Silver solder or braze to chromed steel

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

Has anyone any experience to offer with making a joint of this kind to a square, shiny chromed steel collar, please?

​This is a Remap job for a head support on a wheelchair, the material being attached is stainless steel, grade unknown, but I don't think the joining process is fussy about that.

Thank you
Brian

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Think I would be inclind to grind off the chrome in the area to be soldered with a Die grinder or dremel then solder with HT5 or Tenacity 5 flux which you will need for the stainless. The heat may well discolour the surrounding chrome.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Did you mean 'Chrome steel' or chromium plated steel. If plated, I would remove the plating first as per Jason's post. If the silver solder took, it would eventually peel the plating off. If its 'chrome steel', as per Jason, use tenacity 5 and silver solder.
BobH

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

A bit of googling suggests you can silver solder to chrome, but if the plating is poor the joint will fail sooner or later.

If you have a drilled a socket into the unchromed metal and get penetration into that, you can probably get away with it.

Neil

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

Gentlemen,

​Thank you for your quick replies, it is a Chromed collar of unknown integrity so I will remove the chrome in the joint area. I don't think discolouration of the rest of the chrome will matter much, although I will polish where I can afterwards.

​This approach will save me a great deal of fabrication work that the suggested design was likely to require and I think it will be stronger for the intended purpose too

Kind regards
​Brian

Edited By Brian Wood on 29/04/2017 18:03:11

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