I have been making an axle assembly involving two short pieces of 3/32nd bore brass tube soldered to small brass sheet pieces and piano wire - all very fiddly. I tinned the pieces and then accidentally dropped one of the tubes on the workshop floor. This is of course liberally scattered with tiny trimmings of everything that has fallen since it was last vacuum cleaned.
After about five minutes searching, I found it and then tried to solder the complete assembly together. The piece of tube that I had dropped proved to be extremely recalcitrant and I could simply not get it to solder to the other bits. I even deployed the acid flux as a last resort (soldering bit destroyer) but it still would not work.
After a lot of swearing and some pondering I took a close look at the tube with an eye-glass and found it to be . . . . . aluminium.
Moral - clean the floor more often!
Keith
After about five minutes searching, I found it and then tried to solder the complete assembly together. The piece of tube that I had dropped proved to be extremely recalcitrant and I could simply not get it to solder to the other bits. I even deployed the acid flux as a last resort (soldering bit destroyer) but it still would not work.
After a lot of swearing and some pondering I took a close look at the tube with an eye-glass and found it to be . . . . . aluminium.
Moral - clean the floor more often!
Keith