Greetings,
Has anyone had any luck soldering Eduard’s stainless steel photoetch? I’ve made a few attempts but the solder just seems to pool up into a ball. Any ideas?
Thank you
David Waples
Eduard PE is nickel-plated brass, not stainless steel so far as I know. Have you used a flux or cleaning solution on the PE prior to soldering? If so and it still won’t work, you may need to roughen the surface a bit with sandpaper to “clean” the metal first so it can handle the solder.
Get some soldering paste. You probably also need to chop your solder into smaller chunks.
I thought somebody told me it was stainless but that’s okay. I saw some in the store today that looked like chrome. I used TIX flux and solder. I ordered a new Weller soldering station last week. I was using a Radio Shack resistance soldering gun (cold heat). It works great on regular brass but having trouble with this material. I’ll try roughing up the finish a little and see how that does.
Thanks!
Here’s what you need:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/95064/message/1179577624/Easy+Soldering
Here is a copy of what you will find there, this should fix you right up.
Hi,
Soldering is not that hard, there are I think only four secrets, these are:
- The solder
- Cleanliness
- Holding and
- Heat
I will attempt to explain each in turn:-
-
The solder, there are different types of solder which are useful for different activities, the most common is known as 60/40 which is a mixture of tin and lead and melts at around 370F; although other temp ranges are available. The electronics industry is moving away from this as Pb free (lead free) is now a common requirement. 60/40 can still be purchased from electronics outlets. Typically this will be cored solder which contains a flux in the core of the wire like solder. 60/40 is also available in sticks with out flux and for this you will require a suitable flux; fluxes are normally corrosive chemicals such as Bakers Fluid (acid) or alkalis. There are also low temp solders which are very useful for modelling, Carrs (http://home.clara.net/claughton/carrs.html) manufactures several different such solders which are very good and you can get them from any good Model Train Shop, just don’t let other Armour modellers see you go in. A last type of solder to mention is Silver Solder, this is known as a Hard Solder and is much stronger that the previously mention Soft Solders however it requires much higher temps and is not really suitable for the soldering of small parts.
The following are typical temps for different ratio solders:-
• 63/37: melts between 355–365°F
• 60/40: melts between 361–376°F
• 50/50: melts between 368–421°F
• lead-free solder: melts around 490°F
Some people have trouble using cored solders in modeling but I use it a lot with out trouble. -
This is very important, the surfaces to be joined must be very clean, no oil, finger prints dirt or oxides, normally wash the part using solvent such as alcohol and then either sand the surfaces lightly with 1000 grit or steel wool, just to remove the worst of the oxide layer. The flux will serve to remove the oxides formed during heating and to reduce the surface tension so that the solder runs like water. The trick is to clean just before soldering.
-
You need to fix the parts to be joined in a position so that the soldering iron can be comfortably applied and the parts will not move, if the parts move at any time during the process at the best a weak joint will result or you have just soldered them out of alignment. I use a combination of a wooden board, pins and BlueTac it works great.
-
The problem of solder balls stems from applying the solder to the iron, one never does this! Solder is applied to the joint. Just to back up a bit, the Soldering Iron, these come in various Wattages, the wattage basically tells you how big a piece you can solder, typical sizes are 23, 50, 65 watts in the electronics industry, for small photoetch and wire pieces you can get by with 23 or 50 watt, I use a 65 watt. The biggest disadvantage with the bigger irons is the size of the tip.
So lets for a moment pretend you have the parts cleaned, aligned and jigged in place, follow the following steps and I think you will be happy. This process is for cored solder, the process for a separate flux is very similar.
Before starting make sure you can put the Hot Iron down, a Soldering Iron stand is perfect, have a damp sponge and some steel wool handy.
a. assemble all of the bits and pieces, the solder, the iron, a clear heat proof area,
b. plug the Soldering Iron in and let it heat up.
c. Test the heat in the soldering iron by just dabbing the end of the solder on it, is should melt immediately, if not go back to browsing Military Modeller for a minute or two.
d. When the iron is hot wipe the tip on the steel wool, until it is clean now dab a bit of solder on it, this is called “Tinning the Iron” wipe the excess off on the damp sponge, but leave a little.
e. Now gently apply the iron to the joint, I try to touch all components at once and I make sure I have some contact area, to maximise heat transfer.
f. Wait a few seconds, you will learn over time how long is long enough.
g. Apply the tip of the solder to the JOINT a little away from the iron, if the joint is hot enough it will melt and run into the joint, if it does not remove the solder and wait a little longer and repeat the process.
h. Once we have solder in the joint leave it cool for 30 seconds and we should have a joint with nice shiny solder. Dull looking solder indicates the temperature was not high enough or the joint moved. In this case reheat and apply a little solder.
i. A lot of cored solders are so called no cleans, this just means that after soldering the flux is not corrosive and can be left, but I always clean the flux off using Methylated Spirits.
If you are using flux, it will probably be a paste or fluid, some come as a dry powder which is mixed with water to make a paste (follow the directions), with a small brush paint the joint before jigging the parts up, if it is a fluid flux you can run the flux into the joint using a small paint brush. This brush should now be used for this only.
A couple of tricks.
If the component is made up of a number of parts it might be difficult to solder them all at once, as you heat one joint the others melt and fall off then the swearing starts……
You can use different temperature solders i.e. the first joints using 60/40 and then Carrs low temp for the remaining ones or another trick is to you heat sinks, small Alligator clips from electronic store work well, you put them between the joint you are working on and the others, they serve to shunt the heat off so the surrounding joints don’t heat to the point of failing.
Another approach is to Sweat the joint, the process is as follows:
a. take each part separately, Apply the soldering iron to the part on the other side of the joint, the soldering iron should not have very much solder on it.
b. Apply solder to the joint face so that the solder covers the joint face, this is called “Tinning the joint”.
c. Do (b) above for each part and joint
d. Now, either jig the parts or in the case of soldering a small part to big parts old the part in place, I use a tooth pick with a little BluTac.
e. Apply the soldering iron to the joint, the tinned surface of each part will melt and the parts will be soldered together.
f. Leave cool
Joints can be cleans of excess solder using Xacto blades, files etc….
Lastly, Wash your hands, Lead and fluxes are not good for your health and from experience one only ever picks a soldering iron up from the wrong end once!
You are not soldering a circuit board, the appearance of the soldered joints matters in modeling. Use torch / butane type and use capillary action to displace very small amount of solder, there won’t be sanding/filing necessary.
Soldering paste is important if you want to use small amount of solder, or there won’t be a good flow for the liquid to get into the cracks. And you need to preheat it so it doesn’t boil and bubble.
That guy’s article is almost laughable. Only thing he had gotten right is using 3rd hand/ helping hands.
Hey Rios,
You sound like a really smart guy. How about teaching us and giving a better and more detailed explanation of the proper way to do this?
I’m sure we would all like to hear how it’s done the proper way.
…
-
Prepare the PE pieces. Forming, annealing, cleaning.
-
Use a q-tip to smear some soldering paste over the joints. A very thin layer would do.
-
Use 3rd hands (the tweezer kind worked better. I use several single armed ones together) to get the PE pieces aligned up. They don’t have to be pushing really tight against each other, but they have to touch, and there must be no movement between them.
-
Use your butane torch to dry heat them, this is to get the paste to boil so it doesn’t bubble later on.
-
Chop up some solder chunks. 1/2 ml or less in volume. Place these along the joint with a tweezer. For 1 inch weld line, probably 3 or 4 chunks would be sufficient. Make sure you place a piece at each of the ends.
This step is a little touchy. The welding paste is sticky and the solder chunks won’t let go if you get that on your tweezer. I usually have several tweezers around so if one gets dirty I can use another. You want to do this quick so the soldering paste doesn’t cool… -
Adjust (do this beforehand) the butane torch so flame is about 1/4 inch long, or little less, approach the joint slowly. You’ll see the solder melting before the flame touches the PE, stop moving the torch and let it burn for a sec. Melted solder will get sucked into the joint gap by capillery action. If your solder chunks are small enough, you won’t need to file.
Don’t burn the PE too long or it might warp.
If you fu*ked up, then you need to desolder and clean the pieces. Remelting already oxidized solder won’t work. Do everything SLOWLY at first, it’s not hard, but try not to destroy things, or people…
Man, you track heads are a little tough on each other! No offense, a guy I worked with was an Army tanker and he referred to himself as a track head all the time. So it’s a compliment.
I think there’s good techniques from both posts. I’m working in some smaller PE material (1/35 37mm cannon for PT Boat) and the tinning of the parts prior to joining makes a lot of sense in those applications. I like the idea of using the small torch for larger pieces. I have a small torch that attaches to a propane bottle (from Micromark) but I find it to be a little to much. I’ll have to check into the butane method.
I’ve been looking at some soldering stations with articulating arms. There are a number of them available from jewelery supply stores. Do you have a favorite?
With respect to the material I’m working with which I have learned is nicle plated brass, I’m getting the feeling that the plating needs to be removed prior to soldering. I believe the plating is what caused the solder to ball. Do you agree with that or have you had success doing it another way?
Thanks to all of you and look forward to more feedback.
Dave
As someone said earlier, it’s nickle plated brass. What i usually do with Eduard PE is to lightly sand the nickle away where i want to solder and then the solder sticks very well, has worked very well for me every time, it doesn’t need to be that complicated.