Charlotte Posted July 9, 2009 Share Posted July 9, 2009 A widely available silver solder is Harris Products Co.'s Stay Brite silver solder. Harris is a subidary Lincoln Electric. facts: From Harris information sheet on line last revised 1/6/99 NOMINAL SOLDER COMPOSITION: PHYSICAL PROPERTIES: Mechanical properties of bulk solder Silver 3.6 - 4.4% Tin Remainder Solidus 430 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
overmodulated Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 There are solders, even for electrical work, that have lower melting points, say in the 3 hundreds (F). Why then is this particular solder recommended by some on this forum for knife making? Just curious - can't help but be curious over this one. Thanks for any feedback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted July 10, 2009 Author Share Posted July 10, 2009 (edited) The lower melt solders contain lead and/or do not stick to stainless steel, carbon steel, brass etc. It is also used because it does not tarnish to the extent or as quickly as lead solders. It also much stronger than any lead based solder and is an excellent color match to polished steel and stainless steel. For a silver bearing alloy it is low temp. I have used it for jewelry repair and assembling pieces that were soldered in part with higher melt solders. Musical instrument repair/and jewelry uses a range of solders that start at this level and go to close to a thousand deg f. I understand that some gun work uses the same alloys in repairing/reproducing 19th century weapons. The next step up: NOMINAL SOLDER COMPOSITION: Stay Brite #8 10/02 DC 1 PHYSICAL PROPERTIES: Mechanical properties of bulk solder Silver 5.5 – 6.0 % Tin Remainder Solidus 430 Edited July 10, 2009 by Charlotte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 Simply put it does the job well it is not hard to use, and the heat it takes is easily reached by propane burning hand held torches and tHE solder flows before the temper is lost due to heat on almost all knife making steels. It also as said above works with almost all the material we use for guards. Some of the other solders either contain lead or are not as strong as this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPH Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 Gee..I get my 96% Sn and 4% Ag from Kapp Alloy and it's like 1/3 the cost of that StayBright and it's very easy to use... JPH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted July 10, 2009 Author Share Posted July 10, 2009 Good to know JPH! I'm not selling Harris just providing information. It was appearent that some people weren't familiar with the 4% Silver/96 % Tin solder. Do you have a source for that solder? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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