GOSH !! I thought lead solder was banned ?

BobH

This makes it clear then :-

**LINK**

Hi all.

Let's open the can of worms and disturb the hornets nest!

Lead bearing soft solder has been banned from potable water systems for years. No problem.

It has been banned from electronic products due to a perceived increase in the lead build up in the water table as these products find their way to landfill sites. No problem.

It has not been banned from sale to the professions eg plumber, metal sculptors. The key word is professional.

It has been banned from sale to the amateur and that includes the man in the street- Joe Public.

The fact that tin-lead solder is still readily available does not detract from that. It is simply testament to another fact – it is proving impossible to monitor and police.

If necessary, you can always create a letterhead describing yourself as a plumber or get a friend to get it for you who knows someone that uses it professionally!!!

You couldn't make it up!

It is not my place to go into more detail regarding conversations / discussions / instructions / warnings with and from Trading Standards and HSE..

Regards

Keith

PS If there are any readers who want to fight the above or challenge the ruling in the UK or Brussels, please send me an email. I will provide bank details for all financial contributions to the war chest. Shall we say a minimum sum of £10,000 per person! 500 contributors should set the ball rolling.

Back to the original question. Silver solder or soft solder for cylinder fabrication. personally I would bo with the lowest melting point silver solder.

Brian

Not Guilty. I suggested 40/60 as it has a higher liquid point than 60/40 so better able to resist heat from steam, simples. That is why I also said use a soft solder that is towards the higher temp range.

As also said silver solder is the best option (and what I would use) but a beginner may find that more difficult to use, need to spend out on a torch to get the wattage and for something that may run of a simple boiler at 50-60psi will never see enough heat to weaken the joint.

Edited By JasonB on 09/05/2019 11:45:21

There is nothing illegal about using cadmium or lead bearing solders.

To supply or "place on the market" is when the fun starts. A trading entity cannot provide samples.

Like you, I've got enough of both to meet my needs.

So, I do not have a problem.

The generals in Brussels who control the number of holes in the salt pot and outlawed refillable olive oil bottles, do not have a problem.

They do not have to try to enforce the law.

Keith

PS The war chest now stands at £0.00

Apparently Bill Clinton does all his brazing like that.

N.

I saw mention of Cadmium in posts above.

In Australia I recently bought some Silver Solder rods with Cadmiuim, seems to be easily available in shops.

Did my first silver soldering and quite chuffed with results, however am aware that some people appear to be very wary of Cadmium whilst others are not so concerned.

Any good risk assessment worksheets associated with Cadmium bearing solders that you chaps can recommend ?

If I am in a well ventilated space and use the solder for less than 30 minutes a week doing very small occassional jobs ( ie tiny little wobblers and boilers less than 1 cubic inch of material being heated and soldered surfaces of less than 0.5 sq inches) – how do I calculate my exposure and associated risk ?

Bill

As Fowler's Fury says, with difficulty! Cadmium is most dangerous when your job requires you to work with it and/or you live in an polluted area, next to a smelter, or you eat polluted food. Gentlemen doing a few minutes soldering once in a blue moon are unlikely to suffer. These days Cadmium is damaging children living in industrial parts of the third world where governments choose to ignore the problem. Exposure in the West is much lower, mainly because Cadmium is discouraged here.

Your state of health makes a significant difference to individual risk. For example, if you happen to have a Zinc, Iron, Selenium or Calcium deficiency, then your body will actively soak up all the Cadmium it can. As Cadmium is poisonous this biological blunder will do you no good at all. Smoking whilst soldering is another risk multiplier – don't! Some people are much more sensitive to Cadmium than others.

One authority does not recommend any minimum exposure to Cadmium because it causes cancer. The most gung-ho recommendation is no more than 7 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per week, while the World Health Organisation suggests no more than 2.5 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per week from all sources. These are very low levels – it would be foolish to breath soldering fume in a confined space.

But if you have a good diet, don't smoke, are well ventilated, and only solder infrequently, I don't think the personal risk is scary. When chemicals like Cadmium are restricted quite often the ban is directed at industrial consumption. It's not that small quantities of Cadmium in a workshop are terrifying, it's that tons of Cadmium leak continually into the food-chain from mining, smelting, sewage/manure, reclamation, burning coal, and waste disposal operations, especially incineration of Cadmium based paint and old batteries. It's like cars: I cause insignificant pollution driving mine, it's the other 32,000,000 UK car owners who have to be taken off the road!

Personally, I only braze with Cadmium free silver solder. Bit tricky, but if I can do it, anyone can. (I do small joints and can't comment on boilers – out of my league.)

Dave

It has changed over time, due to soft solder having the traditional and somewhat hazardous lead removed and about 3 per cent of silver added instead. Used to be that silver soldering referred to using silver solder with circa 40 per cent silver, soldering referred to soft solder with a mix of tin and lead, and brazing used brass/bronze rods.

Today, brazing has come to include silver brazing with silver solder rods circa 40 per cent silver etc. This seems to be in order to avoid confusion with soldering with modern soft solder that is sold in hardware stores labelled proudly as "silver solder" but contains only about 3 per cent silver and does not of course give as strong a joint as the 40 per cent silver rods.

To me, silver soldering still means using the the circa 40 per cent silver rods, same as it ever did. But more modern individuals use silver brazing.