Hi All. I’m reporting back on my further experiments with my new
titanium soldering screen. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not
going to work for me. Try as I might, I just can’t get the damn thing
to lay approximately flat. Even when I torture it into a semi flat
condition, as soon as I start heating the thing starts to warp out of
shape.
I’m using what they call expanded metal, which is a flattened
one-piece mesh with diamond-shaped openings. I don’t know whether the
woven mesh version would have fared better, but it’s too expensive to
try. After talking to McMaster-Carr, I decided to order a nickel
chrome high-heat screen. Anybody have any thoughts on that? I’ll
report again after I experiment with it.
I loved the way titanium didn’t suck up all the heat. I just wish it
was more dimensionally stable.
Remember how we used to make a soldering nest? It was good old iron
wire just wrapped and twisted into a flat nest of jumbled wire. The
wires were not connected so heat stress never built up. It seems the
same would be true with titanium wire. Maybe the old way would be
better. I’ll run a little test here and see. Bill
I loved the way titanium didn’t suck up all the heat. I just wish
it was more dimensionally stable.
What about riveting it into a steel frame?
There is nothing that you can do to deal with this. It is the result
of the poor thermal conductivity of the titanium and its thermal
expansion rate. Spot heating will warp it no matter what you try to
do.
James Binnion @James_Binnion
James Binnion Metal Arts
So, I took about 5 feet of 14ga/1.6mm ($4.25) and made a soldering
nest 3 inches in diameter. I put the heat to it. It was very stable.
The idea is to provide an open base for general heating. Heating that
will bring the whole piece up to temperature evenly. Cooking one spot
is not what it does.
Annealed titanium jumbled up pretty easily. I then hammered it down
flat. If there are areas that stick up either twist them around tell
they stay down or heat them and hammer them down hot. It probably
took 5 minutes. Bill