This is a very stupid question, but I am new to this so please bear with me. Can you soldier Silver Photo Etch pieces? I know for sure you can soldier brass, but not so sure on the silver. I'm tempted to just try, but those after market kits are so expensive that I don't want to take a chance on ruining something.
Thank You

I have never heard of Silver Photo etched ??

I would have thought that the silver would have had a much too low melting point to be as useful as PE

Hmm, I suspect that Silver etch would be eye-wateringly expensive!
Much more likely to be nickel silver, or nickel silver plated, (merely expensive!)
This tends to be tougher/springier than straight brass

This can be soldered sucessfully, with 'normal' solder, but parts need to be cleaned, use appropriate solder & heat source, so google Soldering Tutorials.

practice on a bit of the PE fret, and/or bits you are not going to use before committing to some of those teeny-tiny bits that don't allow for mistrakes!

Good luck

Perhaps he is talking about Eduard's stuff, it is silver, well a dull silver, in color.

Sorry, I didn't mean that it's made of silver, I meant that its' silver in color, like edward"s photo etch. Is there brass under there?

It should be nickel and you shouldn't have a problem soldering it.

If it's nickel-plated brass, it will solder just like brass and can be easily soldered to other brass or to other nickel-plated brass PE.

You can tell by scratching the surface with any steel tool or steelwool which will remove the nickel coating leaving the brass showing. Some PE companies use this plated brass as an anti-tarnish measure, but it's really just an appearance issue.

On the other hand, quite a lot of PE is etched stainless steel. It is also silver in color but much stiffer and harder to bend. I think that most manufacturers that use steel PE do so because it makes the parts easier to handle when packing and shipping. Also, the stainless steel parts will never tarnish no matter how long the kit sits on a shelf - so its a marketing tool that assumes that some buyers will complain or no be happy with PE parts that have turned "brown" in the box. Very seldom, though, is the extra strength actually needed in the part at the model-building end.

Be that as it may, stainless steel can also be soldered to itself using the same tools, solders and fluxes as are used with brass (or nickel-plated brass). Steel to steel is usually no problem although you will usually need more heat to do this.

This is because the steel parts have much different heating properties than the brass ones.

That is, the steel parts will "wick" or "draw" the heat away from the point that is being heated faster than the brass. So, steel to steel usually requires more heat, and it also means that soldering steel PE and brass PE parts together can be very challenging at times.

The solder will tend to flow to the brass parts much sooner than it will flow to the steel parts. Also, continued heating usually will not cause the solder to flow from the already hot brass to the steel.

Usually, the only way that I can get these two dissimilar metals to solder together is by applying the heat to the steel part and allow it to transfer the heat to the brass part. However, often times, before this happens, the solder (which will have already melted and flowed to the fluxed areas of the steel part) will be too thin to flow to the brass part. A counter to this is then to "tin" the brass part while still fluxing and applying a chip of solder to the cold steel part, then heating the steel part.

Alot of this depends on the physical size (mass) of the parts, noting that even very small metal parts can vary widely in this; the steel parts will almost always have more mass than the brass ones.

The larger the steel part and the small the brass part, the harder it is to solder them together. Some combinations are simply impossible, and after a couple of tries varying the heating point and fluxing and tinning, I will usually just move on to an adheasive fix - CA or two-part epoxy - to get the job done.

Honestly, I really wish that none of the kit makers would use stainless-steel for any PE parts. Tamiya and DML do this quite often, although DML seems to use brass more often (for larger PE sheets - perhaps it then becomes a matter of costs with the brass cheaper than the small steel PE sheets). Because the steel is harder to bend, doesn't really anneal well, and is very hard (if not impossible) to solder to brass parts, I don't see much value to the modeler using it to make PE parts.

At any rate:

Nickel-plated brass to nickel-plated brass or regular brass = no problem.

Stainless steel to stainless steel = no problem.

Stailness steel to brass = lots of problems and often just can't be done.

HTH,

Mike,

Nice detailed explanation about the different types if photo etch!

Thank you all for the help! Especially Mike, you went far above and beyond the call of duty. I've never asked any questions on here before, but I won't hesitate to in the future. I can't get over how much help I got so quickly. Here's a couple of beers for you feller's.

Cheers, Pat!

I should have also mentioned that sometimes you can have the same kind of trouble soldering small or thin-sectioned like-metal to like-metal parts to each other. (For instance, I recently had some troubles soldering some small etched brass hinges to some thicker and heavier brass fenders.)

I guess the real issue is the un-equal heating of the parts irrespective of the material that they're made of. It's just that this issue arises more often with steel to brass solder projects because the two metals heat at such different rates.

Solder always (or most always!) flows towards the heat source and the lighter weight parts can often heat up so much faster than the heavier parts that they "suck up" the solder before the heavier parts get hot enough. Applying more and more heat often just makes the lighter weight parts get still hotter than the heavier parts and usually doesn't help things.

It's usually one of those "just depends" sorts of situations (how big or small the parts are, how they're clamped up, where the heat is being applied, etc), but if your normal soldering procedures won't work or only work with a lot of agravation, un-equal heating is often the source of the problem.

Tinning and/or heating the lighter parts through heat applied to the heavier parts is usually the remedy. Planning and setting up the solder joint is more important than the actual soldering operation sometimes.

Happy modeling!

Heat sinks can also be used. If possible, having something connected to the smaller part can slow down how fast that item heats up, and can make it easier.

Do you guys recommend a soldering iron or one of those Butane torches?

Definately get a soldering iron, one with a variable heat source is even better....at least 40 watts, but that's kinda a low wattage.

Try and find some solder wick for removing excess solder or use scotchbrite or something similar.

And keep the solder iron tip very clean, makes a big difference in it's performance; put some solder on the tip after using it when putting it back in it's holder.

Hope this helps...Paul

And if all else fails, use CA.

Soldering iron definitely, I would not use a butane torch... unless you like to make things REALLY interesting of course

Butaine torch all the way!

AMPS Central SC::Basic PE Demo Notes

Armorama:: DML Panther with PE Build Blog

Armorama:: Panther Build Article

I don't mean to be gratuitously contrarian, but since I started using a butane torch, I haven't even pluggend in my electric soldering iron. I'd give my electric soldering iron away, but all my friends now use a torch, so I can't even do that with it!

At any rate, I guess you could say I'm a fan of the butane torch over an electric iron...

The links above pretty much demonstrate why and also explane most of the techniques and soldering supplies that I use.

But, having said all that, I did use an electric iron (pretty successfully!) for many years before I started using a butane torch, so either will work. It's just that the torch is soooo much easier to use, I can't in good conscious recommend an electric iron anymore.

"gratuitously contrarian"? Come now Mike, lets's not obfuscate the apprentices!

Busted!

But, you gotta admit, it was better than "Baffle 'em with BS!"

Cheers!