Soldering Basics for saxophones

oh there we are all right very good well welcome everyone to our wednesday wisdom series this is where we share tips tricks and techniques for the band instrument repair trade today we're going to be going over soldering and doing a specific job on soft soldering so stay tuned for that first thing that we're going to do is talk about the difference between hard soldering and soft soldering so ryan what is the what the heck is the difference between soft soldering and hard side well hard soldering is is more difficult that's why they call it hard no i'm kidding it's it's the difference in uh the temperature soft solder is a much lower temperature it's usually anything around 400 degrees and under we use both types of soldering when it comes to bandage from repair obviously on the saxophone we both have the soft solder and the hard solder you know areas but soft solder is what we're going to mainly talk about today and again that's anything usually under about 400 degrees around that range hard solder we have a couple different names in the management repair world we sometimes call it hard solder we'll call it silver solder or we'll call it brazing it's usually meaning to denote anything over 800 degrees what we're going to be working with today this this soft solder i believe has the melting temperature of about 430 degrees uh the hard solder uh usually has a melting temperature i want to say around 300 degrees 13 to 1500 somewhere in that range so you would need a a really a high temperature torch for that here we're just going to be using this this you know lead free soft solder you can solder this with you know one of these hand torches so but that's that's the main difference in between uh between hard solder and soft solder cool okay and then as far as applying this why don't we just go over uh we're going to do a post today is that we are yeah we're going to do this post right here i'm going to take this off i'm going to clean it up and i'm going to re-solder that and i'm going to show you a couple of little techniques that i do you know using my heat control so that i just heat this area up there's also this little guy right here which is a little key contact for the you know the the pinky e flat key um but what i'm going to try to do is i'm going to try to use appropriate heat control so that i unsolder this post but this post remains where it is so hopefully with some with some correct heat control so uh let's go ahead and get into it i guess yeah let's do some some some soldering here so the torch i'm going to be using is this guy right here and this is a acetylene torch it has a separate tank obviously this this hose goes down to it it comes with a couple different tips you can see the largest tip right here there's a medium tip right there i believe uh zero is the size of that and then the smallest one which is a double zero i'm going to use this middle one okay uh so go ahead and put that on like so so the first thing i'm doing i'm just going to remove i'm going to remove that post okay um what i want to think about is the thickness in metal obviously the the the brass here is very thin the flange of the foot of the post is thin but we have this kind of thicker area of the post so i'm going to kind of control or at least focus most of my heat on this area heating this area up first and then hopefully that heat will travel to the thinner areas i'm also going to as you can see be really moving it around i don't just want to keep it in one area i want to move that around and evenly heat the whole area up and when i see that solder start to turn liquid i can take it off all right now i'm going to clean it up okay a real quick way to kind of clean it up is just to heat it up and then use a rag a clean rag just to wipe it off i'm going to heat that up and then just wipe it off all right now is that solder going to stick to the the bare brass or if you have a laptop if you have a lacquered horn wiping it off a lot of times the solder will not stick to the lacquered surface obviously you run the risk of burning lacquer which which is a very real possibility anytime you are using an open flame on lacquer so there is a possibility of burning it but yes solder really tends to want to stick to this bare brass so that's why it's important to to clean this up and then uh you know make sure you wipe all the old solder off clean it up i like to use the sanding stick you can also use a scraper but you want to make sure that you clean off any old bits of solder and then clean the surface as well not only does the surface have to be clean on both parts but they have to fit together tightly if you have a big gap like this you're just trying to fill this area in here with solder it's not going to be the strongest because it's only touching here and here you want to have that nice nice contact so using your scraper or using your sanding stick just to kind of clean the entire area up there's another thing i like to use which is a bristle discs which is this guy right here i'll stick this into a rotary tool like a dremel or a fordham and i'll get in there and i'll actually clean it up using this that's a nice handy way i'm cleaning my area that i'm going to be soldering i'm also going to be cleaning the post as well again i can do the same thing where i heat this up like so and when it's hot and the solder is melted i can go ahead and just wipe it off okay all right so there we are the other thing i when i am reattaching posts i make sure not only is the bottom of the post clean but the edges because that's where when i flow my solder in that's where it's going to touch first and if the edge is dirty um the solder is not going to float so go ahead and clean off the edges of the post as well now you could do that with a sanding stick but you can also do that with a scraper or absolutely you can use a scraper or a sanding stick there's a couple different techniques for cleaning a lot of guys kind of have their own method i'm very partial to using a scraper some people are heating it up and wiping it quite a bit some guys are all obviously also used to using the the bristle discs or some kind of buffing uh thing to get rid of all the uh you know old solder all right so there we are we have a clean clean post next thing i'm going to do is i'm going to attach that to the area that i'm going to be soldering it to there's a couple different ways to attach this you can use i like to use these clips you can also use some binding wire to actually um you know to tie it on there so for here for for sake of kind of time i'm just going to use these clips and i'm going to clip it on like so now when it comes to actually soldering you have to use the laws of physics and gravity okay just like water will not flow uphill solder will not flow uphill so if i'm let's say here's my my brace is like this and i'm trying to solder up it's not going to work like that i need to use gravity and solder it like this that way gravity will draw that solder and pull it down here so really if i'm soldering this i wouldn't want to ever solder it like this because i'm not going to get that that solder to go up under that brace okay i could solder it upside down like this but then it's a little bit tougher to reach so a lot of times what i'll do is i will solder it standing up like this okay and then what i can use is that gravity and my heat to draw that solder down okay all right so let's go ahead and do some soldering so for here before we start i'm going to apply some flux and flux is used to keep the area clean just like we have to remove all the dirt and grit and whatnot before we solder this preps the area and gets it ready for the solder to flow this reposition and so you've got the parts tight already i do well that's what i'm kind of doing now is i had to bend that little end back just so it fit a little bit more flush against the body okay because again you want to have those parts fitting nice and flush you don't want to have a section like this you know for where solder is just going to kind of clump up so we have our parts fitting nice and tightly we've added our flux to keep the area clean now the next step is to heat the area up so here we are again i'm trying to heat the entire area up the way i know it's kind of getting ready for the solder to flow is um as i heat it up my flux starts to bubble up so i know i'm getting close all right so i'm going to have to again watch my heat control okay i'm going to try to heat this post this larger area of the post the thicker area of the metal hopefully that heat will transfer to the thinner areas of middle and hopefully won't transfer it to this contact over there where the contact falls off so here we go the other thing that will also happen is solder will flow towards the heat so if i heat the bottom up and i apply solder to the top gravity and just the act of solder wanting to go to the heat it'll flow just like that the other thing that you'll notice is how i take the torch away when i go to apply my sata okay because if i just keep this here and i apply this you can see it just it just clumps up and now i have too much that's actually dripping out so i heat the whole area up and then i take the torch away and i apply my solder okay the flame is not what what melts the solder it's the heat so in theory i could heat this whole body up to whatever the melting temperature this is let's say it's 430 degrees because in fact it is if i heat this whole body up to 430 degrees without an open flame and i go and touch this solder to it it'll work it'll solder so soldering is about heat it's not about the flame so many times people will actually get in there like i said they'll they'll keep it there and then they'll apply it and then next thing you know they got big clumps of solder all on their bench we're all on their work piece and so ryan wha how do you what the how do you know when parts are too hot um that is a good question it's it's it comes from experience you'll have to kind of learn learn your tools like i had to do that when i got here i was used to using this for most of my soldering work most of my padding work and then when i got here i had to get used to this torch right here um so there is kind of a learning curve to it um but if you get it to where the parts are starting to turn a cherry red a dull red you've gone way too hot way too hot with it but usually what what the problem is most people when they when they start soldering is not enough heat okay well they're they're going to try to apply that solder when it's not quite hot enough so that's why it's important yet to learn your tools learn how long you have to hold this on it especially with the different tip sizes and that way you'll kind of know okay i hold it for this long and then the like i said the flux will start to to boil up a little bit that's when i know i'm getting close and what about lacquer is there a point that lacquer could burn um you know versus you know what you see your heating parts up there seems to be a dance between the dance seems to be a point between where solder uh flows and lacquer mitigate that burns very very close it's very very close what i tell people is anytime i have to do soldering on the body i'm going to burn lacquer because chances are i'm going to burn lacquer especially if it's an older horn with that nitrocellulose lacquer which is not as durable as the epoxy lacquer i want to say the the burning temperature or melting temperature of of lacquer is here the melting temperature of solder is right here so it's very very close so if you go a little too high or you're heating it up too quickly that melting it'll actually go past next thing you know you have burnt lacquer your solder will still flow but you have burnt lacquer and it's one of those things that you're just going to have to deal with i've just gotten used to that anytime you do soldering on a lacquered instrument whether it's vintage or new the chances are it's going to burn you're going to have to do some cleanup stuff which you know just natural it's going to have to happen but yeah if you can use and that's the main reason why um so many times in the band instrument repair world we still will use lead-based solder because the melting temperature is much much lower okay the melting temperature of you know blood-based solder is here the melting temperature of lead-free solder is here burning temperature of lacquer is here so it's you have a little bit more working room if you're using that the the um the lead-based solder and burning your lacquer so but it's one of those things safety and health is a concern so that's why i have pretty much switched to lead-free solder so is the now is that the stable right now i know music medic we sell that but is the silver bearing solder is is that what you would use for say silver-plated instruments i would yes the other nice thing about having lead-free solder is it stays more silver looking okay if this is a spool of lead-based solder and you can see how gray it is versus the lead-free and if you're soldering on a silver-plated instrument you may have some some of that that solder sticking out from from your braces um that's why i would use the lead free on silver plated uh instruments it is a little tricky soldering on silver plated instruments because you can wipe it off on brass bare brass no problem but having that solder stick the silver plate it's going to be there it's going to be very very difficult um to remove that without removing the silver plate itself which is why if i for me i would go with the as you can see the lead free which if it a little bit is exposed it it stays this color it stays this silver color versus the lead based which is as you can see kind of turns this gray so yes cool and then and then it's just as you were working there can you also just talk about uh which part of the tip of the flame is actually the hottest because i know a lot of beginners kind of struggle with knowing which part of the flame to actually use when they're heating up apart absolutely absolutely that's a good that's a great question so here we have as you can see the flame there there it is you can see a nice so we see how we have this this intersection this much much hotter point okay um really where i want to be is from about here to here right out here it's not quite hot enough here it's it's not really it's not like you're going to get hotter by putting it up here like this it's right about in there and you're not touching that with your i am not touching it yeah yeah i was going to say if you really want to figure out how hot your torch is just go ahead and give it a touch go ahead let your finger first and then give it a touch no don't do that but you can see if i am using this this is where i want to be as far as my heat right in here any closer in you may even get this where it just obscures it or out here it's gonna it's not gonna heat up as much so for me it's right in this area here all right right in that area okay cool well ryan i think that's going to do it for now thank you for demonstrating on how to solder a post this has been our wednesday wisdom series where we share tips tricks and techniques on how to do soldering and other jobs in the band repair trade on friday we're going to show you all of the tools and supplies that we used to soft solder and we're also going to do a little bit of hard soldering as well so if you if you're liking this video series feel free to like and share and subscribe and uh and tune in friday when we go over the tools and supplies to do this job and until next time happy repairing cool

Channel: MusicMedic.com

Views: 1,236

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: saxophone, repair, saxophone repair, repair supplies, sax, pivot screws, vintage saxophone, mark vi, selmer, conn, martin, king, true taper, false taper, solder, soldering, heat, flux, torch, soft solder, hard solder, brazing, fire

Id: kir0-ORFUvM

Length: 17min 4sec (1024 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021