Re: of copper water tank


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.158] on Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at 23:39:03 :

In Reply to: of copper water tank posted by mannyc [70.199.67.4] on Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at 20:03:55 :

I would definitely solder it. I would solder it for you if you were nearby. Copper is very easy to solder, but with old stuff, the trick is to get it extremely clean, especially down inside any grooves. Ordinary water pipe flux will work okay, but some stronger acid flux (zinc chloride or ammonium chloride) will cut through more oxide. As with water pipe, you want to heat the copper and let the copper melt the solder. Don't heat it any more than necessary. If the solder is melting on contact but is not wetting the surface, stop and go back and clean it better and flux it better.

A good solder seam will last approximately forever, whereas any sort of sticky-pucky will eventually harden or come loose. If this isn't for potable water, or you're not afraid of a little lead, use 50/50 solder rather than the new unleaded silver/tin plumbing solder. 50/50 is more forgiving to work with, can be "wiped" while it's partially melted, and is less likely to crack due to vibration and repeated flexing. That's what they still use on radiators for the same reasons.

I'm sure there are space age miracle sealers that are supposed to be every bit as good as solder (after all, they glue aluminum radiator cores to plastic tanks on the modern radiators) but I don't trust them, and soldering copper is so easy that I would definitely go the old-school route if it were mine.




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