Leaky 100 year old tenon

[MiBrassFS]

I have one of those little Buescher Eb helicons from 1924 here. When fiddling around with it yesterday, I noticed it had a crack in the bit tenon. A quick check, yep, it leaked. So, what the heck, let’s fix it. Turned out pretty good! No more leak.

Clipboard Aug 28, 2024 at 2.37 PM.jpeg (49.13 KiB) Viewed 836 times

Clipboard Aug 28, 2024 at 2.37 PM.jpeg (41.28 KiB) Viewed 836 times

Clipboard Aug 28, 2024 at 2.38 PM.jpeg (98.62 KiB) Viewed 836 times

[arpthark]

What sort of jig do you have for holding small parts like this?

Is the little rib soft soldered on or silver soldered?

I have just a little experience with silver soldering, and it always ends up very ugly-looking but functional. Had I some sort of higher horsepower buffing thing, that would be great for making it less ugly, but the little 1/6 HP wheel I have on my bench doesn't do a whole lot. What did you do to get the brunt of the floated silver bearing solder off?

[MiBrassFS]

The solder I used is like this stuff:

https://www.ferreestoolsinc.com/product ... 1fa5&_ss=r

So, not “silver solder,” but has no lead and has some silver content. People will call it “softer silver solder,” or “silver bearing solder,” etc. Requires a bit higher heat, but not like actual “silver solder.” Stronger than yer standard soft 70/30 or 60/40.

I think the reinforcement is soft soldered on. I prayed and kept a spray bottle handy to keep that part cool… nothing let loose!

I have one of these:

https://www.ferreestoolsinc.com/product ... 7565472815

Works ok. I can’t believe they cost so much new now. Geebus.

As far as clean up goes… cooled everything down, heated the extraneous solder and wiped with clean paper towel with rounds of the spray bottle to cool between heating the solder and wiping until it was clean. Hit it with some super, fine sand paper (1000? Maybe?) to remove only the solder skim coat and used a soft brass wheel to depinkify everything. I also burnished the filled crack area to ensure it was level as possible.

“I’m no expert, just persistent.”

[arpthark]

The solder I used is like this stuff:

https://www.ferreestoolsinc.com/product ... 1fa5&_ss=r

So, not “silver solder,” but has no lead and has some silver content. People will call it “softer silver solder,” or “silver bearing solder,” etc. Requires a bit higher heat, but not like actual “silver solder.” Stronger than yer standard soft 70/30 or 60/40.

I think the reinforcement is soft soldered on. I prayed and kept a spray bottle handy to keep that part cool… nothing let loose!

I have one of these:

https://www.ferreestoolsinc.com/product ... 7565472815

Works ok. I can’t believe they cost so much new now. Geebus.

As far as clean up goes… cooled everything down, heated the extraneous solder and wiped with clean paper towel with rounds of the spray bottle to cool between heating the solder and wiping until it was clean. Hit it with some super, fine sand paper (1000? Maybe?) to remove only the solder skim coat and used a soft brass wheel to depinkify everything. I also burnished the filled crack area to ensure it was level as possible.

“I’m no expert, just persistent.”

Thanks, appreciate the detailed response!

I am still scooting by with a few "hand-me down" rolls of solder that I am pretty sure is old 50/50 plumbing solder, doesn't take a whole lot of heat, and another hand-me-down roll of much thinner wire that is maybe 60/40 or something that I use for smaller work. I was thinking, if I tried to silver solder a crack on something small like your bit, I'm pretty sure it would all fall apart and look like hell.

Lately, living vicariously through posts like this because I haven't had much time to be alone out in my shop, but I can't complain -- I'd much rather play with my kid!

[MiBrassFS]

They’ll only be that small for a short time. Soak it up.

[bloke]

great !

I'm under the impression that (lead-banned) hardware store plumbing solder is (either absolutely) that solder (as "silver-bearing" soft solder is sold for certain types of plumbing applications) ...or... something else (such as tin and nickel - the current-era run-of-the-mill plumbing solder) which behaves really similarly.

For me, the (less expensive) nickel-bearing behaves the same as the silver-bearing stuff that is sold out of Wisconsin in a small quantity for a fancy price.

ie. With the lowest possible heat, both the nickel-bearing and the silver-bearing (both: sans lead) tend to flow less (or - if you will - flow poorly, compared to tin/lead), which helps people like us repair non-critical cracks - in particular, cracks which likely won't ever be under any sort of serious stress and/or areas which are very unlikely to be dented.

[MiBrassFS]

I don’t think nickel bearing solder has ever been on my radar. I don’t remember ever trying it. I’ll have to look for some.

[bloke]

I don’t think nickel bearing solder has ever been on my radar. I don’t remember ever trying it. I’ll have to look for some.

I'm wrong about a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff...but I've thought (??) that the no-lead plumbing solder (otc - hardware store/plumbing supply house) is just that.

If you find that this is wrong, please come back and let me know.

That having been said (and being redundant) I've found that modern-day plumbing solder behaves very much like silver-bearing solder (ie. crappy flowing - yet sometimes useful) properties).

[gocsick]

No lead plumbing solder is typically Ni bearing and is going to have a composition somewhere around

0.05-0.15%
Silver, 0.05-2% Nickel,
2.5-3.5% Copper,
4.5-5.5% Antimony,
Balance% Tin

My colleague held the patent on these compositions (Expred in 2013)... but since he was employed by a university and the research was done under US government funding, all the revenue from licensing went to the University of Iowa and the US Department of Energy. University received over $60M in licensing and he got a pittance of a raise.

[MiBrassFS]

Patents are a funny thing. I’m on a number of patents from when I worked in automotive. They encouraged us to patent anything and everything we could. We’d get a token “thanks” bump, but the company got any real benefit. Along with non compete, patent assignment is part of the hiring paperwork.

“You’ll never get rich working for someone else.”