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Posted by rbmcrafter on October 7, 2008, 7:16 pm
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I'm trying to weld or solder 14 guage copper wire to a steel horseshoe
for an art project. What is the best
way to do this? Welding melts the copper wire. I've tried soldering
with a torch and plumbers flux and acid core solder with only a 15%
success rate. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do this.
Thanks.
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Posted by Jim Stewart on October 7, 2008, 7:22 pm
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rbmcrafter wrote:
> I'm trying to weld or solder 14 guage copper wire to a steel horseshoe
> for an art project. What is the best
> way to do this? Welding melts the copper wire. I've tried soldering
> with a torch and plumbers flux and acid core solder with only a 15%
> success rate. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do this.
> Thanks.
Keep in mind that soft solder will not
support any load, even if done well.
Get both of them meticulously clean, tin
them both with silver solder and silver
solder flux then silver solder them together.
100% success rate if you don't take any
shortcuts.
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Posted by Grant Erwin on October 7, 2008, 7:45 pm
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rbmcrafter wrote:
> I'm trying to weld or solder 14 guage copper wire to a steel horseshoe
> for an art project. What is the best
> way to do this? Welding melts the copper wire. I've tried soldering
> with a torch and plumbers flux and acid core solder with only a 15%
> success rate. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do this.
> Thanks.
I have soft soldered stranded copper wire to steel using regular electrical
solder. It was plenty strong enough for what I needed at the time.
Grant
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
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Posted by IanM on October 7, 2008, 8:14 pm
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Grant Erwin wrote:
> rbmcrafter wrote:
>
>> I'm trying to weld or solder 14 guage copper wire to a steel horseshoe
>> for an art project. What is the best
>> way to do this? Welding melts the copper wire. I've tried soldering
>> with a torch and plumbers flux and acid core solder with only a 15%
>> success rate. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do this.
>> Thanks.
>
>
> I have soft soldered stranded copper wire to steel using regular electrical
> solder. It was plenty strong enough for what I needed at the time.
>
> Grant
When soft soldering to steel, it helps a lot to copper plate the steel.
Fortunately, steel immersed in copper sulphate solution plates itself.
The steel has to be totally clean, bright and grease free, apply copper
sulphate solution where you want to solder, wait for the colour change,
wash off, dry, flux and tin immediately then solder normally preferably
with a soldering gun not a torch to avoid too much oxidation. (Though
the torch will be needed to pre-heat the horseshoe till the solder is
close to melting.)
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Posted by Leo Lichtman on October 7, 2008, 8:34 pm
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"rbmcrafter" wrote: I'm trying to weld or solder 14 guage copper wire to a
steel horseshoe
> for an art project.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you even tried welding copper wire to steel, you need to learn more about
welding. It can be done by soft soldering, silver soldering or brazing, but
in every case you will have difficulty with the following two factors:
1.) Horseshoes are always covered with black iron oxide, or rust, Both
have to be removed completely, so you are working with a shiny surface.
2.) There is a fairly big difference in cross section between wire and the
horseshoe. Are you familiar with the technique for distributing the heat
properly between them, so they both reach the melting temp of the filler
metal at the same time?
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> for an art project. What is the best
> way to do this? Welding melts the copper wire. I've tried soldering
> with a torch and plumbers flux and acid core solder with only a 15%
> success rate. I'm open to suggestions on the best way to do this.
> Thanks.