Silver Soldering Long Sections

Nothing whatsoever to add to the technical content, but back in the 50s I was stuck at Sharjah (in the Gulf) for several days and the local REME guy ('Shani' Wallis) offered me a ride with him in his Scammell to recover a Bedford 3 tonner stuck in the desert. What a BEAST!!! 6 wheel drive, 6 forward gears and we 'made' our own road through the sand dunes, climbing the steep sides as though they didn't exist! The recovery was sheer brute force - hook it up to the winch and pull it bodily out of the sand. We also used it to restack some 1000 lb bombs by rigging a 'derrick' with a long pole and the winch.

Apologies to Ian but nostalgia can overwhelm at times!!

rgds

Bill

Hi Cornish Jack, I served at Sharjah bit later than you in the 60's, spent twelve months there on the airfield. A previous posting was spent on aircraft recovery and transport in the South of England, spent two and half years on that and we regularly used the Scammell Recovery Tractors, as you say quite a beast and very capable of winching a fully loaded Bedford with Queen Mary trailer across a totally waterlogged and very boggy field. Aircraft tend to crash in the most awkward of locations. I look back fondly on the many miles spent bouncing along the roads in the old Scammells.

Good afternoon all,

Wow, I never expected such a huge response, thanks very much. Apologies for the delay, I'm fighting the man flu at the moment, and we all know how bad that is right?

Some brilliant responses chaps, let me see if I can provide some feedback.

Firstly it needs to be a watertight joint, so that rules out any riveting, screwing, stitch welding/soldering.

I have got a TIG welder, which I have been teaching myself to use and have got quite good on carbon steel. I spoke to the welding supplies chap I use for work about TIG brazing after watching a number of online videos on the subject, and he recommended SifSilCopper No. 968. I tried this on some scrap with pretty rubbish results. I found I was blowing straight through the brass before the steel was hot enough, and struggled to get the rod near the puddle before it melted. Plus it gets expensive trying to practice endlessly. The tricky thing with this opposed to TIG welding is that you don't melt the parent metal, so you have no idea if its hot enough until you add the rod, which I find just melts when it gets near the arc.

Originally the frame was all made of steel, but my dad in his infinite wisdom thought we should make the channels in brass, I'm beginning to think it was a bad choice. He's very good at coming up with "helpful ideas" but then it falls to me to make them reality.

I like the idea of soft soldering the steel - brass joint, which I gather works at a lower temp, and reserve the silver solder for the brass mitre joints.

Also I like the sound of Ian S C's idea about tinning the surfaces, clamping them together and then just running the torch along.

For the benefit of the last two posters, I suspect you are referring to a Scammell Explorer since you mentioned it was 6x6, mine is a Pioneer, the wartime predecessor to the Explorer which was 6x4, but a capable beast none the less.

Thanks again chaps, and I look forward to your replys. Richard