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

Post by Steve Broady »

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.
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I then cleaned up the surfaces and hammered the protruding copper over to form a flange.
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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.
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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!
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StillDre
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by StillDre »

It has been a while Steve, how did this hold up? It looks like it could/ should do the trick.
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by MooseMan »

Looks like you could swing a cat off that all day!

Nice solution Steve, that's going in the memory bank.
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Steve Broady
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by Steve Broady »

StillDre wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2023 12:42 am It has been a while Steve, how did this hold up? It looks like it could/ should do the trick.
Absolutely zero issues, Dre. It’s rock solid. While I haven’t tried swinging a cat off of it, I believe it would hold up better than the cat .. or me! :lol: I do regularly hang a 30” leibig off of it, though, and have completely stopped worrying about those joints. One more step toward making this sow’s ear into a bit of a silk purse.
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by Wildcats »

I think it was a good job man. Can't believe I hadn't seen this before. Way to stick with it .
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by MooseMan »

Steve Broady wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2023 4:32 pm While I haven’t tried swinging a cat off of it, I believe it would hold up better than the cat .. or me! :lol: I do regularly hang a 30” leibig off of it, though, and have completely stopped worrying about those joints.
You should try it Steve, it's liberating! Haha

Good job man, that joint will most likely outlast you, and I like the ingenuity of using what you have available to get it done.
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by Wildcats »

+1 I like it too
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StillDre
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by StillDre »

Steve Broady wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2023 4:32 pm Absolutely zero issues, Dre. It’s rock solid. While I haven’t tried swinging a cat off of it, I believe it would hold up better than the cat .. or me! :lol: I do regularly hang a 30” leibig off of it, though, and have completely stopped worrying about those joints. One more step toward making this sow’s ear into a bit of a silk purse.
Allright, thanks for your feedback :thumbup: Well then we just have to assume that it will pass the cat test regardless :lol:

Disclaimer: no animals were used in the making of this project

I'm also interested on how the soldering went, anything worth sharing on that? If I had to solder this (your project) now I would say heat the ferrule the most and the copper just enough, let the solder do the talking.

Im also jiggling around with ideas and possibilities on combining stainless and copper.I read different opinions about it here mostly based on the theoretical side. Some actual use cases would be very helpful imho :D
Last edited by StillDre on Sun Aug 20, 2023 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Steve Broady
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by Steve Broady »

StillDre wrote: Sun Aug 20, 2023 8:50 am I'm also interested on how the soldering went, anything worth sharing on that? If I had to solder this (your project) now I would say heat the ferrule the most and the copper just enough, let the solder do the talking.
Let me preface this by saying that I am no expert at soldering. I’ve been working with brass and copper in small scale models and electronics for decades, but I’m pretty new to stainless and large items.

The soldering was quite uneventful. If I remember right, I put a small ring of solder around the joint, and then heated it exclusively from the ferrule. Copper conducts heat well enough to need no additional heat if its own. I did take care to play the heat all around the ferrule, because stainless definitely doesn’t conduct as well. Once everything got hot enough, the solder flow easily.

Then, after forming the flange, I heated it from both sides just because I was soldering two thin sheets, so I went with whatever was convenient.
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StillDre
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by StillDre »

That makes sense, thanks again Steve, much appreciated! :thumbup:
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Re: I should have listened, or: Fixing what was bound to break

Post by LordL »

Got me thinking of the figure of speech, then further to the lyrics of the song "when good dogs do bad things" 😁

I could swing a cat in this crowded room, without even hit a soul.


Great, now I must listen to that again! 😁
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