Soldering for Enamelling
- Details
- Parent Category: Technical Articles from Journal Back Copies
- Category: Technical Articles 2000
with Richard Witek at Leicester, April 2000.
Janet Notman
"Due to the decomposition of the alloys solder is badly weakened by constant reheating. Therefore, in theory, but not generally in practice, soldering should be done once an enamel is finished!”
This workshop showed that this is not impossible and watching Richard Witek gave us the courage to go away and try it for ourselves.
The following notes were taken down at a gallop by an absolute beginner so much of it you may already know, but I hope some of the tips may come in useful.
FLUX NOTES -
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Borax acts as a cleaning agent and degreases.
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Mix borax to the consistency of skimmed milk. Do not mix too thickly or it will make a barrier through which the solder will not go.
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Put on first coat of borax over the area to be soldered and dry. If the borax is seen to cover the surface only partially put on a second coat, removing the first coat as you go to cover the whole area. Dry. If covering is still incomplete repeat the process but do not allow a build up of borax to occur. One thin coat is all that is needed.
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With enamels make sure the borax does not contaminate the glass surface.