Twisted Brick told me the solder joint would fail. I soldered a couple ferrules onto the lid of my boiler. No flange, just the surface area of the end of the ferrule and a decent bead of solder.
I’ve soldered enough things in my life to know that you should never rely on a butt joint. At the very least, you need some decent surface area, and preferably a mechanical joint of some kind. So the prediction wasn’t a surprise. But I’m stubborn, and chose to proceed and hope for the best.
It failed. I repaired that joint, and things worked fine for quite some time. And then it failed again. I suspect that the weight of my new Liebig was just too much for it. Time to do it right, or at least better. Unfortunately, brazing is not an option at the moment. I have neither the tools nor the skills yet, and I don’t want to practice here. If I hadn’t already cut the holes in the lid, I’d just press a flange into it. I suppose I still could have, but it didn’t seem like a great solution.
This is what I came up with. I split some 3/8” copper tubing, flattened it, and then carefully filed the ends until I could roll a sleeve that just fit inside the ferrule. I slid it in with about 3/8” or so sticking out, and soldered it in place.
I then cleaned up the surfaces and hammered the protruding copper over to form a flange.
I soldered the flange to the inside surface of the lid, double checked that I had solder everywhere that I needed it, cleaned up a couple solder blobs, and called it good.
Hopefully this time it’ll hold long term and last as long as the rest of the rather cheap boiler. At least it doesn’t leak now!
I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break
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Steve Broady
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I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break
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