It sounds like a really useful piece of kit. Im sure i would use it
most for tacking and who knows maybe i wouldnt be turning away as
many repair jobs! I would like to build up a collage effect of mixed
metals, anyone have any experience of how the PUK copes with
silver/gold/ copper etc?
Nikky
Hi Nikky:
I’ve got a PUK 3Pro. It doesn’t like silver or copper all that well:
they’re both so conductive that you need every last bit of power you
can get out of it do do anything, and when it’s up that high, it
likes to blast pits into things. On the other hand, it’s great for
tacking them before soldering, and it handles brass pretty well.
I’ve seen pictures (from Lampert) that show them getting nice tame
weld puddles on silver, but I haven’t figured out how yet. There’s
definitely a pretty steep learning curve on silver. I’d suggest
keeping a logbook of settings and results.
It handles the reactive metals (Ti, Nb) wonderfully, and that’s
really what I bought it for, so I’m very happy with it.
Regards
Brian Meek.
I’ve used it for stainless steel, copper, brass, gold, silver,
palladium, and platinum. Its not as good with brass as it is with
the others, possibly because the zinc has such a low melting point,
but it does work.
This picture http://tinyurl.com/con2fw shows pieces of sheet silver
and 9ct gold butt welded on their edges. The photo shows an area a
little less than 8.2mm square; the silver (its on the left) is 0.57mm
thick, and the gold is 0.43mm thick.
It works, sort of, with aluminium, but the joints are not very
strong. I hope this helps.
Regards, Gary Wooding