Pintoshine Style Still From S/H Hot water Cylinder

[Dan P.]

Damn, Usge, you know that truly never occurred to me!

[Usge]

[Dirge]

Try soft lead-free solder, Dirge. These old pieces were mostly soft soldered together.
The one problem, whatever you use, is that you are joining parts that are not flat and perfectly mated. If you are like me you will have a good few cock-ups, which is a good reason to use soft solder, as it can be easily "undone", and the solder reclaimed.
How I did it was to put a few solder tacks along the joint, then hammer it as flat/straight as possible, then solder. I did a lot of "skip soldering" so that the heat didn't undo the seams already finished.

I've been after strength and resisting going 'soft' in more ways than one, and I finally got my own set of bottles recently, so I had the means do something stronger; that's where I started from. Braze turns out to be silly and has caused a huge amount of work and a messy finish. Mad. Never again! I got 15% silver solder yesterday (no Cadmium or lead) and made the seam round the bulge of the boiler using the same technique you describe with amazingly great ease. Sad that it's a dull solder grey not bright brass but the saving in grief is vast. Today I hope I'll get the sides dressed out, caulk the insides of the seams (this is where I plan to use the soft solder) so it's easy to clean properly and fit the bottom. A tidy up and a clean and the boiler part will be done.

However, it appears that you know exactly what you are doing anyway!

Not convinced; I can't remember when I went a more convoluted route to achieve an end. I will get there, but I can see this build-thread ending up mostly as a warning how not to do it for others, but I suppose that's useful too. I've learnt a huge amount too and that's never wasted either.

[Dirge]

Progress report, just to keep this alive. I'm having huge trouble with the boiler, partly because my tourist job has just gone '7 days a week' and I'm having trouble finding time when I can get filthy without consequences and I don't like to hammer things out of hours for the neighbours' sake.

Anyway; I made a collar for it. This worked. I wanted to have a taper fit on this. The cap has a taper on it and I got out the Pintoshine template for it and made another half height piece the same. I thought the top needed reinforcing to stop it splitting in use and decided to try a wired edge. This turns out to be fairly easy. I made a bending tool, 2 bits of iron screwed together with a bit of copper and some cardboard packing between them so it will slip over the sheet. Then you shape one side to the profile of your wire and adjust the depth of your packing so it can only go on 'so far'. Scribe a line round your collar 3x the thickness of your wire. That's where your bend starts. I had a piece of suitable copper wire for the job but I'd have used brazing rod if not.

Once I'd got the wire partly located I fitted it up to the cap neck

THen I cut the wire to length and slid it round so the join was well away from the join in the sheet.

"Why the gap?' you ask. Because I tried to braze the collar and f**ked it but wanted to save the metal. I put a patch in so I have 2 joins not one. This set a bit of an unwanted trend...

THis is officially a pic of taking a template of the patch with newspaper to repair my ham-fistedness with the torch but you can see the wired edge has worked well

.

To fit the collar I beat the opening in the boiler from inside, dressing it up and out until the collar would slide in. That gave me a vertical flange on it. The collar being tapered it started and wedged nicely. Then I turned the collar bottom edge inside the boiler OUT and it was all locked and I had a double thickness right round the corner. This bit worked well and seems a good way to do it.

I then had an idle play at knocking out a few of the warts in the boiler side and it split next to the join.

That was where I got before Xmas; I finally got out there yesterday and tried to fit a patch; I had great trouble keeping the 2 edges close and then ran out of gas half way through.

Cutting out the (awful) seam and cracks prior to patching.

I'm now on my second type of silver solder which seems most suitable yet and is hugely cheaper.

It's becoming a soap opera this.

[Dirge]

And 'at least a fortnight' to refill the gas.

Ho hum.

The workshop needs a clear and it's about time I put that Triumph together...

[Dan P.]

Watching with interest!

[Bushman]

Old trick from grandpaw.....a soaking wet rag laid on a seam will also cool that part just enough to keep it from coming unglued while you work on the adjacent part.

Learned that trick from Mash Rookie while he was helping me with my build. It's a good one and saves a lot of solder and time redoing not to mention frustration.

[Usge]

When I built my bubble plate...I could not keep the cap from coming unglued while I soldered the bottom stem in. So, I put a small stainless shotglass (like that comes with a flask) wiht a piece of ice in it on top of the cap.