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I stucck the Al wire in the hole, built up a mountain of solder next door. so it at least will not fall out

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Elizabeth

In Reply to: RE: Antenna wire breaks off, soldering Aluminum. near impossible posted by Elizabeth on June 24, 2012 at 20:46:38

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RE: I stucck the Al wire in the hole, built up a mountain of solder next door. so it at least will not fall out - Paul Eizik 07:27:52 06/25/12 (2)
Elizabeth

The trick to soldering aluminum is to get the area around the joint as clean as possible, and start soldering as soon as you can. A stainless steel brush is the preferred tool to clean the joint before hand. Never use aluminum oxide sandpaper to clean aluminum before soldering, the joint may look clean, but you're putting oxide back on the aluminum as fast as you think you are cleaning it off. A guy at the local welding shop explained this to me when I described the difficulty I was having fabing 3 "L" shaped brackets for throttle spring anchors on my triple Weber Datsun. The first one came out fine, but I spent a couple of days re-doing the other two over and over, and they would break easily if you dropped them. Don't expect the aluminum solder to actually "flow" like electronic solder. Even with an oxi-acetylene welding torch, and the good solder rod with the flux on it, you're are just building up blobs of solder as artfully as you can. A correctly soldered aluminum joint can be surprisingly strong.

Good luck

Paul
- RE: I stucck the Al wire in the hole, built up a mountain of solder next door. so it at least will not fall out - gentlegiantfan 08:09:34 07/10/12 (1)
  Maybe I'm missing something ... why not just replace the aluminum wire with copper? If it's the aluminum antenna you're trying to solder, just attach the wire with a small screw & nut and then solder that, if you feel you need to.
  - RE: I stucck the Al wire in the hole, built up a mountain of solder next door. so it at least will not fall out - Paul Eizik 20:48:29 07/11/12 (0)
    G
    
    It looks like Liz is satisfied with her solution for now. It's been said that an expert welder can weld 2 aluminum beer cans together with a MIG welder. Soldering aluminum is a different story altogether if you've ever tried it, and I would'nt even try to solder copper to aluminum. Mixing a cad plated steel nut and bolt into it just makes it even that more difficult. An aluminum pop rivet may be the cheapest and easiest way to go, and if the resultant electrical connection becomes open or hi-z sometime down the line, just clean and re-rivet it.
    
    Paul

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