Forum

[Scalyback]

following comments should be for CONTROL CABLES AND NIPPLES ONLY.

[PeteF]

Papa, we are going to have to differ about this. If the wire and nipple are properly clean and fluxed then solder will get everywhere in the joint. The trick is to use a decent power iron and heat the nipple - not the wire. The solder will flow everywhere that is clean and fluxed.

[papasmurf]

Peter F, I have been using a blow lamp to attach nipples to cables for 55 years, with no problems. I have yet to successfully do so with an electric soldering iron.

[PeteF]

Like I said Papa, we will have to differ on this. I've only been soldering nipples for 45 years so must bow to your experience
I have, however, never had a problem using an iron and I can't remember one ever failing.

[PeteF]

I might add you need a decent soldering iron with a good broad bit. 100w will do the job.
Trying to do it with a 25w iron with a needle bit, the sort you use for electrical connections is a waste of time.

[Gwilly]

Carefully placing myself between Pete and Papa, I use a heavy copper solder iron.. The type that sat in the brackets atop the old paraffin blow lamp...

Though i now use a gas lamp for convenience, once heated will hold its heat for ages and no cable to get snagged either..

I've used plumbers solder for years simply because i have reels and sticks of the stuff in the work shop..

Properly cleaned and fluxed the splayed ends of the cable will hold just fine...

[simon]

I use a plumbers iron for soldering nipples on but a meths burner like the ones we used in school chemistry lessons to un solder old cables. I've also got an excellent tallow based flux which works brilliantly.

[papasmurf]

Simon, I have used as camping gas cooker to do soldering of a nipple to a cable when at a motorcycle rally.

I have also "bored out" a side-car fitting from 3/8th to 10mm with a set of rat tail files at a rally.

I used the same set of rat-tails to reshape the starter ring teeth on a retro fitted with an electric starter old Hardly Dangerous at a rally. The owner should have used a Japanese car starter motor not a Harley one when he did the mod.
The starter gear coming unscrewed from the start motor and engaged with the starter ring with the bike doing 60mph was bound to end in tears.

[simon]

Ha Papasmurf we love that stuff here in NZ. It gets called Kiwi Ingenuity (an expression my Australian wife rolls her eyes at) although I prefer my brothers description Cretin Craft. There is no question that the most satisfying repair is the one made in adversity with the wrong tool.

[papasmurf]

Simon as I have told many people over the years with some of the "roadside" repairs I have done. "Don't try this yourelf."

I get a lot of "ribbing" about the amount of tools and kit I carry in the side-car when I travel long distances to rallies. Until someone needs to borrow something. I also got some strange looks at a rally when someone had a split intake tube between one of the carburettors on a two stroke twin and the cylinder head. I took a look and came back with some "Duct tape" I carry that costs and arm an a leg but will survive VERY high pressures and temperatures, plus a couple of "hooligan handcuff" (plastic wire ties.)
As the man was as big a "bodger" as I am, he needed no explanation of what to do. His "bodge" using my materials got him over 300 miles back home.