I am in the process of bonding together a bunch of radials made
from tinned copper buss wire. I would like to get opinions on the best
way to do this. My current plan is to use solder consisting of
3.5% silver and the rest tin. I am assuming this is the "silver
solder" recommended in ON4UN's book. The question is flux:
I have solid wire silver solder, and acid core silver solder. The solid wire
solder vendor supposedly makes rosin core silver solder, but I haven't
found a distributor. I also have rosin paste flux and acid paste
flux (nokorode zinc cloride).
The solid wire silver solder dipped in the nokorode
works very well in terms of solderability. I haven't tried the
rosin flux yet. I am assuming the warnings about acid flux
being suitable only for non-electrical work don't apply here
because I don't care if an electrically conductive coating remains
on the wire. My biggest concern is corrosion. I don't want to
have to replace these radials any time soon. They will be
laying on the ground or slightly pushed in. The soil here is
basically clay. Also, what is the going price for silver solder.
I got charged $40/lb which sounds too high! I could have bought
100% silver wholesale for only slightly more than that.
Rick Karlquist N6RK
rick@area.com
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