[TowerTalk] Soldering Radials?

[Jim W7RY]

Well it's actually spelled Sil-Fos or Silfos.

 "http://www.matweb.com/search/GetMatlsByTradename.aspx?navletter=S&tn=SIL-FOSAmong thousands of other hits on Google.73Jim W7RY--------------------------------------------------From: "Charlie Gallo" <Charlie at TheGallos.com>Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 5:56 PMTo: "Rick Karlquist" <richard at karlquist.com>Cc: "F5vjc" <foxfive.vjc at gmail.com>; <towertalk at contesting.com>; "WesAttaway" <wesattaway at bellsouth.net>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Soldering Radials?>> On 3/23/2011 Rick Karlquist wrote:>>>...snip...>>>> My experience is that I have 1000's of silver soldered ("Stay-Brite"brand)>> connections, that are going strong after 10 years.  Occasionally,>> I have made temporary connections with 60/40 and those rot away within>> a year or so.  YMMV.>>> Rick>> N6RK>> Stay-Brite (at least some of them) is a Low temp silver bearing solder,that (at least with the rolls I have) melts at temps BELOW what normal 60/40melts at (does anyone actually use 60/40?  I always use 63/37 forelectronics, but that's me)>> After that, you get into what are usually referred to as "hard" silversolders.  Probably the easiest to use is often called "Sil-Phos", and almostany HVAC guy will have some in his truck (they use it to sweat therefrigerant lines) - and most will me more than happy to hand you a stick or2 (heck, a lot of the guys use it to hang stuff up in their trucks - or atleast they used to)>> Beyond that, you get into all sorts of silver solders, with differentcompositions, and therefore different melting points.  What folks who haveto do fancy work will do is use the alloy with the HIGHEST melting pointFIRST (and usually to attach the largest items), and then work their wayDOWN the melting point curve, so that they won't melt the higher meltingpoint solders as they work on later items>> As someone said, flux is a BIG deal>> For cleanup, beside washing/brushing down (most of the fluxes ARE acidbased - deal with it), if you want a clean look after, you really need to'pickle' the work - basically, it's soaking it in weak acid.  Commercialproduct include stuff like Sparex, but a lot of folks just make up asaturated solution of white vinegar and salt (hence 'pickle') and put thework in there - wait a few hours/a day, and the work will be nice and clean(don't forget to rinse again).  Another common mild acid used (works well)is Sodium Bisulphate - yep, the stuff used to reduce alkalinity in swimmingpools>> I don't do much brazing or silver soldering these days, and when Iinherited Dad's sets (mind you, I already had 2 sets here), I ended up withenough sets to be silly - I actually gave 2 sets away to friends, and stillhave 8-10 O2 bottles and 4-5 MC and B tanks running around - at the rate Iuse them, I'll probably never have to worry about the hydro tests being outof date, because I'll probably never have to fill another tank in my life>>> --> 73 de KG2V - Charles Gallo> Quality Custom Machine-shop work for the radio amateur (sm)>> _______________________________________________>>>> _______________________________________________> TowerTalk mailing list> TowerTalk at contesting.com> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk>>>> -----> No virus found in this message.> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com> Version: 10.0.1204 / Virus Database: 1498/3525 - Release Date: 03/23/11>