I have never found meths to be a particularly good degreaser. I had assumed it was, then left a couple of small ball bearings soaking in it overnight to get the grease out of the bearings and found it made no impact at all on the grease. Surprising, but since then have tried meths on various other bike bits and found it does not degrease particularly wellat all.

You might be better to use spray can brake cleaner from the auto parts store. It leaves no residue and it does a very good job of getting rid of grease, finger marks, oil etc etc.

Or petrol.

If still trouble, you might call the guys at CupAlloy. They seem to be the experts and very helpful on model engineer stuff.

I've found steel takes way more time heating compared to copper. The skin is hot but the inside is not.

Having heated the work up once already all the oil has gone so if that was the issue the 2nd heating of the de blacked steel would have worked.

Suggest you use a scrap piece and heat the steel to a brighter red till the solder flows and note the colour required.

You may need high temperature flux eg HT5 ? I would never use meths as a degreaser, acetone or brake cleaner. Is the steel free cutting or stainless? Not enough heat to flow ? Noel.

Bob – if the steel is of the leaded free cutting type you may find that is the problem.

You should have no issues with silver soldering mild steel generally but the leaded versions can prove problematic.

Strangely enough I have a piece of unknownium 'brass' that simply will not silver solder at all. I have no idea of its heritage but the solder, as in your experience, just sits in balls on it no matter what the approach. Takes soft solder without issue though.

Best – Tug

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 21/12/2022 10:46:37

Could be leaded bronze? (LG2, SAE 660 etc.)

Most likely it is isopropyl alcohol based. Meths is ethyl alcohol based, with nasties such as methyl alcohol mixed in to make it undrinkabe. (Shame.)

I don't think so Hopper, – I've used quite a variety of brass and bronze over the years but whilst this has the appearance of a yellow bronze and machines as such soldering is a completely different matter to all the others. I don't recall it's source so it could be anything but leaded 'it aint' as they say – too hard for that.

Theres not much of it but it's clearly marked as such – no point in using it again only to realise later which is how I discovered it in the first place

Best – Tug

I would never dream of silver-soldering ferrous alloys with anything other than HT5 or JM Tenacity No.5 as a flux. Ordinary Easy-Flo flux just doesn't cut it with steel. I just use water to wet the flux. Cleanliness of the steel is obligatory if you want a good joint.

Quick search of 'Surgical Spirit' (site:.uk) gives 'Methyl Salicylate, Castor Oil, Diethyl Phthalate and Industrial Methylated Spirit' so worse than ordinary meths for de-greasing because it contains castor oil already.

I generally use soap and water and dry off in the oven or with heat gun. Start off with white spirit for very greasy jobs.

Bob, can you upload a picture showing what you're trying to solder to what, with what torch and in what micro-environment?

I've successfully silver soldered quite a bit of mild steel, stainless steel and cast iron using just Easy-flo flux and either Silverflo 55 or a similar silver solder.

And the same to you Brian

Now that you say that, that could well be what it is – I have a small amount of rectangular Manganese Bronze bar which usually I only make bearings from. I don't find the machining of it – milling, boring difficult however. I can't recall the object made from it that refused to Silver Solder, possibly a valve body (?) but it did surprise me at the time.

Though I silver solder less since discovering the virtues of JB Weld I still have occasion too – albeit small parts I've done both steel and cast iron on my latest project.

BTW I've a fair bit of SS accumulated which is rapidly approaching 'surplus to requirement' status – if any of your guys are looking for some get in touch.

Best – Tug

Edited By Ramon Wilson on 21/12/2022 18:56:28