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TIG welding - soldering very thin material- help please

Ernie or anybody else please feel free to jump in,

very thin stainless steel sheet metal 24 gaugewhich is .8 mm or even thinner say .6 millimeter, need to join weld a 1/2 inch diameter small tube same thicknes 24 gauge in a variety of angles.

I like to TIG it or solder it.

My questions;

is it possible to TIG it without a need for back purging somehow to avoid metal crystolizing on the back side ?

what is the smallest torch reccomended for this ?

soldering such material with out badly discoloring it ? what to use for solder and what to use for flux?

I've tried different kind of solders but it turned in to a " no hold" or a big messy blobs and blue metal.

A dealer let me experiment with a TIG + foot pedal , but needles to say I turned that sheet metal into a screen door looking thing :-( full of holes.

your advice is appriciated.

Reply to
acrobat-ants
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Or 0.023" for the thinner value. I used to solder 0.006" stainless shimstock. 95-5 tin-antimony works nicely - so do many other solders. Stainless needs a very active flux for best results, and you need to clean the flux off when you are done. Soldering has 3 cardinal rules - physically clean, chemically clean (flux) and the right heat. Big messy blobs and blue metal sounds like too much heat and not enough flux. Also, (soft) solder joints should be designed to have some inherent strength which is not just the solder (a mechanical joint) - otherwise you need to move up to brazing or welding. "Hard solder" (silver "solder" in sticks) is actually silver braze.

If the 1/2" tube is connecting to a hole in the sheet, a flare on both parts can make a lovely mechanical joint which you can expect to soft solder succesfully.

My favorite heat source for soldering the shimstock was an OA torch with a long feather (very carburizing flame). The feather (never anywhere near the cone) was the part of the flame used on the material.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

You could try TIG Brazewelding it with silicon bronze, but you will need some really small silicon bronze wire, and really low amps, like around 15 or so.

TIG Brazewelding doesn't ever melt the base metal so no sugaring of the backside occurs. You will get some colors, but very low distortion.

Reply to
Ernie Leimkuhler

Try 56% Cad free or 50N silver brazing filler with Harris white flux. O/A is prefered, with about 3/4" of feather. But you may be able to use MAPP on stainless this thin.

Reply to
Mark Stonich

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