Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines
Builds, Repairs, Show Your Machines! => Technical Tips, Builds, and Help => Topic started by: jerseysteam on April 13, 2019, 09:45:18 am
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I've an American Beauty that I picked up on Ebay but only use it for handrails when building boat models - it works well but I'm sure the Micromark unit would also.
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I have been looking into resistance soldering for rail joints. I've looked at the Micromark ones, they seem as good as any. I decided I'd rather build one when the time comes. I originally saw a how-to in an 80s Garden Railways mag. It is very simple, and the most expensive bit is the power supply. I'm planning to use an old battery maintenance charger, with a sewing machine foot pedal for a switch. You should be able to find a how to video on the web. If not message me and I will try to locate the mag and scan it for you.
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Swift Sixteen (https://www.swiftsixteen.co.uk/) has some nice bodywork kits for live steam locomotives. They consist of brass sheet pieces, wire, tubing etc. that need to be flux-soldered. I've been conducting some research on resistance soldering and think this may be a good way to build such a kit due to the concentrated and rapid application of heat as well as very quick cooling after joining pieces. I've been looking at the Micro-mark basic kit (https://www.micromark.com/Micro-Make-Complete-Resistance-Soldering-Set), which includes this unit (https://www.micromark.com/Resistance-Soldering-Unit).
I'd be interested in any advice/opinions re: this particular method of building a brass kits, choice of equipment etc. I know that American Beauty produces more substantial (and expensive) resistance soldering gear, but I wonder if this might be overkill.
The Swift Sixteen kit instructions seem pretty straight-forward and I'm assuming that I would need to practice quite a bit on scrap pieces (which is part of the adventure) before attempting to build a kit.
Thanks!