Metal to Metal Bonding - Your advice PLS

[turbine682]

Good Day!

I am aware that solder is often used when bonding metal to metal. I am interested in learning about adhesives that are useful when doing metal to metal work

I am interested in learning how to effectively work with all K&S Engineering Metals. From what little I've read, it seems that expoxies are the way to go. Is there a CA product also?

Thanks in advance....
--Ed

[ndbprr]

Well if I wasn't going to solder and was going to join flat surfaces I would use contact cement. Learning to solder isn't hard. You just need to clean both surface thoroughly, add a little flux and have at it. It is permanent and done.

[TomDiehl]

Solder only works with certain metals, such as copper alloys and tin plated metals like used in the Suydam kits. Other metals, and bonding 2 different metals together would be best done with contact cement,, epoxy, or super glue, depending on the strength needed in the joint. All types of joints need to be cleaned, regardless of how you are bonding them together.

To go into a bit more detail on soldering, the joint area MUST be clean. Buff the area off with a mild abrasive such as a typing eraser or a bright boy type track cleaner. Clean the area to a shine, do NOT depend on the flux to remove dirt. Flux needs to be used very sparingly, don't flood or glob it on the joint. The flux must completely vaporize before the solder will flow and the fumes of most fluxes are toxic in quantity. I've taken to exhaling slowly toward the joint just as I touch the iron to the joint, blowing the vaporized flux away from me. The items to be soldered together need to be held together rigidly, and not with your fingers, this will get VERY hot. Touch the solder to the iron tip to get a small bubble of melted solder on it, this will help with heat transfer. Then touch it to the joint area. As soon as the smoke stops, touch the solder to the joint, not the iron tip, the solder should visibly flow into the joint. Once the joint is complete, remove the iron and let it cool. After each joint, clean the iron tip with a wire brush or a wet sponge, a couple quick wipes are all it will take. Make sure it's a shiny silver color before turning the iron off. The black residue on the tip is flux and will corrode the tip if not removed. I've had the same tip in my iron for many years. If you have the type that the tip screws into the heat element, before turning on the iron, unscrew the tip and put it back in each time. This will help keep it from seizing in the element. Also, clean all flux residue from the joint area. The residue will attract moisture in the air and reactivate the acids in the flux causing corrosion.

I solder code 100 nickel silver rail together with a 28 watt iron very successfully using the above method. by having the joint clean, the iron hot, and very little flux, I have the iron to the joint for only a few seconds, minimizing the possibility of melting plastic ties.

As I've said in other answers to posts, if you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at my home email [e-mail]

[FJ and G]

Tom,

That's what I thought too but in Radio Shack there's a new solder called "Solder Weld" that advertises itself as 5 times stronger than solder and able to solder any metal together, even coated metal.

my inclination is to test a batch against epoxy and see which one is tougher.

If the solder weld advertisement is correct, this could open up a whole new world of metal structure scratcbuilding (O scale) for me.

The Solder Weld contains silver and a low-heat soldering iron is all that's needed. Even a match will do.

Those are some big claims that are worth examining!

[TomDiehl]

What Radio Shack has is nothing new. Match solder has been around for a long time. It's the same thing as the low temp alloy that's usually sold for adding weight to plastic locomotives, like the BearMetal brand. It melts at about 180 degrees F. I've never tried it for bonding a joint, so I can't offer any help there. Don't be intimidated by regular solder, it's not that hard to do.

[orsonroy]

In general, if you can do it, solder the parts together. If you can't, try for a mechanical bond (screws, pins, etc). As a last resort, use an adhesive.

Adhesives are pretty much horible for most metal-to-metal bonds, since they have virtually no shear strength. ACC or 5-minute epoxy is fine for small parts, where two wires cross, or for things that don't have to be handled, but will fail fairly soon if they're put to any stress. And most metals will odidize under the adhesive, weakening and eventually destroying the bond. I recently dug out a box of lead wargaming tanks that I had built in the early 1990s, and haden't looked at in over five years. I had a box of nicely painted parts, because they were all assembled with ACC!

And Tom's right; soldering isn't hard. There's a laerning curve as with anything else, but once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder why you didn't learn the skill long ago!

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl


To go into a bit more detail on soldering, the joint area MUST be clean. Buff the area off with a mild abrasive such as a typing eraser or a bright boy type track cleaner. Clean the area to a shine, do NOT depend on the flux to remove dirt.

I agree. This is very important.

Before I solder metal to metal I put the wire brush in the Dremel and clean the two areas to be soldered so that they each are bright. This is also helpful on rail when soldering feeder wires.

[Anonymous]

My LHS sells ACC glue for metal and I can say it works. Although any super gule seems to work just as well.
ALWAYS WEAR EYE PROTECTION WHEN HANDLING ACC GLUES, especially the super thin type.

[cwclark]

JB Weld works well for me when I join large pieces of metal together (like adding weights to the rolling stock frame plate)...but CA glue works very well for small metal parts like the metal used by Details West in their detailing parts that they put out, in fact, i just glued a metal headlight set on a GP-9 last night using CA glue and it bonded so well i was able to drill out the light sockets without cracking the bond after letting it dry for about 30 minutes...chuck