Scalefour Forum

I know that to solder white metal to brass with low melt, one has to tin the brass first.

Can you use low melt solder directly on to nickel silver or does that need tinning too? (I am aware of 100o solder.)

You have to tin the nickel silver as you do with brass. If you are quick and don't linger with the iron, it is possible to use 145° to unite brass or nickel direct to a casting, but it can be a trifle hairy.

Philip

Thanks, Philip.

C&L Finescale do a 100 deg solder in the Carrs range which doesn't require pre-tinning for brass or N/S. Recommended.

Jol

There is not really any difference between soldering brass and nickel silver, whether to other pieces of brass/nickel silver or to white metal. I usually use low melt (70 degress C) solder from Eileen's Emporium. If possible, apply most of the heat to the nickel silver.

Terry Bendall

I was introduced to 100degree solder by Steve Duckworth who uses it all the time.
With it you do not need to pre-tin either brass or nickel silver.
I would highly recommend it and would never go back to 70deg which was always a faff!
Jim P

While I agree with Jim P re 100 deg solder, I find there are occasions where 70 deg is still more useful e.g. when attaching small w/m parts to large brass parts. It's awfully easy to melt the w/m part before the brass is hot enough.

Oh, and don't tell me about Cyano-Acrylates! Too much Abassynian language associated with that (cf Para Handy)

Allan F

Thanks, chaps. I confess to preferring the 70o but know what Jim means. For some reason, after initial success with the 100o, I have had trouble with it. Perhaps it is one of those occasions where one has to remind oneself of the basics and start again, slowly and carefully.

I was interested in Terry's point about heating the brass or nickel silver more than the white metal. I have tended to try and heat both so must try this technique. It is a small point which may turn out to be a pearl! Thanks, Terry.

I have to agree with Allan about the 70o - there are occasions when it is the best tool for the job.

davidb wrote:Thanks, chaps. I confess to preferring the 70o but know what Jim means. For some reason, after initial success with the 100o, I have had trouble with it.

I've been having a play with the 100o stuff of late, and I find that while its doesn't need the brass to be tinned, it will only really wets the brass and sticks to it if you get the brass rather hotter than 100o. So what you gain on the roundabouts... Actually what makes soldering white metal difficult is trying to fanny about with a half cold soldering irons. What works best is soaking the joint with liquid flux, and using a reasonably hot iron, which you must remove before the flux has all boiled away.

What I have been doing with the 100ostuff is bedding down lost wax cast boiler fittings onto a brass boiler and it seem to do that job quite well. I have been reasonably successful at getting the chimney etc. on strait without unsticking all the bits done previously done with 145o stuff.

My last success with 100o was fixing some cast brass bits in to white metal using a RSU. I tinned a prong on the brass (with 100o) which went into a slightly oversized hole in the white metal. With the carbon probe on the top of the casting I started with a low setting on the RSU and worked up until the solder melted. The result was a very tidy job which would have been difficult with an iron.

David, that looks like a very neat job; I'm assuming it's a good deal smaller than it appears on my screen.....

Another thing for which I have successfully used 100deg solder is for attaching largish lumps of brass, e.g. a turned brass dome or chimney. I've never had an RSU, and using lo-melt reduces the amount of heat I need to get into the job, and the chance of melting off everything else in sight.

Allan F

davidb wrote:I was interested in Terry's point about heating the brass or nickel silver more than the white metal. I have tended to try and heat both so must try this technique.

This is a tip gained from welding using an oxy-acetylene flame and from brazing and silver soldering both of which use a much higher temperature. To achieve a successful joint in any form of soldering, both pieces of metal have to be at the correct temperature. The brass or nickel has a much higher melting point so if you favour that, the risk of melting the white metal is reduced. As with anything else, practice makes perfect.

Terry Bendall

I have used a RSU to attach white metal tender axle boxes to a brass frame. In this case I have tinned the brass with 145°, and tinned the casting with a wipe of 70° with a temperature controlled iron set low. With the casting in place, the probe was placed nearby, on the brass, and zapped until the solder just began to turn silverery and no more. It made a tidy joint, and I have found that it is possible just to use the 145°, or the 100°, but in these cases there is a risk of melting the casting. Which of course, I did.

Philip

allanferguson wrote:I'm assuming it's a good deal smaller than it appears on my screen.....

You are right, Allan. The diameter is about 11mm. I had 9 of them as you can see on the finished article which is a bit lighter in colour because of the lighting.

David

Nice work.

Very neat indeed - Cordon Bleu in fact

Looks very good David.

Is this the CSP/Haye Developments kit? If so, what would be your assessment of the kit?

Joe Newman

Joe Newman wrote:Is this the CSP/Haye Developments kit? If so, what would be your assessment of the kit?

Thank you, Joe. It is the CSP kit with a lot of alterations. Like any of the Jidenco/Falcon kits, it is a very good exercise in kit bashing and scratch building.

There were several changes I made because I was building it a) to P4 and b) to a different picture which had Dean brake bits. I also wanted to spring it and used Bill Bedford's units. However, there were some better things in the kit (over the Jidenco/Falcon) especially in the solebar department.

My principal beef was with some cruder and overscale fittings. The straps which hold the tanks and their frame down are fixed on the real thing with nuts and bolts. The kit provides 14BA nuts and bolts for this purpose, rather OTT to my mind so I made my own from 1mm brass rod. The other bits which I was unhappy with were the cast brass fittings for the plumbing. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of their being overscale when I made the tanks up (see above) but by the time I came to connect the plumbing up, I felt I had to bin the pipe unions and make my own which I did from lace pins. The gauges were not included with the kit so had to be made. Likewise, the pipes from the tanks also had to be fashioned and for this I made a simple jig.

All in all, it was perhaps the most challenging non-locomotive kit I have made. Knowing what I do now, I would approach it differently and, I hope, make a better job of some bits. No, I am not telling you which areas I am less happy with - I know them because we became intimately acquainted during building but in most cases I have managed to camouflage them. I did several posts with pictures here starting at post 32.

What I found extremely helpful were the instructions for the 7mm WEP kit whose diagrams made several things very much clearer than the CSP literature.

Thank you for your speedy and very helpful reply David. I had missed your other posts.

You clearly spent a lot of time on this model and the results speak for themselves.

Joe

I remember an article by John Ambler about his triumph over adversity when building a Jidenco (I think) Cordon wagon. The MRJ index says it was issue 77 and states "A pair of the distinctive GWR 'Cordon' gas tank vehicles took considerable effort to get an acceptable result from an indifferent kit."

Like a Yorkshireman's advice to hikers "I wouldn't start from here"!

Ian

Ian Everett wrote:I remember an article by John Ambler about his triumph over adversity when building a Jidenco (I think) Cordon wagon. The MRJ index says it was issue 77 and states "A pair of the distinctive GWR 'Cordon' gas tank vehicles took considerable effort to get an acceptable result from an indifferent kit."

Like a Yorkshireman's advice to hikers "I wouldn't start from here"!

I, and I suspect many other modellers, know exactly what you mean, Ian. However, I will point out that the CSP kit is an improvement on Jidenco/Falcon practice but there are still, in my opinion, shortcomings. It does depend to a large extent what you want from the kit - the more exacting you are, the more work you have to do, but if you want a reasonable representation you can make it. However, that was not for me.

The other thing is that no-one else does this kit. David Geen does a DD5 but the CSP kit is the only DD4 that I know of. Likewise with the Falcon range, it includes a number of kits that no-one else does. There is, though, a curious sense of satisfaction in working on and completing one of these kits in spite of the shortcomings. Having done so, I certainly feel much more confident with my modelling - it has been a good experience.

Sorry, I had wrongly assumed that the CSP was a reincarnation of the Jidenko.

davidb wrote:I did several posts with pictures here starting at post 32.

David,
I read your how to build with interest - nice model. Didn't John Lewis do a series of articles on 'cordon's' in GWRJ

p.s. Has Terry got an entry for competition at S4urm in September

dave k wrote:Didn't John Lewis do a series of articles on 'cordon's' in GWRJ

You are right, though I had not realised it. There were two articles in issues 1 and 2 back in 1992.