doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Braised ribs vs soft soldered ribs

Old Parkers were soft soldered. At least one damascus gun I've re-layed the ribs on was.

M21's seem to be soft soldered based on a sample of one, when Bruce took his dad's 21 to Andy longname's shop and they re-layed it on Shotgun Journal. Fox, Ithaca, LC's, Lefever, I've handled or disassembled ribs on were soft soldered.

(Were original Parkers brazed?) Only at their breech, & while not certain I don't think 21's were either. As they had mechanical connections at the breech I seem to think they had no Brazing at all. To get away from the heat required for brazing was after all the only advantage to the mechanical joining (& advertizing of course).
6-Bear; To get down to the Nitty-Gritty of the matter bbl regulation has little to to with "Point of Aim, the stocking looks to that. BBl regulation is strictly for the purpose of making both bbls shoot to the same point. "Both" O/U & SxS can (And Often Do) disperse their charge away in either a horizontal or vertical direction. This is of course most apt to occur in lower priced guns which are not regulated & one can rest assured any gun having "Brazed" ribs was not regulated.

The only American guns that I can speak to are the Stevens 311’s and the Fox Model B. All of those which I’ve worked on were oven brazed. I’ve been told that some of the 311’s were soft soldered but I have not personally encountered any.

The majority of the cheaper Spanish guns like Laurona, Zabala, Gorosabel, etc., are oven brazed.

I was recently given the barrels from two old Belgian klunkers that were being scrapped. I thought to salvage the top and bottom ribs for future use, as I assumed that these guns were soft soldered. It turned out that they were oven brazed and even with the pre-heating flame of my oxy-acetylene cutting torch, I could not do it. I had the steel beyond cherry red, virtually to incandescent, and those brazed ribs would not even begin to come loose.

AmarilloMike; True silver solder has a silver content above 50%, as a rule. That’s why the darned stuff is SO expensive. Many soft solders have very small amounts of silver and other metals added to them to increase strength, modify flow temperature, etc, but that does not make them silver solders. Both the American and the Canadian Welding Societies classify soft solders as those which melt below 800F.

Here are a few facts for those few who may be interested:

Eutectic solder(62%lead/38% tin), melts at 361F.

50/50 tin/lead solder melts at 420F.

TIX(tin/antimony) melts at 275F and has a strength of 4000psi.

Brownell’s Hi-Force 44 solder (4% silver/96% tin) flows at 475F and has a strength of between 14,000 and 28,000 psi.

Brownell’s Hi-Temp, Hi-Force 44 solder (5$ silver/ 95% cadmium) flows at 650F and has a strength of 38,000 psi.

Silvaloy, (a true silver solder), contains 56% silver and flows at 1205F.

Brazing metals (copper/zinc/tin alloys) melt at between 1300F and 2150F.

A few things worth noting are that it takes two to three times the heat to make a proper silver solder joint as it does to make a proper soft solder joint. Those numbers go up to four to six times as much if we’re talking about true brazing. Also, there is a difference, sometimes a fairly considerable one, between the temperature at which an alloy melts and the temperature at which it FLOWS. Watch for the latter when you’re buying solder, as it’s the important number.
Also, the numbers shown for strength are contingent upon a clean properly fluxed, and close fitting joint. If any one of those things is ignored, these numbers go right out the window.

I did a Google search and came up with some interesting definitions for brazing:

BRAZING
Joining metals by fusion of nonferrous alloys that have melting points above 800°F. but lower than those of the metals being joined. This may be accomplished by means of a torch (torch brazing), in a furnace (furnace brazing) or by dipping in a molten flux bath (dip or flux brazing). The filler metal is ordinarily in rod form in torch brazing; whereas in furnace and dip brazing the work material is first assembled and the filler metal may then be applied as wire, washers, clips, bands, or may be integrally bonded, as in brazing sheet.
http://www.rollformedshapes.com/metalterms.htm


Brazing is a joining process whereby a filler metal or alloy is heated to melting temperature above 450 °C (840 °F)—or, by the traditional definition in the United States, above 800 °F (427 °C)—and distributed between two or more close-fitting parts by capillary action. At its liquid temperature, the molten filler metal and flux interacts with a thin layer of the base metal, cooling to form a strong, sealed joint. By definition the melting temperature of the braze alloy is lower (sometimes substantially) than the melting temperature of the materials being joined. The brazed joint becomes a sandwich of different layers, each metallurgically linked to the adjacent layers.

Common brazements are about 1⁄3 as strong as the parent materials[citation needed] due either to the inherent lower yield strength of the braze alloy or to the low fracture toughness of intermetallic components. To create high-strength brazes, a brazement can be annealed to homogenize the grain structure and composition (by diffusion) with that of the parent material . On the other hand, brazed joints in automotive sheet metal are considerably stronger than the surrounding native sheet steel[1].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazing


Brazing: This form of soldering utilizes high temperature alloys to join high temperature metals. When brazing sterling, care must be used to prevent firescale or firestain which is formed at higher temperatures than soldering.
http://www.silversmithing.com/glossary.htm

brazing - Welding with brass alloy rods
http://www.fdjtool.com/custom.aspx?id=17

BRAZE
To join metal surfaces using brass, bronze, or copper as a filler material.
http://www.horseshoes.com/glossary/b/glsrb.htm

brazing. Joining metals by flowing a thin layer, capillary thickness, of nonferrous filler metal into the space between them. Bonding results from the intimate contact produced by the dissolution of a small amount of base metal in the molten filler metal without fusion of the base metal. Sometimes the filler metal is put in place as a thin solid sheet or as a clad layer and the composite is heated as in furnace brazing. The term brazing is used where the temperature exceeds some arbitrary value, such as 800° F; the term soldering is used for temperatures lower than the arbitrary value.
http://www.nedians.8m.com/metalglos.html

Now in my business if we did it with oxygen and acetylene it was called brazing. If we did it with a Turbo Torch it was soldering.

It would seem that a case can be made to call a soldering process that requires 800F or higher temps brazing; independent of the brazing rod's content as long as it is nonferrous.
Best,

Mike

Brownells High Force 44 solder will withstand a regular hot salts bluing tank since it does not contain lead. I have had several pistols hot blued that had front sights attached with High Force 44 without problems.

OB

OB;
I had not personally tried it, but knew that Brownell's had always advertized the High Force 44 would withstand bluing. I do recall Oscar stating the bluing salts attacked the "Tin" content of the solder. As HF-44 solder is predominatly tin I can only assume this was once Oscar was wrong. I had always been of the opinion the salts attacked the lead, but I'm no chemist.

Miller,
Based on my own experience, I would say that Oscar was NOT wrong. I recently had a gunsmith friend who has a hot-blue set-up(I do not), blue the barrel assembly of a double rifle for me. I had built this rifle, so I know for a fact that the only solder used anywhere in that barrel assembly was Hi-Force 44.That excludes the brazing metal which had originally been used to join the barrels at the breech end. He had some trouble achieving the desired level of blue, and consequently the barrel assembly stayed in the tank for about 45 minutes. There was a considerable amount of the Hi-Force 44 eaten away around the keel between the muzzles, which I had to repair later. Based on this experience, I'm going to stick to my rust bluing and would never again trust a double to a hot blue tank.

That is good to know Ron, I know that Oscar was not often wrong, was just unsure about this once. Thank you for your very informative & intelligent posts on this thread. Do you know, does the alkalie attack both the lead & tin & perhaps works a little faster on those solders with both, than on the tin alone?

Gentlemen: While this subject is up I wonder whether a satisfactory solder could be applied to a top rib whithout complete disassembly. I have a twenty gauge LC that has a loose top rib. The bottom rib is fine. The top is still attached at the muzzle and halfway to the breech, firmly attached at the breech and only a very small crack past midpoint towards the breech. There is a distinct very low twang when fired. The attachment points are at the blocks I am sure. This gun is very serviceable otherwise and positively a shooter. Is there a type of solder that would accomplish this and not stick out like a sore thumb. The blue is mostly faded but still the gun is pretty attractive and is excellant in the field. Sincerely Walt from Al.

"braising is done at a substantilly higher temperature" !!!
This from a spelling bee champion?
Chortle, snigger,
Mike, no good at sums, but can spel reel gud