Silver solder AL

[Rookie machinist]

Can Al. be silver soldered? I need to stick 2 pieces together and would like to silver solder if possible, any tips or tricks?

[TGTool]

Silver solder isn't it, but there are some low temperature alloys sold to do soldering on aluminum (as distinct from actual welding). It's not as strong and I think I've heard reports that it deteriorates somewhat after several years but it might do what ou need. There's someone usually demonstrating it at NAMES and you can get a similar product from McMaster Carr and probably others.

[CountZero]

You can actually use zinc to solder Al. Clean the area and use a stainless pin to break the oxide layer while doing the soldering.

[macona]

Harris makes a couple products that might work, first is aluminum solder. I have used it to solder li-po battery pack leads together (One terminal is aluminum, other is steel)

http://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/c...lloys.asp?id=5

They also have an aluminum brazing rod, dont think its that zinc crap:

http://www.harrisproductsgroup.com/c...lloys.asp?id=2

[Bruce Griffing]

To your original point, if you meant silver brazed (traditional silver solder), then aluminum melts at too low a temperature for that material. Personally, I use fasteners on aluminum or weld. Soldering is difficult because aluminum forms a robust oxide very quickly. It is difficult to keep the surface clean even with a potent flux. Any flux that does work with Aluminum will be very corrosive.

[Boucher]

There used to be a company Eutectic ? that made very specialized and high quality welding rods and solders. Their material for joining Aluminum was a specialized flux that contained this powdered metal that was like tinning a solder or braze joint. It was demonstrated in a welding class that I took years ago. It appeared to work very well.

[madman]

I use a product called Lumni- Weld. i bought some at a motorcycle show many years ago. I have repaired a old guys white metal saw blade guide?? It is still holding together and also some aluminumn material usually 6061 tuff. I use a stainless steel brush and clean well heat up and apply. Not really pretty but works OK. Good Luck Mike

[SteveA220]

Check out www.tinmantech.com and look at aero solder and aero braze. We used these in the class I took out there. The solder flows out on aluminum like tin-lead solder does on copper. The braze works pretty well too. There's a non-corrosive braze for alloys like 1100 and 3003 and a corrosive version for stuff like 5052. Not sure which would work with 6061. Sorry, you didn't say what you were using, but this being a machining forum I guessed 6061.

Steve

[Daminer]

http://www.muggyweld.com/index2.html