Make your own solder

Touch=E9 :-)

-- Cheers, James Arthur

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I want to know how they get ketchup in those little ketchup packets without getting any ketchup in the crimp seam. It's a complete mystery.

Simply braid the single-core stuff and warm it until it just fuses. Oh, I suppose you *could* warm it with the bevatron beam...

An artifact capable of performing any function? A polymath's masterpiece? "Masterpiece" applies to the works of both artists and "mere artisans".

If it turns out to be smarter than you are the "master" part could wind up being literal...

Mark L. Fergerson

I'd think you'd want to make the frozen noodle of flux, and then plate the solder onto it using an ion beam or sputtering system.

Listen up, Kester!

Simple. They dont put in much, and they seal it in an upright position.

AKA: 'Cinder Blocks'. I've seen them explode and throw fragments 20 feet.

Sure, they make a pipe of solder an inch in diameter and a foot long, with the flux in the center. Then, they run it back and forth between rollers and it gets longer and thinner. Eventually the put it in a drawing machine and roll it out over grooved wheels until they have miles of a single strand the right diameter, then spool onto reels for sale.

This may not be the exact procedure, but it is close. At least, this is how typical electronic solder and multicore was made 50 years ago.

Jon

I smelt myself once. Didn't like it. I started taking showers.

Say this quickly:

One smart fellow, he felt smart. Two smart fellows, they felt smart. Three smart fellows, they all felt smart.

Cheers! Rich

Now I'm almost sorry I started this. According to wiki.answers.com :

" Solder is a lead alloy with tin. Different mixes have different melting points, and for some work, silver is also added. Sometimes for electronic work, solder is presented in the form of a wire with several cores of rosin inside it. This was first made as a large billet of solder - the size of a pot - in which several holes were drilled and filled with rosin. The solder is then drawn out in a series of rollers in the same way that other wires are made from a billet of metal. The function of the rosin is to clean the surface of the metals to be joined, so the solder may easily adhere. For plumbing use, acid cores are used, but these should never be used in electronics."

Thanks! Rich

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Cinder blocks are a another animal, I mean cast 100% molten slag into blocks.

NT

Yup, solder is plastic enough as it is to do this just fine.

There's a bit more to it. The two sides of the pouches are brought together and heat sealed around a filling nozzle (typically a single roll of material that's curved around the tube. The bottom of the pouch is heat sealed, the fill is made from the middle of the pouch, the pouch moves down off the nozzle and the top heat seal is made. Then they are cut apart. The process is called form-fill-seal. Everything from chips (crisps) to ketchup packets to soy sauce is packaged that way.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The slag I'm familiar with came from a steel mill in Ohio, and was dumped into a deep pit to form pieces about 1/2" in size for road construction. It was quite easy to crush, and turned to a nasty and hard to remove black dust, over time. A lot of people thought they were getting a real deal when someone would offer it to them instead of gravel for a driveway or parking lot, till they discovered the damage it caused to floors.

Absolutely useless for blocks.

There was (historically) a product called 'cinderblocks' that used iron production slag as part of the aggregate. The modern items we all see are actually 'concrete masonry units' and are only called cinderblocks by analogy with the older product. If you ever see a block wall that has lots of odd rust streaks, that's the old stuff.

CMU (and most concrete) still has industrial waste cast into it, but nowadays it's mostly fly ash (coal-burning residue) which is inert and innocuous after it sets; like slag, it's very cheap (maybe the producers even deliver it free).

I have seen 'the old stuff', and had one of those blocks explode & hit me. They were quite common around Ft. Rucker in the '70s

Cheap, if availible locally made.

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Old cast slag blocks are still in service in cornwall from copper mining.

NT