- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 2,534
Yesterday a friend called me and asked about the possibility of silver soldering a part on a black powder rifle. That prompted me to
hone up my skills a little in case I end up having to do that job. Anyhow, this morning in the shop I started with grinding a triangular tip
on a piece of tungsten carbide from my inventory of scrap carbide shown below. It took an hour to grind an accurate 60 degree point as
the carbide was a pretty rough piece. I needed to mount the carbide on a suitable hunk of steel and ended up machining on the butt end of
a Kennametal threading tool. I used my Henrob(Dillon) torch to silver solder on the insert using some Stay-Silv flux to wet the surface.
Interestingly, the Stay-Silv was dried up and not readily reconstitutable but I have been using it that way for years so no big deal there.
I applied a small piece of the dried flux and heated it with the torch until it melted and then proceeded to heat up the steel until the
silver solder would coat the surface. Then I added the carbide and got the carbide and steel up to about 1200 degrees and added a little
more silver solder to be sure there was enough on there to do the job. A small bit of pressure on the carbide ensures that there is enough
silver solder applied as it begins to exude out at the edges. It takes very little solder to do the job, I'd say about 1/2 inch of .032 solder will
be sufficient. After cooling the tool off, I did some relief grinding the the bench grinder. Also, this morning I ground several other carbide
tools while I was at it along with several HSS threading cutters. It seems stuff gets used to the point where lots of cutters need attention.
Today was the day for that kind of work in the shop.
hone up my skills a little in case I end up having to do that job. Anyhow, this morning in the shop I started with grinding a triangular tip
on a piece of tungsten carbide from my inventory of scrap carbide shown below. It took an hour to grind an accurate 60 degree point as
the carbide was a pretty rough piece. I needed to mount the carbide on a suitable hunk of steel and ended up machining on the butt end of
a Kennametal threading tool. I used my Henrob(Dillon) torch to silver solder on the insert using some Stay-Silv flux to wet the surface.
Interestingly, the Stay-Silv was dried up and not readily reconstitutable but I have been using it that way for years so no big deal there.
I applied a small piece of the dried flux and heated it with the torch until it melted and then proceeded to heat up the steel until the
silver solder would coat the surface. Then I added the carbide and got the carbide and steel up to about 1200 degrees and added a little
more silver solder to be sure there was enough on there to do the job. A small bit of pressure on the carbide ensures that there is enough
silver solder applied as it begins to exude out at the edges. It takes very little solder to do the job, I'd say about 1/2 inch of .032 solder will
be sufficient. After cooling the tool off, I did some relief grinding the the bench grinder. Also, this morning I ground several other carbide
tools while I was at it along with several HSS threading cutters. It seems stuff gets used to the point where lots of cutters need attention.
Today was the day for that kind of work in the shop.
