Three bag creamy silver solder flux

[Edwin Dirnbeck]

I silver solder once every two or three months.The flux is always hard as a rock, so I figured out if I would put it in a plastic Ziploc and another Ziploc and another Ziploc it would stay moist.It works perfect.The inner bag is allways soaking wet the center bag is moist and the outer bag is dry. I tried it with one or two bags and it doesn’t work so three bags is the way to go


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[darryl]

interesting- I have the same problem. I silver solder so infrequently that my flux is always hard. The three bag trick, I can see that working. I once made up a large batch of turkey gumbo and froze it in zitlock bags. That was ok for a month or so, but after that the bags were greasy on the outside when I pulled them from the freezer. If I left them to thaw, they were actually visibly leaking right through the plastic. Someone told me that some bags were made to leak like this- first I've ever heard of that.

[Willy]

When the white flux dries out just reconstitute it with water and and stir well. No need to go to extremes to re-activate it, only the water is gone.

[loose nut]

In its soft form it is easier to spread on the part but the dry form works just as well. You could just grind up a little bit and put it on the parts to be soldered and it will work fine or mix in water as stated.

[rzbill]

Glad the 3 bag trick is working for you.

As an educational aside, as a rule plastics are very permeable to oxygen and moisture. Off the top of my head, I can't think of one polymer that blocks both. The plastic food packaging that does require oxygen and moisure barrier properties is usually done with a multilayer laminate of different polymers. One for oxygen and one for moisture. They still leak so DON"T use after posted expiration date. After enough time, food will spoil in plastic barrier packaging.

If I were to choose a barrier container for the shop, I would tend towards glass or metal, both with a tight lid seal.

[Noitoen]

Potato fries aluminium lined plastic bag would solve the permeable issue

[Willy]

Glad the 3 bag trick is working for you.

As an educational aside, as a rule plastics are very permeable to oxygen and moisture. Off the top of my head, I can't think of one polymer that blocks both. The plastic food packaging that does require oxygen and moisure barrier properties is usually done with a multilayer laminate of different polymers. One for oxygen and one for moisture. They still leak so DON"T use after posted expiration date. After enough time, food will spoil in plastic barrier packaging.

If I were to choose a barrier container for the shop, I would tend towards glass or metal, both with a tight lid seal.

Good info, thanks!
That reminds me, guess I'll have to dig that old carp off of the bottom of the freezer and set it free. Lots of magpies out, they gotta eat too.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Glad the 3 bag trick is working for you.

As an educational aside, as a rule plastics are very permeable to oxygen and moisture. Off the top of my head, I can't think of one polymer that blocks both. The plastic food packaging that does require oxygen and moisure barrier properties is usually done with a multilayer laminate of different polymers. One for oxygen and one for moisture. They still leak so DON"T use after posted expiration date. After enough time, food will spoil in plastic barrier packaging.

If I were to choose a barrier container for the shop, I would tend towards glass or metal, both with a tight lid seal.

Good points rzbill .
Most plastic film is "Non-Barrier" and is permeable.
Barrier Film is a lot more expensive and is known in the trade as "Meat and Cheese" film and as rzbill pointed out , has multiple layers ,up to 9 layers in fact in one film (talk about microns !) . And yes, aluminumnized film is one way to reduce oxygen transfer, or go with very heavy film ( .090" or 2 mm used on land fills!) . For your information when you see plastic film , whether in sheet or bags, the thickness is in thousandths of an inch, so .001 is called 1 mil. You see plastic tarps rated at 6 mil or 8 mil and that is .006" or .008"

Rich

[rzbill]

Sorry for continuing the drift but I thought some members might appreciate this tidbit about barrier food packaging. I have made "shelf stable" barrier packages for both dog food and human food. The interesting point is that the dog food containers require higher level of barrier performance in the package. The reason is that the dogs noses are better than ours and they can tell way before us if the food is going off.