paratom
Western Thunderer
Getting back into the hang of this soldering now. Decided to use the liquid flux instead of the paste as it seems to give better results, The boiler has now been soldered at the seam (fig.5) which got me thinking how I was going to do this as it can be a bit tricky making sure the seam comes together correctly and then holding it to solder. There were two methods I had in mind, one was the traditional way of doing it with a soldering iron and soldering at the seam or resistance soldering. In the end I opted for resistance soldering by sweating a tined piece of nickel silver to the inside of the seam. I felt this would give me a stronger joint. In order to do this I needed to turn a piece of brass (fig.3) that was just under the inside boiler diameter. This was clamped on the vice with the etched boiler inserted over the brass with the tined nickel silver under the seam. A piece of paper was inserted under the nickel silver, the seamed closed and resistance soldered (fig.4). I was happy with the results and the joint is holding. The kit came with an etched riveted smoke box rapper (fig.1) that needed rolling. I wanted a Johnson smoke box without the rivets so I filed them off then turned the part using the non riveted side as the outside. It would have been a lot easier if the rivets had been press out ones then there would have been no filing involved. To accompany the smokebox I needed a Johnson smoke box door which did not come with the kit and so I had to turn one (fig.6). Not so difficult as I thought it would be and all it required was a large HSS toolbit to shape the end of the correct diameter bar. The toolbit was packed up on the cross slide until it was the correct height then held by hand to turn the radius (fig.2). Having done these jobs I would be interested to know what modellers preferences are to solder paste as apposed to tinning when it comes to resistance soldering and anything they may have done differently to the way I have done it.
