.
I think that is asking for a peel failure.


That applies to soft solder also. As the previous poster mentioned the
modern adhesives have strengths comparable to soft solder. The limited
research I did into this some time ago bore this out and I stopped
using soft solder for most applications I did previously.

Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC

Sorry, I didn't get back.

Hard drive problems bumped me off line for a while.



I am very familiar with high tech adhesives and as I said before they won't
work for this application.

Peel strength is their biggest shortfall. The best of them are rated to
25-40 lbs per linear, inch, a decent solder joint is 10 times that. You can
design around this, but that wasn't an option here.

I have a 1"wide joint at the end of a 6" finger with the top of the joint
and peak point of pressure 1/2" from the end. That is 11-1 leverage. With
glue I could expect that to withstand 2-4 lbs of pressure at the tip before
it fails.



I built the soldering gizmo and it works pretty well, but I have to
superheat the copper with a propane torch. I may be able to avoid this step
with some insulation or perhaps a second strip heater.



It aligns the pieces easily, solders them fully without cooking the lacquer,
and minimizes handling of the polished sheet. And I was able to avoid
tinning the sheet.



I am pleased.



Thanks to everyone.

Paul K. Dickman

"Paul K. Dickman" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Nov 2012 15:48:50 -0600, "Paul K. Dickman"

[...]

Have you considered adhesives? No heat required and with the right
adhesive it will be at least as strong as soldering.

I have used some adhesives on metal to metal that impressed the hell out
me,
but this would be a bad application. In the end the sheet gets slit up
into
eight 1"wide x 6" long fingers that flip up and rest on the hinge just
past
a 90 deg swing. That would put 5 1/2" of leverage on a 1/2" wide glue
joint.
I think that is asking for a peel failure.


That applies to soft solder also. As the previous poster mentioned the
modern adhesives have strengths comparable to soft solder. The limited
research I did into this some time ago bore this out and I stopped
using soft solder for most applications I did previously.

Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC

Sorry, I didn't get back.

Hard drive problems bumped me off line for a while.



I am very familiar with high tech adhesives and as I said before they
won't work for this application.

Peel strength is their biggest shortfall. The best of them are rated to
25-40 lbs per linear, inch, a decent solder joint is 10 times that. You
can design around this, but that wasn't an option here.

I have a 1"wide joint at the end of a 6" finger with the top of the joint
and peak point of pressure 1/2" from the end. That is 11-1 leverage. With
glue I could expect that to withstand 2-4 lbs of pressure at the tip
before it fails.



I built the soldering gizmo and it works pretty well, but I have to
superheat the copper with a propane torch. I may be able to avoid this
step with some insulation or perhaps a second strip heater.



It aligns the pieces easily, solders them fully without cooking the
lacquer, and minimizes handling of the polished sheet. And I was able to
avoid tinning the sheet.



I am pleased.



Thanks to everyone.

Paul K. Dickman

I seem to recall there was somebody who was doing CNC soldering that was
asking questions on the CamBam forums a while back. It was self / shop
built application. You might do a search over there and or post a question
or two to see if somebody remembers the user and threads who was discussing
it. I didn't get into to it heavily, but I think it was just a soldering
machine. Not a pick and place machine, but I see no reason you could not
build a machine to do both.