Wednesday 10 December 2014

SS-23-Soldering etchy bits

There is a narrow strip that runs along the lower hull sides and it's made up of sections so figuring out that cyano glue would never hold it together I decided to solder the sections instead. Thankfully this has worked so YAY for me :o)



The sections each have a right-angle so this was done using a Hold-and-Fold etchy bendy tool that is absolutely invaluable. Each part was cleaned up where they are to be soldered using a medium grade Wet and Dry paper and using Blu-Tack they were fixed into place on a piece of ceramic tile. A SMALL amount of flux was brushed onto each side of the join then using a 25w soldering iron the solder was run into the joint (again only a small amount) and when cool it was cleaned up to remove excess flux.
Superglue has it's benefits when attaching etch but soldering is really that easy to do and of course makes for stronger joints especially for a job like this.
By the way the stuff I'm using is lead-free solder AND flux that I got from a local DIY shop although I believe that a company called Carrs make products more suited for modelling.

2 comments:

  1. Great stuff! I've recently started soldering Sherman fenders, makes a HUGE difference from CA glue.

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    1. Oh yes it does! I soldered the stowage bins on my Jagdpanther and I was able to inflict some heavy battle damage without splitting them :o)

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