[BC] Irons for silver soldering copper strap

[Mike McCarthy]

If this is a joint which is not in the RF plant but on the studio side or 
it connects something not critical, you might be OK. BUT....that joint will 
be suspect from the next direct hit forward.  So you're better off doing it 
right the first time....

MM

At 11:02 PM 10/16/2007 -0500, JYRussell at academicplanet.com wrote
>Hey, Cowboy... a question about strapping
>Smaller stuff... I didn't have an ocy-cet torch, or even a Bernz-O-Matic 
>handy,  wanted to do a a decent job on some 2" stuff.
>
>  Everybody says soft-solder isn't appropriate, however, with no torch I 
> tried to rely on the amount of surface area contact.  Made a pair of 
> folds, 45 deg. the end of each strap and put them together so that after 
> mating the parts, you finsih folding the excess back over onto the other 
> strap, forming a 90 deg bend but with a solid over lap of the 45 plus 
> about two inches onto each strap.  Got 'em tight, but didn't hammer down 
> to the point of unduly stressing the sharp folds... used a pair of 1/4 x 
> 20 nc bolts at each end, then soaked it in soft solder ---
>
>  I used the solder thinking I would be keeping bugs and dirt out, and 
> hopefully keeping the contact face of the straps together long enough to 
> route at least one strike to ground... figuring I'd find  where the lead 
> sprayed all over after a 'real' strike.
>
>  sound nutty, or ok but could be better, or what?
>
>Jason R.
>
>(PS - the last IRON I used for soldering anything sat in a pot with 
>several other irons.  About 6 inches long, and about 3/4 of an inch 
>square... used on standing seam roofs...)