Subject: Re: Silver Solder? Hard Solder?

From: [email-masked] (Clive Washington)
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 11:43:07 +0000

Further to silver solder and the cadmium problem; your supplier is right,
there are real toxicity problems for the major user of this stuff, so
he is probably being cautious.  You will be fine if you ventilate well.

Here in the UK Cadmium-bearing solder is widely used but we all (I hope!)
know
abou the toxicity and act accordingly.  The standard product is Johnson
Matthey Easy-Flo no. 2.  This is such an industry standard that I can't 
believe that its not available in the US.  The corresponding non-cadmium
product is silver-flo and is more expensive since it needs more silver to
bring the m.p. down - this is why we don't use it, since we are all
poor over here.

If you have trouble with the material flowing, change your flux; easy-flo
flux is designed for cadmium solders and your supplier might recommend
something
different for silver-flo.  I often use plain borax (but I admit my
experience
is confined to small stuff; no boilers yet!)

I would advise against buying solder from lapidary suppliers since they
often
only use designations like "easy", "hard", etc, so you dont know what
you are getting.  Most model engineering suppliers over here stock a range
of JM products - you might buy from here (e.g. Reeves or Blackgates) by
VISA.