Been a few days since I have had time to hobby.
I am soldering out of brass a set of engine mounts for a Fw-190 so that I can mount a CMK BMW 801 engine.
The brass tubing I am using is just the right size for the engine mount. The biggest issue I had to overcome to get started was how far forward did the ring, which comes in the CMK kit (and to which all other engine parts attach), should be. I found the answer in this picture in the Model Art Fw-190 book.
Since I know where the windshield ends, and I know where the guns show out of the cover, I can use those two data points to allign the ring distance from the bulkhead.
I am soldering brass with silver solder and a flux kit I bought at Tammies Hobbies.
The idea is that I clean up the brass tubing (rub the oxidation off with a scotchbrite pad), align the tubs in my trusty x-acto holder, put a piece of brass wire between the two (whcih will become the “mount”), put a drop of flux on the connection, heat it up with the old trusty soldering torch, and add solder. And the little tiny drop of solder runs into the tubes and holds it all together. (I’ll have to clean it all up so that it looks better after I get the whole thing done).
So here is the piece soldered..
And here it is looking pretty buff on the model.
I need to add the rest final two tubes another night.
It helps a lot, i never thought of using helping hands to hold the pieces above anything flammable, much thanks a bunch for the pictures!
As you may have seen I sometime solder on an old piece of wood. The short time of heat of the solder never really catches it on fire.
Someday when I remember I’ll buy an asbestos Matt from a Micro Mark that allows you to pin (fixture) the brass pieces in place and then solder on a fireproof Matt.
The other advantage of the helping hands is that where you put your clips can act as heat sink so the heating of the part for soldering only travels as far down the brass as the clips. This us handy for soldering a piece that may already have been soldered on another place. It’s a real bummer to unsolder something while you are soldering in another place.
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