Advice wanted:

[Guest Indianfour]

Advice needed to properly silver solder head-light and cowl light bezels. Have been doing regular soldering of copper tubing but have never tried to do any silver soldering. If you can, would you walk me through the proper steps , equipment needed, proper gas to use and so forth. Thanks!!

[Bhigdog]

I'm assuming you are referring to silver brazing rather than silver bearing soft solder. If so, and again assuming, you will be brazing thin sections of stainless steel. The process is essentially the same as soft soldering except the temps required are about 3 times higher for brazing. The first thing required is absolute cleanliness. The parts to be joined should be abrasively cleaned to remove any contaminates or oxide layer. The parts to be joined are covered with the proper brazing flux pressed together and heated to a temp that will melt the braze. The big difference between solder and braze is that with solder you can just heat the part and the hot part will melt the solder and it will flow. When you braze that won't happen. Heat the part and the braze with the torch flame. With practice you can work the flame so they both get to the right temp at about the same time. When done correctly the braze will wick into the joint. Closeness of the parts is essential. Silver braze works by wicking into the joint, it can't easily be built up like lead based solder. For thin sections like stainless bezels a bernz-a-matic torch will work fine. For anything much thicker an O/A torch is required. McMaster Carr can supply everything you need. The braze is pricey but you will need very little. The lowest temp braze will be the best for your needs. Try a few sample runs before you commit your parts. If it doesn't work out at first you can reclean down to BRIGHT metal and try again...................Bob