No pictures today because I don't know where I last left the cable and they aren't very interesting anyway, just a pile of mangled nickel silver underframe parts that were looking lost on my bench.
Those that read the 2mm VAG might have noticed that I decided to concoct my own RSU from a leftover car battery charger. I rewound the secondary coils to give three outputs similar to the commercial units (Don't ask me for any more details because I'm not electrically qualified and the moderators will likely remove such things to protect everyone legally in case you get hurt.) and adapted a spare soldering iron for the hand piece. A few connectors and a foot pedal have been added and tonight waiting on the doormat was the last piece of the puzzle - carbon rod. Total spend so far is around £50. Potential saving is therefore around £100.
Having turned it on and played around with the settings I've managed to not solder anything satisfactorily. I can peel the parts away from each other afterwards. I've cleaned with a scratch brush, used flux, not used flux, used real solder as well as paste. It's not that I'm short of power either because The tip will easily get red hot on the high settings and I've fused parts together such that some of an overlay was left behind on the other part, but I am always able to peel them away. I tried my usual temperature controlled iron as well and suffered the same outcome. Often the material is deforming before the joint gives way, but I have been unable to make a soldered joint that could not be separated by my own hands yet this evening. Should I be dissatisfied
The good news is that it should work and I haven't killed or maimed myself. The bad news is that I appear to have become totally inept when it comes to soldering and this is a massive pain because I also received a delivery from PPD today and feel unable to make a start if I can't solder properly. I may well have to look for a volunteer to do a test build. (Pre-requisites will be experience building small scale etched kits, preferably with an interest in GWR or NPCS.) Whilst waiting for my ability to rejoin me I will have to return to some Mathieson models wagons that I have been working on.
Please help...
Updated 23/07/11:
I've tried some brass cleaned up with a nail file type abrasive stick until extra shiny. Solder appears to flow quite nicely. Force a knife through the joint with not too much effort and this is what it looks like. Both parts nicely tinned but not shiny unless you re-flow the solder. I used cored solder not paste because I thought this could be one of my problems.
Everything is plenty hot when you grab a hold of it afterwards. I have a bunch of nickel silver parts in the bin in a similar condition. I even tried buffing the tinned parts adding flux and going for it again. Same result. Still scratching head. I have however managed to solder up a kit today, but didn't use this contraption.
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