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**Ricand** · 02-08-2010, 03:46 PM

Mine are silver soldered and I beat the pookey out of them with no trouble. Just a personal experience here, YMMV.

Ludo · 02-08-2010, 07:41 PM

Didn't think of putting two washer on each side of the hole. That would be heavy dutty!
I don't want to insist but there's only a little thing I don't understand...

Once you have soldered the two washer, you are ready to solder the fitting, don't you? So you let the washer cool off a little and re-clean the surface for the new fitting with flux and all. Once it's done, you re-apply heat to the joint and, at this moment, are the solder of the washer's gonna melt...

Hope it make more sense, it may be hard to understand on my last post.

**pickles** · 02-08-2010, 09:40 PM

Ludo, couldn't you assemble the whole thing and solder once?

Ludo · 02-08-2010, 10:47 PM

That's about what I'm asking, is it a two step operation or is it doable in one?!? Don't know, I never did, but it seem hard to do in one, no?

**BrewBeemer** · 02-09-2010, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BargainFittings

I cleaned the joint up, refluxed everything and soldered on the washer.

I have to agree with Brewbeemer on the possibility of it melting with gas and dry fire of the keg / kettle.
Weldless fittings do not have this problem either. Of course you could melt the o-rings by dry firing a kettle.

In a perfect world we would all live next door to a master tig welder or have our own tig equipment!

I have one of these in my shop for my personal hobby projects. A fully loaded freebie that paid for itself within 6-8 months welding for my contractor on the side at home. Today with the wet torch, cooler plus tanks to get started would cost me $9K after taxes out the door.
http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o352f_mil.pdf

Again but with my copper cashed in for a 251 Miller Mig with 30A spool gun with bottles and support equipment.
http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1326p_mil.pdf

http://www.millerwelds.com/om/o1213u_mil.pdf

I'm now in the hole on this last welder purchase by $324 as I added a wide lens Speedglas 9000X hood and another pair of 280 cu/ft owner owned bottles to match my Tig bottles. Call it my retirement toys like my Bridgeport mill lathe plus the Hypertherm Max 20 Plasma for $125. Lucked out on that find in great condition that checked out ok by my Miller repair facility friends. They handled Hypertherm repair at one time. Get this the test and check out cost me two 6 packs of Miller Light.
love those thech repair guys the past 23 years.

**BrewBeemer** · 02-09-2010, 03:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BargainFittings

I cleaned the joint up, refluxed everything and soldered on the washer.

I have to agree with Brewbeemer on the possibility of it melting with gas and dry fire of the keg / kettle.
Weldless fittings do not have this problem either. Of course you could melt the o-rings by dry firing a kettle.

In a perfect world we would all live next door to a master tig welder or have our own tig equipment!

Wayne; if it were me and I had no other way but to go weldless the only way I would go that route would be to machine two large diameter washers 1/4" thick then add a recessed or counterbored pocket to lock in a high temp orange "O" ring. These thick washers would be curved after machining to match the kegs radius. This way the "O" ring is preloaded or crushed without spitting out with these thick washers being tightened down for a solid metal to metal contact making for a strong solid fitting to the keg.
Even the couplings I see they need no washer just counter bore the coupling to lock in the "O" ring and tighten down metal to metal making for a solid fitting without flexing on the "O" ring or the valve turning. Make it fail safe built once. JMO's

skarude · 02-13-2010, 04:23 PM

This thread has been very helpful to me and I wanted to share my first attempt at soldering a copper ground lug to my hlt to be. The hardest part was keeping the piece from moving around since it sits on top of the barrel.

Hopefully the second one will be a little straighter, but it seems very strong and should do the trick to ground my element.

**pickles** · 02-13-2010, 04:41 PM

Ooh I like the idea of adding grounding lugs, I'm adding those to mine.

**BrewBeemer** · 02-13-2010, 04:42 PM

You want to get real tricky as I brought this up once and got a reply yes you can Tig copper together with stainless filler rod. It looked like a NASA quality weld. Yup a totally different mix of metals as it was a topic I brought up over a year or two ago and one member on the Miller Welds Forum proved it can be done. Were talking Nuke class of welders on down to newbies that hang around this forum for support help and talk about great support group no secrets or I did this photos without explaning how it was done. A very good group of members. I've learned a lot from them and this www.millerwelds.com forum. With your narrow copper ground lug that's soft and can be twisted around just by tightening the screw I would think silver solder for a stronger bond comes to mind, just an idea. I've broken off soldered items many times in the past.

skarude · 02-13-2010, 07:12 PM

For what it is worth I did use silver solder. In fact I got this kit from a local hobby shop. I went this route because buying this flux from a welding shop is very expensive. I used a cheap butane soldering iron with a torch attachment to heat it which worked great. One thing that may have helped was that I had actually tried this once before a while ago an failed but it sort of tinned the area bellow the lug. I can tell you for sure that this lug will not twist just screwing it down. It is rated for #4 - #14 wire so it is pretty heavy duty and the joint is very solid.