Soldering Photoetch

Stainless is indeed a bear to solder.  I think you pretty much do need flux for it.  For fine pe you also need a very small tip,  but these are available for small irons used to solder ICs onto printed circuit boards.

Be sure to wash flux off pieces after soldering.  Especially acid flux makes a mess of paint if you leave any in the joint.

Thanks for the reply, Don. I've got a low watt iron and some tips I bought several years ago to assemble a couple of electronic speed control kits. You just joggled something in the back of my mind regarding the flux. My son and Granddaughter have gotten into slot cars, and my son mentioned, some time ago, a type of flux he uses to solder motors to stainless steel chassis and has never had a motor come loose. When he gets home from work , tonight, I'll give him a call.

My biggest concern, though, is the potential loss of detail due to wicking. 1/720 scale radar antennas have extremely fine detail, as I'm sure you're familiar with, and I don't want to lose that detail, if it can be helped. I'm trying to find out if anyone has been able to successfully solder fine detail PE.

Jim

Use the smallest solder you can find (again, stuff used for soldering ICs on PC boards.  Heat the joint well before touching solder to area and be quick so you do not get much solder on pieces. Consider cutting up small lengths of solder and applying with tweezers to cut down the amount that melts, not using a long piece unwound from spool.

I've got some silver solder which mikes out at 0.020". I talked with my son about this discussion. He said he uses lead free silver solder and a liquid flux which he thinks is nothing more than muriatic acid. He has to neutralize the flux, when he's done soldering, with baking soda and water. The solder I have has lead it. I see your point about cutting the solder into small pieces and using tweezers. Is it possible to tin such small parts? I was thinking if I could somehow tin the edges where two pieces of PE have to be joined all I would have to do would be to heat the parts until the solder flowed. That's assuming I don't destroy any detail. I have some left over PE radar, which I'll probably never use, to practice on.

Fun and games, Don. I've been building models for 55 years, this year, and instead of making things simpler, I just keep increasing the level of difficulty. My hands are steady and reading glasses are only $7 at Dollar General. Life doesn't get any better.

Jim