On Laboratory Arts

by Richard Threlfall

In the laboratory the chief application of the process is to copper soldering during the construction of electrical apparatus and to zinc soldering for general purposes.

In ninety-nine cases out of every hundred where difficulties occur their origin is to be traced to dirt. There seems to be some inexplicable kink in the human mind which renders it callous to repeated proofs of the necessity for cleaning surfaces which it is intended to solder. The slightest trace of albuminous or gelatinous matter or shellac will prevent solder adhering to most metals and the same remark applies in a measure to the presence of oxides, although these may be removed by chloride of zinc or prevented from forming by resin or tallow. A touch with an ordinarily dirty hand — I refer to a solderer's hand — will often soil work sufficiently to make the adherence of solder difficult.

The fluxes most generally employed are tallow for lead, resin or Venice turpentine for copper, chloride of zinc for anything except lead, which never requires it. The latter flux has the property (also possessed by borax at a red heat) of dissolving any traces of oxide which may be formed, as well as acting as a protecting layer to the metal.

We may now turn to the consideration of a simple case of soldering, say the joining of two copper wires. The wires are first cleaned either by dipping in a bath of sulphuric and nitric acids — a thing no laboratory should be without — or by any suitable mechanical means. The cleaned wires are then twisted together — there is a regulation way of doing this, but it presents no advantage in laboratory practice — and the joint is sprinkled over with resin, or painted with a solution of resin in alcohol.

The iron, being heated and floated with solder, is held against the joint, the latter being supported on a brick, and the solder is allowed to "sweat" into the joint. Enough solder must be present to penetrate right through the joint. Nothing is gained by rubbing violently with the iron. If the copper is clean it will tin, and if it is dirty it won't, and there the matter ends.

Beginners generally use too small or too cold a bit, and produce a ragged, dirty joint in consequence. If the saving of time be an object, the joint may be twisted together on ordinarily dirty oxidised wires and heated to, say, 200° C. It is then painted with chloride of zinc and soldered with the bit.

There is a difference of opinion as to the relative merits of chloride of zinc and of resin as a flux in soldering copper. Thus the standing German practice is, or was, to employ the former flux in every case for soldering electric light wires, while in England the custom used to be to specify that soldering should be done by resin, and this custom may still prevail; it lingers in Australia at all events.

However, it is agreed on all hands that when chloride of zinc is used it must be carefully washed off. I have known of an electrical engineer insisting on his workmen "licking" joints with their tongues to ensure the total removal of chloride of zinc; it has a horrible taste; and I have occasionally pursued the same plan myself when the soldering of fine wires was in question.

In any case, it is very certain that chloride of zinc left in a joint will ruin it sooner or later by loosening the contact between copper and solder.

Very often it is requisite to solder together two extensive flat surfaces — for instance, in "chucking" certain kinds of brass work. The surfaces to be soldered must be carefully tinned, most conveniently by the help of the blow-pipe and chloride of zinc. After tinning, the surfaces are laid together and heated so as to "sweat" them together; the phrase, though inelegant, is expressive.