Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

This was posted on here somewhere a while back, seems some have a lot of success with simply soft soldering. I'm pretty keen to give this a go myself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIkvP55UbxM

Cheers

This video seems to confirm that it should be good enough as well
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqDdkzVDvRY

Might give it a go and see what happens :)

I might need some expert advice on this.

I've got scrap 1 1/2 inch copper pipes, and I want to slice em up, flatten them, and practice my soldering to make bubble plates/ end caps/ shotguns etc. Purely for practice before I start my next build. I can hard solder, and I tried soft soldering but failed miserably. From your opinions, should down pipes on plates, or vapor pipes on shotguns be hard or soft soldered? I'm worried that due to the heat for hard solder, it will melt the other joins.

@BJ

Thanks for the informative tips. I guess that's my project today, soft soldering 101.

I think last time I tried soft soldering I used incorrect flux (aquasafe ??) And knowing me I probably had the wrong solder too.

I'll be making a trip to Bunnings soon this morning, and a trip to the scrap yard to see what goodies they have.

After hard soldering, that black nasty leftover, is that sandable? Or will I just be wasting my time?

BourbonJunkie wrote:

CaptainRedBeard wrote:After hard soldering, that black nasty leftover, is that sandable? Or will I just be wasting my time?

It can be sanded... just. Perhaps with paper you are looking more at polishing. I have been known to lock the small angle grinder in the vice with a fine grit flap disk in the grinder, and very judiciously sand back the hard solder that way.

I have a dremmel replica (Ozito) which has fine grit paper, and polishing tips. I'll give that a crack

I have just been through a build of a 4" bubbler.
I brazed mine up all with 15% silver solder (hard solder) The reason for this is I was a plumber once and had only ever used silver brazing.
I did try a bit of soft solder (lead free) but was not successful so it was out with the oxy torch and into the build with brazing.
I really wish I had persevered and taught myself to soft solder properly. I have since done so.
Its all about having everything super clean and using good flux and not too much heat (oxy is overkill for this, mapgas is fine)
I read on here that soft solder is heaps strong enough for everything even easy flanges.
Soft solder cleans up so much more easily. I reckon I spent an extra 4 - 5 hours sanding/filing/polishing on the brazed up column etc.
Other bloke might think differently but that was my experience.

Cheers. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hey red beard there is a really good thread on here about soft soldering that mac did it was extremely helpful and theres another about making shotty's aswell. I'll try give you the links.
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1237

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3087

I think this has something to do with soldering :D :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV8boURmByU

Thanks guys. I'm studying and trialing it as we speak.

Wish me luck

Hi guys. So i am looking for some more information todo with brazing. I used boc prosilver 45T for some of my brazing and it has silver copper tin and zinc in the rods. I have been doing some reading and cant seem to fine a definate answer about if zinc is bad. I have found info going both ways for good and bad.

Does anyone know anything?

Have this,and you can see that overheating and bad ventilation should be avoided .cheers hillzabilly

lol, i have a large garage and i filled it up with smoke once. had to walk away and come back an hour later when it aired out :))

Thanks. I am more thinking when the still is running and the alcohol is bubbling threw the still will the zinc leach out and be harmfull?

I doubt it. Maybe if you ate the rods. Large quantities can be toxic but trace amounts should be ok. They do sell zinc tablets at the chemists remember. Lead is bad because your body has trouble flushing it from your system so it can accumulate to toxic levels. Not so bad with zinc.

not sure if it is the same stuff but doesnt all this stuff have zink in it that people use?

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=zinc+sunscreen&biw=1920&bih=969&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO-qXGvrLMAhUl2qYKHSAEDZgQ_AUIBigB

So gave my oxy/map a go little while ago today as a practice.
just got an of-cut of 16mm and a flat bit of copper and stood it up and just hit it with a good flame with 1/2" feather.

I was so amazed how well it pooled and moved with the heat once up to temp and how much heat it actually packed in what doesnt look like much but is, blows soft solder away IMO at the moment. Going to use white out next time and see how that goes. had a pinhole in it when i finished and hit it again and it closed up easy as :-D

My first attempt


Couple of questions though,

when brazing does it help to clean the joints with some sand paper or something like with soft solder?

and i know people say you dont need flux with copper to copper and i did not use any this time or when i do flange rings but is there any benefit for it with flux on copper to make it a little easier or is it just a waste of time and money?

and lastly i used 2% a while ago on rings for flanges and switched to 5% (used this today also) and saw a msssive difference in how easy it was to use compared to the 2% on the swivel map gas torch. Does the silver % matter just as much now i have the oxy/map kit with the high heat?

I like silver soldering because its forgiving and you don't need flux and for bigger stuff I can lay my hands on an oxy set. Little stuff brazes fine with mapp. As I'm shite at doing all that prep work stuff and I just seem to burn the flux away before I get up to temp anyway.
I don't care if its pretty so a little bit of flux showing isn't that big a deal to me.

With my limited experience, I've found that 15% is the easiest to use but not cheap. So have some 15% for bits that are tricky.
I bought the correct flux which melts at soldering temp and it helps suck the solder into the joints and helping to keep the rest clean.
I've always sanded the area to solder so can't comment about not cleaning the joints first.
But as I'm not using oxy I'm making things as easy as possible with oxy it should be easier.

cheers coffee, im using the 5% ones from masters which seem to work well, well better than the 2% ones lol and they are $9 last time i got one, prob 600mm long. same one at bunnings was 5$ dearer.

How much does the 15% ones cost and where is the best place to buy them. should i avoid places like bunnings when looking for good brazing rods (cheap and good) and go to a welding supplies shop?

i have a few 5% rods at the moment but was thinking about grabbing a few more before masters closes. i was in last week and it was 10% off, maybe its more today since they keep blaring the closing down sale over the radio.

The rods I have were about $9 each 600 long and 15% silver. They came from the welding supplies shop on lyton Rd
I think he gave me trade price as I went in straight from work in high viz and boots