Soldering vs Brazing
Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 8:12 am
I have doing a lot of reading and thinking about the tools and materials I would need to build a copper pot still similar to the pintoshine design I have seen posted here. I have read the How to solder post and searched the forums but I haven't been able to find a clear answer to this yet.
A lot of what I read, people seem to use soldering interchangeably with brazing and that's where I am getting confused. Brazing is done at a higher temperature and with a higher content silver brazing alloy (solder) than plain old soldering is or so I have read. Plain old lead free solder melts around 400 to 600 degrees while brazing alloys melt at much higher temps.
So if I am building a copper pot still, do I want to braze the bottom and sides when joining them together or can I get away with soldering them? My concern is if a soldered joint will melt when i am making a run. After all you can solder with a propane torch and I plan to use propane as my heat source to fire the still. Any opinions on this would be much appreciate.
A lot of what I read, people seem to use soldering interchangeably with brazing and that's where I am getting confused. Brazing is done at a higher temperature and with a higher content silver brazing alloy (solder) than plain old soldering is or so I have read. Plain old lead free solder melts around 400 to 600 degrees while brazing alloys melt at much higher temps.
So if I am building a copper pot still, do I want to braze the bottom and sides when joining them together or can I get away with soldering them? My concern is if a soldered joint will melt when i am making a run. After all you can solder with a propane torch and I plan to use propane as my heat source to fire the still. Any opinions on this would be much appreciate.