Garden Railway Forum

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Fri Jul 20, 2018 9:04 pm Ah, I call that tinning rightly or wrongly.

Tinning is what you might call "pre-soldering", applying a thin layer of solder to the individual pieces to be joined so that when you put them together and apply the iron again, the solder flows together easily giving a neat complete seam. This means, particularly if the pieces are big, you are only trying to heat half the total metal involved and its quicker and easier.
Tacking, as Jim said, is just a few blobs of solder to hold things temporarily. So yes, you're right, it is holding things temporarily, but using solder, not other things

In my piece about signal ladder construction, I said I tinned the rail length on one side, folded it in half and then tacked at 2 or three places to hold it. Subsequently using the iron again to split the tacks. The tinned sides then made it much easier to solder the rungs to the sides.

Thanks Phil.

Once upon a time you learned all this in school...

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:04 am Thanks Phil.

Once upon a time you learned all this in school...

Yup, I did! ( Well most of it anyway)

philipy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:02 am

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:04 am Thanks Phil.

Once upon a time you learned all this in school...

Yup, I did! ( Well most of it anyway)

I was only allowed to do woodwork ...... I really envied the metal bashers. Still, my mum and dad got a coffee table out of it (and a teapot stand).

Rik

I was extremely fortunate that just as I entered the 6th form, my very enlightened school started a Technology Centre ( previously unheard of ) and took on a very talented and extremely clever chap to run it. I spent every moment that I could there ( probably accounting for my dismal A Level results but that's another story) . You could do/build practically anything you could think of but before you were allowed to do whatever it was, you had to complete the appropriate training courses depending on the project, i.e basic lathe work, basic aerodynamics, basic electronics, etc, then intermediate lathe work, advanced lathe work, etc .
The basic soldering techniques were hammered home by knocking 2" nails into a piece of wood and then soldering a 2nd one at right angles to each one. Until you could get a decent joint every time, you went no further!

How on earth I managed to be competent with any kind of handtools I will never know as it was all by trial and a fair amount of error. My first senior school had a choice of woodwork or metalwork and I chose the former. It taught me nothing! Advancement to grammar school continued my woodworking experience by making us sit quietly writing pages of notes on tree growth and other useless information but as for practical work.... very little.
My first entry into electrical installation to connect heating and lighting to fish tanks resulted in the fuse board being blown off the wall!
We all learn by mistakes and the lucky ones survive.
Soldering was a late starter and only came about during my modelmaking early years, long after schooling, which I never completed, having walked out before final exams and never returning. It is like all things.... practise makes (almost) perfect.
I have always encouraged my two sons to be practical and when my elder son was asked what he wanted for his 12th birthday he replied, an arc welder.... he got what he wanted and is now a very competent welder.

ge_rik wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:57 am I was only allowed to do woodwork ......

Et moi aussi! I attended what was then called a high school and was in the professional group, ie. destined for Uni. We were taught French, in lieu of something that was actually useful......... Of course by the time my brothers attended the same school it was called a secondary college and 'trade' subjects like metalwork were on the curriculum.



Back on subject more or less, for other readers who were educationally deprived.

The tacking process Jim demonstrated is also the way to solder long seams in brass. Tack it in short sections until everything is straight and square, then go back and forth running longer sections of solder, until eventually the whole joint is complete. Otherwise, the metal expands and moves all over the shop if you try to solder it in one go.

Apologies to Jim if he intended covering the next bit and I've jumped the gun.

Whitemetal can also be easily soldered to brass (and other metals) with low melt solder. Low melt has poor adhesion directly to brass, but if you tin the brass first, the low melt bonds nicely to the ordinary solder and gives a strong joint.

Regards,
Graeme

Graeme, you have saved me a job.

Any contributions are most welcome, hints, tips the lot. As I said in the first post, it is not how to do it, but how I do it and I may not be right.....

GTB wrote: ↑Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:17 pm The tacking process Jim demonstrated is also the way to solder long seams in brass. Tack it in short sections until everything is straight and square, then go back and forth running longer sections of solder, until eventually the whole joint is complete. Otherwise, the metal expands and moves all over the shop if you try to solder it in one go.

Apologies to Jim if he intended covering the next bit and I've jumped the gun.

Whitemetal can also be easily soldered to brass (and other metals) with low melt solder. Low melt has poor adhesion directly to brass, but if you tin the brass first, the low melt bonds nicely to the ordinary solder and gives a strong joint.

Regards,
Graeme

Thanks Graeme and Jim. I wish I'd had this advice when I put together my IP Engineering Simplex. Would have saved a fair bit of trial and error.

Rik

I finally got my temp soldering iron out to play and what a world of difference it makes, I will never go back to a standard iron!


Cheap one off Amazon, comes with different soldering tips and a stand.

Allowed me to make a neat job of soldering capacitors to my Brandbright Circket motor:


Thanks for the suggestions!

What do you lot use to clean the tips after use? Years ago, I made the mistake of using files which you shouldn't do as that removes the protective coating off the soldering tips so this time around I don't want to ruin my new ones!

tom_tom_go wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 1:07 pm What do you lot use to clean the tips after use? Years ago, I made the mistake of using files which you shouldn't do as that removes the protective coating off the soldering tips so this time around I don't want to ruin my new ones!

I'm not sure I could still solder with the old style hot electric poker. my father was taught to use what was basically a large lump of copper with a handle that he put in the kitchen wood stove to make it hot. He had one big soldering iron and one very big soldering iron. never have worked out why a lump of copper is called a soldering 'iron'. I watched him plenty of times, but it was well beyond my skills......

The old way of cleaning a soldering iron tip was to wipe it on a damp sponge, which is that yellow thing in the soldering iron stand. Some years ago I changed to using what is basically a brass scouring pad. It keeps the tip clean as a whistle, scrapes off excess solder and doesn't affect the tip temperature, or the tip coating.

Mine is made in Japan and came from a local supplier. It looks like this, but I would think the equivalent is available in the UK from electronics suppliers.

https://www.jaycar.com.au/goot-solderin ... r/p/TS1510

Don't be tempted to use a cheap stainless steel scourer from the supermarket, it is hard enough to damage the iron coating on the copper soldering tip. The iron coating is there to stop the copper tip dissolving into the solder.


If you will be soldering whitemetal as well as electrical work, get a separate tip for the lowmelt solder. If the two solders mix, you can get brittle soldered joints.

Regards,
Graeme

GTB wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 1:37 pm

Mine is made in Japan and came from a local supplier. It looks like this, but I would think the equivalent is available in the UK from electronics suppliers.

https://www.jaycar.com.au/goot-solderin ... r/p/TS1510

Appears to be cheaper in Oz than UK!
www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_tr ... r&_sacat=0

There are loads similar to what Graeme mentioned on eBay for under £3 with postage.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Tom, some of those say "steel" rather than the brass which Graeme recommended, and some say 'sponge' without defining.

philipy wrote: ↑Sat May 04, 2019 3:09 pm Appears to be cheaper in Oz than UK!
www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_tr ... r&_sacat=0

Our politicians are a bunch of thieves like all of their kind, but not on the scale of that opera buffa in Westminster.......

There's no import duties in most cases as we don't have any industry left to protect and the GST rate is 10%, not 20% like VAT.

Graeme

I have been for a time a professional modelmaker building 0 gauge models so I have some experience with white metal soldering.

White metal solder isn't great at creeping like normal solder does on brass so it can be a handful to work with especially those who are inexperienced.

When I first started to make kits I bought a antex temp controlled iron from Eileen's Emporium & whilst it melted the solder it wasnt great.

I used a variable temperature ersa soldering iron which for the bulk of work I set at 255 degrees this will solder most items but you have to be very careful with the work because it can still melt.

Treat white metal soldering like normal soldering firstly so if it is a large area you soldering you need more heat. Metal is a heat sink so the bigger the area the hotter it needs to be to keep the solder a liquid.

Another thing I did as a beginner was to try & solder absolutely everything & it doesnt work. Just use super glue or a epoxy adhesive like aryldite to fit smaller more delicate items.

I've done some demonstrations at exhibitions before & I tell everyone who is frightened or nervous about soldering to get a sheet of brass & cut it up & use it to practice before attempting a model.

Another factor with white metal is quality of the actual castings. Some are poor & made from re melting old castings that didnt turn out right. This can have an effect on the parts your soldering because this process destroys the purity of the white metal & it just melts when it sees a picture of a flame.

I wish you all the best of luck, once you master it it's not to hard but its learning how it works that can be tricky.

Thanks for that insight, Simon. Always handy to have plenty of perspectives and suggestions. Although I've done some white metal soldering reasonably successfully, it's handy to know that using epoxy for smaller items is a recommendation. Quite apart from anything else, they are tricky to hold while being soldered.

Rik