Any advice on soldering?

[roweenie]

Acid core solder used to be used for plumbing work but I haven't seen it available in hardware stores for quite awhile. Today, copper plumbing seems to be soldered with solid solder and brush-on liquid or paste flux.

Acid core solder was discontinued in plumbing situations when lead-free solder (95/5) became the norm. When I was a kid, I would assist my dad on plumbing jobs, and he always used acid core solder


Funny, but nowadays soldering copper tubing is giving way to stuff like Pex, that doesn't rely on solder to make the joint.

[roweenie]

Isn't the new trend here to UN-solder?

Yes, indeed. I feel my tension level drop considerably every time I undo a solder joint.....

[bisontuba]

<sidebar>

♫ ♩ "It's the most suckiest time.....of the year..."
when you try to solder and you
find that you are heating
up super-gluuuuuuuuuuuue..."


</sidebar>

Ugh...

[tclements]

My advice would be: DON'T DO IT! Get someone who knows how to do it, to do it.


Just my 2¢ worth

[roweenie]

(accidentally soldered a tuning slide crook in place)

All it takes is a tiny bit of excess solder, or some errant flux, to make this mistake.

You're not the first (and won't be the last) to make this extremely frustrating mistake (ask me how I know.... )

[Michael Bush]

(accidentally soldered a tuning slide crook in place)

All it takes is a tiny bit of excess solder, or some errant flux, to make this mistake.

You're not the first (and won't be the last) to make this extremely frustrating mistake (ask me how I know.... )

Me too. Was just talking with bloke about it recently. Mine didn't come undone as easily as yours, so I may be making an unscheduled trip to Williston after the school repairs are done. At least now I know how (apart from the obvious) to keep it from happening the next time.

[Michael Bush]

That looks really good, Mark.

[edsel585960]

Looks like a good job to me. Practice makes perfect (or good enough). Soldering, new set of dent balls and magnets. Starting a repair shop Mark ?

[edsel585960]

Same with me. After paying $30 to have a thumb ring soldered back on I decided to give it a try. I've fixed up several student horns for parents that can't afford $1000+ for an instrument. I like the feeling of bringing a dead horn back the living realm. Have fun and solder on!

[ghmerrill]

That's pretty much my approach. I don't at all mind taking a horn to a professional and paying for work that requires experience and skill I don't have (like when I had the lead pipe pulled from my trombone -- which actually involved the both of us). But I like to acquire skills as well, and I don't like to have to run 45 minutes away for a "minor" fix or what is "routine maintenance" or some experimentation I may want to do, or to wait days or weeks until I can get something simple done.

Dan Shultz has been a huge help to me with guidance and suggestions. Given his suggestions about solder, I've been using 60/40 1/32" solder I get from Votaw Tool, and I've been using Lloyd's #6 flux. Often not the easiest stuff to use (and I frequently use a small medical syringe to apply it), but it works great. And since I have a quart of it, I expect I'll be using it until I die. Maybe I'll spring for some paste flux at some point.

I am not inclined to use "electronic" solder such as rosin-core. I know this is widely used, and I've been using it myself in electronic applications for ( ... wow ... now that I think of it ...) over 50 years. But I just don't think it's best for brass instrument work.

For small/quick jobs I just use a little Butane torch like you can get at Lowes. For most of the stuff I do, it's fine, easy to handle, and limits my getting carried away with heat and flame.

For heavier duty work, I have an air-acetylene outfit with a B tank and multiple tips. It was very handy when I disassembled an old trombone I'd bought from shopgoodwill.com that I'm trying to turn into something playable. I probably wouldn't have this except my son bought the tank and a plumber's torch with it at an an auction several years ago. I"m using a Goss handle and tips, and some pretty cheap 2-gauge regulator I got. This also allows me to do a certain amount of brazing around the home when needed. I like it a lot better than propane, though it does represent somewhat higher risk. If you want to go with really trendy stuff, look into "water torches" where it's easy (really surprisingly easy) to build your own hydrogen/oxygen torch and generate your own fuel from water. Maybe I'll get into that next year. I wonder how easy it would be to build a small rocket engine with that approach.

[Tabor]

Don't inhale.

[toobagrowl]

It took me a while to get the hang of soldering since I am self-taught. Looked at videos, read up on it and just "did it" thru trial-and-error until I got half-decent at it. Just like any other learned skill, you just have to do it over and over and keep it current.

There are many types of soft solder out there. I just use the acid-core lead-free solder. Since it is acid-core, I only dab a tiny amount of paste flux on the clean joints before soldering. And I make sure the joints are clean -- free of dirt, grease & tarnish. I have learned that no matter how "clean" the pieces are, if they still have tarnish/oxidation on them, they will NOT solder together -- the solder will just ball up and roll off. So it's important to clean/sand/Dremel the joints before fluxing & soldering.

Like bloke said, you need a torch big enough to actually heat the joints properly. Those little Butane pencil torches don't put out a big enough flame. I use a Propane torch with adjustable flame. The torch/trigger mechanism screws into the top of a small hand-held Propane tank.

One other thing Soldering on silver-plated horns is a little different than brass/brass lacquer. Silver-plated horns may as well be coated in a film of flux Its easier to clean up solder off raw brass and brass lacquered horns. And you can spot-lacquer if you burn some lacquer while soldering

[ghmerrill]

Well, I have to confess that I did have a problem a while ago with getting the solder to melt when I was using the air-acetylene outfit.

I kept trying, and the solder just wouldn't melt on the joint. I even tried a larger tip. Durned torch just wan't working. Finally I tried the torch DIRECTLY on the solder, and it STILL wouldn't melt it!

At that point I figured out that I'd picked up a piece of stainless race wire instead of the piece of solder I'd meant to use. I guess there's a lesson there in organizing your stuff carefully. Either that, or that you can always use a hotter torch.

[roweenie]

I like to use an air-acetylene torch and B tank, also - paired with a Smith torch and a set of tips, it's unbeatable.

[ghmerrill]

Everything Bloke says about silver vs. lacquer is absolutely on target -- in addition to which, just maintaining a silver finish on a fairly large instrument requires extra effort and expense. The one silver-plated instrument I have is my 1924 little Eb tuba, and I dread the times when I feel the need to polish it (even though those are far between because I "maintain" it with intermediate polishings with a good cloth.)

But that probably won't matter to the intended audience because it's much less a matter of practicality and expense than it is of fashion and "status".

It appears that in the euphonium world you pretty much MUST have a silver plated instrument to be taken "seriously". Yet you very infrequently see silver-plated trombones nowadays, or silver-plated French horns. (Yeah, I've heard all the arguments about the "sound" and "response" differences. I'm just not buying those arguments from 90% of the people who are making them and playing them.)

And for SCHOOL instruments? Silver? Really? Most of the "silver" school tubas I've seen (high school level) in fact turn out to be nickel plated St. Petes.

The Chinese instruments have brought silver plating within the reach of the average consumer. But I have no idea how it holds up over time (not like my old Buescher, I'm sure, which has either the double- or triple-plating option they offered). Both my Wessex tuba and Mack Brass euph are lacquer (and so is the Schiller trombone), and I love it.