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Yep, I had to commit to doing it because I reached a point in my build where I was so far in....THEN I learned you cannot use your electrical soldering kit to attach anything to stainless. DOH. Seriously, I mean if you are like me and have not actually accepted that you can solder anything with your little butane torch and rosin core solder, believe me, you cannot solder that on stainless.
Basically, for my electric system I need to put a ground on my pot. I am not building a receptacle like Kal's system. Mostly because I have a 4 gal test brew pot and a 9 gal full brew pot. The gangbox would be almost as big as my pots!
So my options were to track down a home welder to tack on a bolt or figure out how to silver solder. It cost ~$90 bucks for a roll of solder and some flux. I found mine locally at an HVAC store, this saved me having to order it and wait. Then I went to Ace and got my stainless bolt and acorn nut, I also got some practice bits since I couldn't be sure I had stainless bolts at house.
(Oh, I also got some silver solder with flux inside, got this from an electronics shop hoping that the $8 roll would save me the big money, but as you can see I gave up on it early...not sure if it would have worked, but once I got the staybrite solder to work I didn't experiment any further.)
This is pic of the parts and the little spool of silver with flux inside. At this point I still HOPED that it would work and be cheaper.
Didn't work. But then there are many reasons, and they point to why soldering stainless is difficult. I never did sand this screw down any, so it still had all it's chromium oxide layer(?) still in tact, that mean the solder had nothing to adhere to because the flux inside had no time to eat through the oxide layer. But, if you want to make tiny solder BB's, this seems to work.
So, naturally I had to replicate the experiment to make sure I was getting consistent results. Stainless washer with just some flux and the actual staybrite silver solder. LOOK! It makes a ball shape too. Sigh. (Yes, if you are trying to learn, this was TOO hot and I burnt the flux. Also I never did sand this either to get through surface oxidation.)
Starting to get the hang of it. A second washer, sanded, fluxed both the washer and the screw. On this one I was still to hot and burnt the flux a bit so you can see there are no fillets (soldering term) meaning the screw is just sitting on top. This would NOT be NASA level soldering. But, it really does stick!
This time I got the heat a bit better, the solder on the washer spreads out more because I didn't just scorch off the flux (not solder as first posted). All rest of pictures include rough grit and wet sanding before any attempts.
Basically, for my electric system I need to put a ground on my pot. I am not building a receptacle like Kal's system. Mostly because I have a 4 gal test brew pot and a 9 gal full brew pot. The gangbox would be almost as big as my pots!
So my options were to track down a home welder to tack on a bolt or figure out how to silver solder. It cost ~$90 bucks for a roll of solder and some flux. I found mine locally at an HVAC store, this saved me having to order it and wait. Then I went to Ace and got my stainless bolt and acorn nut, I also got some practice bits since I couldn't be sure I had stainless bolts at house.
(Oh, I also got some silver solder with flux inside, got this from an electronics shop hoping that the $8 roll would save me the big money, but as you can see I gave up on it early...not sure if it would have worked, but once I got the staybrite solder to work I didn't experiment any further.)
This is pic of the parts and the little spool of silver with flux inside. At this point I still HOPED that it would work and be cheaper.
Didn't work. But then there are many reasons, and they point to why soldering stainless is difficult. I never did sand this screw down any, so it still had all it's chromium oxide layer(?) still in tact, that mean the solder had nothing to adhere to because the flux inside had no time to eat through the oxide layer. But, if you want to make tiny solder BB's, this seems to work.
So, naturally I had to replicate the experiment to make sure I was getting consistent results. Stainless washer with just some flux and the actual staybrite silver solder. LOOK! It makes a ball shape too. Sigh. (Yes, if you are trying to learn, this was TOO hot and I burnt the flux. Also I never did sand this either to get through surface oxidation.)
Starting to get the hang of it. A second washer, sanded, fluxed both the washer and the screw. On this one I was still to hot and burnt the flux a bit so you can see there are no fillets (soldering term) meaning the screw is just sitting on top. This would NOT be NASA level soldering. But, it really does stick!
This time I got the heat a bit better, the solder on the washer spreads out more because I didn't just scorch off the flux (not solder as first posted). All rest of pictures include rough grit and wet sanding before any attempts.
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